Environmental Justice Organizations Research Articles

Waxing ledges: built environments, alternative sustainability, and the Chicago skateboarding scene

Young people appropriate and redefine built environments through their everyday playful practices. Among a widening spectrum of young city dwellers, skateboarders transform urban spaces by exploring terrains and performing unforeseen uses. These urban explorations ascribe new meanings and pleasures to otherwise mundane built forms. Waxing ledges is a ubiquitous practice among skateboarders that signals creative appropriation through the application of wax on rough surfaces. The smoothening of ledges enables speed and exhilaration, while the traces engraved on the urban landscape communicate to other skateboarders a pleasurable space. This article chronicles the emergence of an alternative ethic of care for built environments through the urban practice of skateboarding. It focuses on the Chicago skateboarding scene and draws from data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork during 2009–2010. Skateboarders' ethic of care for built environments is further developed in this article through the coupling of skateboarding with a host of sustainability-themed projects such as recycled installation art at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and grassroots activism from the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. These examples highlight the intersections of skateboarding and the sustainability agenda in the city of Chicago. Furthermore, this article pushes the limits of this agenda by exposing linkages with processes of youth cooptation and criminalisation as the Chicago skateboarding scene takes shape throughout both sanctioned skate parks and illicit skate spots. Skateboarders forward an alternative sustainability through bottom-up playful tactics that promote an ethic of care for built environments. This article argues for young people as agents of change through the everyday practice of skateboarding.

Is There an Environmental Justice Bandwagon Effect? A Subpopulation Analysis of Self-Reported Accomplishments

This systematic study investigates the self-reported accomplishments of those environmental justice organizations responding to a survey conducted in 2006 using the 2000 People of Color Environmental Groups Directory and an extensive web-based search to stratify by population. The subpopulations responses included: Hispanic, black, and Anglo/multiple/other populations. A content analysis was conducted on the accomplishments reported by the organizations. The typology used in this study was based on the variables of procedural equity, geographic equity, and social equity. The research question assessed the relationship between accomplishments while controlling for race. The issue areas identified were: natural resources, toxic and health, and political empowerment. Crosstabulations, chi-square, and contingency coefficients analyses resulted in statistical significance indicating that race does matter (p=.001; contingency coefficient=.434). The minority organizations continued to focus on toxic waste sites and environmental health (57.7 percent) and political empowerment strategies (80 percent) relating to the goals of procedural equity and social equity, respectively. The Anglo/multiple/other organizations focused on mainstream environmental issues such as natural resources, habitat protection and sustainability (82.4 percent). These mainstream groups may have jumped on the environmental justice bandwagon and there may be a latent potential for capture. The environmental justice organizations might consider coalescing to define the issue area most crucial to the movement and form issue networks to include the mainstream environmental groups to contribute to possible solutions.

Density dependence and environmental justice organizations, 1970–2008

Density dependence theory is commonly used to examine trends in the establishment of for-profit organizations. This research extends density dependence theory to the study of political organizations. Specifically, we examine the variation in the number of environmental justice organizations established each year for the years 1970–2008. As density dependence theory predicts, the bivariate association between the number of existing organizations and the number of established organizations takes the polynomial form of an inverted U, indicating that the relationship between existing organizations and emerging organizations is at first cooperative, and then competitive. However, when we control for existing numbers of civil rights and environmental organizations, the results do not conform to density dependence expectations. Multivariate analyses reveal that environmental justice organization have yet to enter a competitive stage, and instead have cooperated over the past twenty-eight years. More generally this finding indicates that for-profit and nonprofit political organizations behave differently.

A New EJOLT Report: Towards a Post-Oil Civilization. Yasunization and Other Initiatives to Leave Fossil Fuels in the Soil

Text by Leah Temper A new report from the EJOLT project argues that leaving oil and other fossil in the soil is a necessary, effective and feasible way to avoid more climate change, biodiversity loss and risky exploitation, and to move towards an energy transition. EJOLT stands for “Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade” and is an FP7 EU funded project with 23 partners from around the world that aims at promoting mutual learning between civil society organizations and ac...

