R. Scott Frey was Doing Critical Environmental Justice Long Before Anyone Else

David N Pellow

doi:10.5195/jwsr.2019.908

Abstract

The term critical environmental justice (EJ) studies was perhaps first used in the early 2000s and has been become more mainstream in the last two years. R. Scott Frey’s research on the transnational trade in hazardous substances reveals that he was producing critical EJ studies scholarship well before that. Frey’s body of work has advanced the fields of world-systems theory and environmental sociology because it skillfully explores the violence of militarism and the brutality of capitalism and economic globalization, while also making clear that positive and transformative social change is possible when independent, grassroots movements mobilize within and across international borders. Frey’s research provide us with an impressive set of analytical tools for imagining and bringing into existence another world that would be more socially just and environmentally sustainable.

Highlights

I had the privilege and honor of meeting R
There are four areas that this framework names as helpful for advancing environmental justice (EJ) studies: 1) expanding the social categories of difference— and their intersections—that we examine through an EJ lens; 2) embracing and pursuing multiscalar methods and theories of EJ; 3) examining environmental injustices and the possibilities for realizing environmental justice through a framework that is not limited to the role of the government or nation-state as perpetrator or resolver of these challenges; and, 4) an ethics of radical inclusivity that is undergirded by a firm belief in environmental justice for all
The term critical environmental justice studies was perhaps first used in the early 2000s and has become more mainstream in the last two years

Summary

Introduction

I had the privilege and honor of meeting R. His research on transnational waste and hazardous material flows and global environmental inequality is enormously important and foundational for the field, and he totally transformed my thinking on the topic.

Results

Conclusion