Sites of Resistance, Acceptance, and Quiescence Amid Environmental Injustice: An Introduction to the Special Issue on Sustainability Under Neoliberalism

Abstract

In this introduction to the special issue, we consider the state of theory and scholarship around environmental justice activism. We examine trends in environmental justice (EJ) research, observing that much work has been done on sites of resistance—where collective organizing or mobilization rejects or limits environmental harms and related policy decisions. However, relatively little work has been done on sites of quiescence or ambivalence—where people may not mobilize against or fight environmental harms. Similarly, sites of acceptance—where groups actively mobilize to support risky industries or other forms of extractivism and exploitation—remain under-explored and under-theorized. These gaps have important impacts, including a lack of inquiry around the ways neoliberal ideologies and policies may have shaped EJ activism. This special issue aims to address these gaps, and this introduction works to theorize and conceptualize a spectrum of EJ action. Specifically, we make two contributions toward better understanding sites of resistance, acceptance, and quiescence in EJ studies. First, we identify a range of pathways that implicate communities in forms of environmental (in)justice. We identify particular mechanisms of resistance, quiescence, and acceptance related to each pathway. Second, we present a framework to facilitate nuanced analyses about what communities reject or accept. Communities may, after all, respond to extractivism and neoliberalism as distinct, rather than always congruent, processes. We include previews of each article in the special issue, identifying how they contribute to these analytical and theoretical advancements. We relate these observations to real world EJ concerns and the need for urgent, just, and transformative social change.