Accumulation by dispossession in coastal Ecuador: Shrimp farming, local resistance and the gender structure of mobilizations

Over the last two decades, the global production of farm-raised shrimps has increased at a faster rate than any other aquacultural product, leading to massive socio-ecological damages in the mangrove areas where shrimp farming often takes place. Consequently, an increasing number of conflicts pitting coastal populations against shrimp farmers has been reported although very few conflicts have been studied in detail. This article contributes to fill this research gap by analyzing the causes, development and consequences of one such conflict in the Ecuadorian canton of Muisne (province of Esmeraldas). This conflict is one of the world's earliest and most important protest movements for the defence of mangroves and against the shrimp industry. Within a political ecology perspective, we connect three key dimensions of the conflict: (1) the socioeconomic metabolism of shrimp farming locally and internationally, (2) the institutions – formal and informal – that regulate the access to mangroves, and (3) the development of the mobilization itself, with special reference to the role of local women. The study is based on six-month fieldwork and combines data from 52 in-depth interviews of a wide range of actors, various documentation, and direct and participant observation. We find that the development of shrimp farming can be understood as a modern case of enclosure movement whereby customary community mangroves are privatized for the building of shrimp ponds. As a result, local mangrove-dependant populations – especially women – mobilized with the support of a grassroots Environmental Justice Organization. The protest was targeted at a form of ecologically unequal exchange where sectors of the global North shift socio-ecological costs onto poor sectors of the producing regions of the global South. In agreement with feminist political ecology, local women were particularly resistant to this process of ‘accumulation by dispossession’. While only some mangroves could be saved or reforested as a result of the movement, women's mobilization has had the unexpected effect of challenging gender relations in their communities. This research articulates dimensions of a given conflict that are too often considered separately, namely social-metabolic issues, institutional change, and gender issues. This allows a more comprehensive view of a complex power struggle.

The Use of Community-Driven Environmental Decision Making to Address Environmental Justice and Revitalization Issues in a Port Community in South Carolina

Abstract Initiatives whereby community-based organizations, industry, and city officials work together to revitalize communities are invaluable. The Lowcountry Alliance for Model Communities (LAMC), a community-based environmental justice organization comprised of seven economically depressed African-American neighborhoods in North Charleston, SC, convened in response to the planned siting of a new port terminal near their community. Their efforts led to the development and implementation of a Community Mitigation Plan Agreement and Area Revitalization Plan to ensure that local efforts benefit all parties involved. The purpose of this study is to explore LAMC's process to organize; delineate barriers, challenges, and successes; discuss community-driven frameworks that address environmental injustice and socioeconomic disparities. This work could foster public policy on issues impacting other environmental justice communities.

The Founding of Environmental Justice Organizations Across U.S. Counties during the 1990s and 2000s: Civil Rights and Environmental Cross-Movement Effects

This research expands upon organizational ecology theory to examine variations in founding of organizations in the formalized sector of the environmental justice movement across U.S. counties for two time periods (1990—1999 and 2000—2008). Cross-movement effects are examined to determine if founding is more or less likely to occur in counties where related civil rights and environmental organizations are located. Consistent with the notion of agglomeration effects, we hypothesize that during the 1990s the relationship among civil rights density, environmental density, and environmental justice founding is positive and suggests cooperative efforts. That is, environmental justice organizations should form in counties where civil rights organizations and environmental organizations exist. Because the focus of environmental justice organizations may have expanded over time and created a more competitive atmosphere, cross-movement relationships that were positive across counties during the 1990s are hypothesized to turn negative across counties during the 2000s. Multivariate analysis suggests mixed support for these hypotheses. Specifically, civil rights density is positively associated with environmental justice founding during the 1990s and negatively associated with environmental justice founding during the 2000s—suggesting potential cooperative and then competitive effects across counties over time. However, the correlations between environmental density and environmental justice founding, while positive and statistically significant during the 1990s, are not statistically significant during the 2000s. Thus, in the case of organizations in the formalized sector of the environmental and environmental justice movements it appears that there is a trend toward competitive effects even as those effects have yet to materialize.

Acting Globally: Cultivating a thousand community solutions for climate justice

Giovanna Di Chiro is Director of Environmental Programs at Nuestras Raices, Inc. and Research Associate at the Five College Women's Studies Research Center. She has published widely on the intersections of race, gender, and environmental justice with a focus on women's activism and policy change addressing environmental health disparities in lower income communities. She is completing a book Embodied Ecologies: Science, Politics, and Environmental Justice. Her current work examines environmental justice activists’ reframing of the climate change debate to focus on the local, bodily impacts of wide-scale environmental problems like global warming. Giovanna collaborates with environmental justice organizations to conduct community-based research on environmental health concerns and on developing culturally relevant sustainability initiatives.

