Environmental Justice and Older Age: Consideration of a Qualitative Neighbourhood-based Study

Abstract

Environmental justice discourses have engaged far less with age as a significant factor associated with injustice than with other sociodemographic signifiers such as race and class. In this paper I explore material from an empirical study conducted with older people in three neighbourhoods in Scotland, using a framework based on environmental and social justice theory. The analysis highlights various means by which older people can be excluded from and within urban environments and links these with justice narratives of distribution, procedural inclusion, and recognition. Consideration of age enriches environmental justice theory, but also highlights how it needs to connect more fully with wider social justice theory.