Environmental justice

Abstract

Environmental justice (EJ) is both a set of social movements and a program of research that seek to support and realize distributive, procedural, and recognition forms of justice, which include issues of equitable access to environmental decision-making, distribution of environmental benefits and harms, and respect and recognition for alternative environmental worldviews. Environmental injustices can take many forms linked to systems of power and oppression—including environmental racism, environmental colonialism, and environmental classism—but they are tied together in the painful truth that environmental benefits and burdens are not equal. While there has been a long-standing stream of EJ research and praxis within environmental communication and media research (hereafter EC), it is by no means mainstream. Expanding the articulation of EC as a crisis/care discipline, we highlight the importance of justice as a key consideration for all EC research. We begin by defining EJ and its origins. Next, we offer a review of EJ research within EC. We then lay out a series of future directions for EJ research in the field. The chapter concludes by arguing that to truly center EJ in EC involves not only changes to our research programs but also to our practices.