Global politics of the COVID-19 pandemic, and other current issues of environmental justice

Abstract

In 2020, the world was hit by COVID-19. Big data expeditiously travel around the world, having a performative effect on the way individuals, private enterprises, and local governments make decisions regarding the pandemic. As collective actions, symbolisms, and representations are (re)created or (re)constituted in the contexts of the pandemic, “new” questions can be formulated and “old” ones revisited regarding ecological justice in environmental education (research). Framing the special issue (SI) as an assemblage, we, as editors, challenged the authors to constantly return to the question of “What is in it for Nature?”, while presenting their findings on what pandemics reveal about the politics of global environmental issues. As individual contributions, each paper of the SI targets a particular context of the pandemic to (re)visit environmental (in)justice. As an assemblage, the SI assesses where we, as an international community, currently stand in relation to “new” and “old” issues of environmental justice.