Mapping the Field of Environmental Justice: Redistribution, Recognition and Representation in ENGO Press Advocacy

Abstract

The environment is increasingly seen as a meta-injustice or master frame of the politics of the new century. If this is indeed the case, environmental concerns should transcend national and organizational boundaries and should have a discursive claims-making space of their own. Research on environmental advocacy, however, shows that many claims for environmental justice are rooted in specific locales and advocacy is often mediated through, and at times overshadowed by, other dimensions of power. Using Nancy Fraser’s conception of dimensions of justice, and a Bourdieusian inspired field approach, this paper maps Greenpeace and Sierra Club’s press advocacy between 2006 and 2010. In doing so, the paper identifies environmental advocacy spaces and argues that non-parametric approaches to analysing ENGO media advocacy are needed to explain the complexity of multi-scaled political contexts.