The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics and Pedagogy

Abstract

Review: The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics and Pedagogy By Joni Adamson, Mei Mei Evans, and Rachel Stein (Eds.) Reviewewd by Kathy Piselli Vistronix, Inc., USA Joni Adamson, Mei Mei Evans, & Rachel Stein (Eds.). The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 2002. 386 pp. ISBN 0-8165-2207-3 (cloth). US$21.95 The phenomenon of environmental racism was known in the 1970s and before. But it was a protest by African-Americans on a hazardous waste issue in 1982 in Warren County, North Carolina, according to one of the essayists in this reader, which brought both the term environmental justice and the issue itself to national attention. A study by the U.S. General Accounting Office of the eight southern states that comprise the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 4 office followed. By 1994, environmental justice had become an official government concern. The problem of risk from a hazardous substance-producing facility is a double-edged sword. Even as cancer clusters are recognized, towns may be loath to shut down their only employer. Whistleblowers have been harassed in a small town, their children shunned in their schools. The EPA and state environmental departments provide a measure of protection, but only as far as the law allows. Hard data that could be used to convince business owners and politicians is difficult to come by. When entire neighborhoods get sick, fear and uncertainty result. This reader is, more than anything else, an effort to counter fear and uncertainty. It portrays activists winning battles, artists inspiring children, teachers begetting new activists. In the process, it takes the edges of the issue of environmental racism and stretches them. Like racism in general, environmental racism harms more than just the oppressed. Danger from toxic substances in the environment crosses scientific, economic, political, societal, and religious domains. This reader's nineteen essays are not restricted to any one group or the to the United States only, and include many fresh and diverse voices. That is its strength. The book was being adopted as course reading shortly after publication. This is a testimony to the quality of the many key voices represented here. It is also a testimony to the need for this book in academia. The book is divided into sections on Politics (i.e., public policy), Poetics (literature analysis) and Pedagogy (how to teach environmental justice). Academic theory and