Theories of environmental justice

Abstract

Introduction The fundamental proposition of this book is that justice is central to cases of land use conflict concerning resource extraction and development. Before continuing with evidence for this proposition (provided in Chapters 3 to 6), it is necessary to discuss how the concept of justice is conceived in this book. Justice is a multifaceted concept - one that has been theorised and analysed throughout history and across many disciplines. It has 'different meanings for different people' (Tschakert 2009: 731) and is 'situated and contextual, grounded in the circumstances of time and place' (Walker 2012: 11). In this book, 'environmental justice' is used to bring together key justice themes relevant to resource allocation and land use as a 'broad, overarching concept encompassing all justice issues in environmental decision-making' (Ikeme 2003: 200). This chapter elaborates how justice has been understood within the environmental sphere, and how the causes of injustice have been explained. Schlosberg (2007) proposes a multivalent conception of environmental justice, incorporating the dimensions of distribution, participation, recognition and capabilities. This chapter draws particularly on Schlosberg's (2007) multivalent conception of environmental justice to elaborate on how justice has been understood within the environmental sphere, and how the causes of injustice have been explained.