Rally the People: Building Local‐Environmental Justice Grassroots Coalitions and Enhancing Social Capital*

Focusing on environmental justice (EJ) activists’ experiences with local‐level coalition building as a purposive organizational form, data sources for this manuscript include focus groups, face‐to‐face, and telephone interviews with a sample of activists across the United States representing community‐based, grassroots EJ organizations. From the perspective of EJ activists, what forms do local‐EJ coalitions take? What are the costs of coalition building and what strategies do EJ organizations use to promote local‐level coalitions as an organizational form? What are the benefits of coalition building and how may coalitions enhance movement success and community social capital? Findings indicate that activists view coalitions positively and that coalitions exist in three primary forms. Costs of coalition building are associated with a labor‐intensive education and outreach framework entailing significant personal communication, networking, and trust building. Benefits of coalition building include an enhanced understanding of local and community experiences, an opportunity to share resources, and a stronger voice to hold power accountable. Local‐EJ coalition efforts maintain attributes useful in building community social capital.

Between science and activism: learning and teaching ecological economics with environmental justice organisations

Activists are motivated by interests and values, making use only of the evidence that supports their arguments. They are not dispassionate as scientists are supposed to be. There is therefore something antithetical between science and activism. Nevertheless, environmental justice organisations (EJOs) have accumulated stocks of activist knowledge of great value to the field of ecological economics, which sometimes becomes available to academics and influences public policies. Vice versa, some concepts and methods from ecological economics are useful in practice to EJOs. In this paper, we use the knowledge built through the European Commission-funded projects Civil Society Engagement with Ecological Economics and Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade to understand the relations between academic theories such as ecological economics and political ecology and activist practice in EJOs. Some work by researchers in ecological economics and political ecology can be understood as activism-led science, while EJOs sometimes carry out science-led activism. A dialectic and dynamic relation drives the interactions between academics and practitioners focused on ecological distribution conflicts. An interactive process exists between knowledge production and knowledge use, in which one furthers the other thanks to the relations built over time between scholars and practitioners.

Environmental Justice and Grassroots Legal Action

Abstract This article examines the way that one environmental justice organization advised its members about litigation and legal strategies. As many scholars would predict, the Center for Health, Environment and Justice discouraged activists from using litigation as the primary strategy to advance their agenda. However, they also offered activists advice about how to control the role of lawyers to prevent them from dominating the movement. In addition, the organization offered activists ideas for ways of making litigation and legal strategies more accessible to grassroots participation.

Introduction: Practical Uses of Applied Anthropology

This issue of Practicing Anthropology is an editors' choice issue that combines a number of articles on advocacy, law, health, program evaluation and community-based research, so there is surely something for everyone. At the same time, we would like to take this opportunity to put out a call for papers on anthropology and the environment. Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following: the impact of global warming on a community, region or nation-state and indigenous responses to this danger, the formation or activities of environmental justice organizations and networks, problems in (and solutions to) water resource management, case studies on the impact of environmental hazards on health, subsistence and development, educational interventions or social marketing campaigns designed to inform the public about environmental risk, and environmental problems related to agriculture or food production. We are also interested in receiving manuscripts on immigration, transnationalism and, voluntary or involuntary resettlement, especially pieces that contain interesting policy recommendations.

Best in Show? Climate and Environmental Justice Policy in California

Abstract In this article, we outline the important role that environmental justice organizations played in the development of AB 32, California's landmark climate change legislation (AB 32) in ensuring that a wide range of environmental justice ideas were incorporated into policy. We distinguish between the formal elements contained in the legislation and the discursive impacts, particularly in relation to public health concerns and about cap and trade and market mechanisms. Drawing from interviews, public documents, and legislative archives, we document the process by which these diverse environmental justice elements were incorporated into AB 32 to ask a seemingly simple question. Is California really “best in show” when it comes to climate and environmental justice policy? The complex politics involved in the drafting and passage of the legislation show to what extent environmental justice organizations played in AB 32's passage. We then argue that understanding the contentiousness in how AB 32 was dra...

Completing the circle: a model for effective community review of environmental health research.

While it is well understood that multiple and cumulative environmental stressors negatively impact health at the community level, existing ethical research review procedures are designed to protect individual research participants but not communities. Increasing concerns regarding the ethical conduct of research in general and environmental and genetic research in particular underscore the need to expand the scope of current human participant research regulations and ethical guidelines to include protections for communities. In an effort to address this issue, West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT), a nonprofit, community-based environmental justice organization in New York City that has been involved in community-academic partnerships for the past decade, used qualitative interview data to develop a pilot model for community review of environmental health science research.

Health, Traffic, and Environmental Justice: Collaborative Research and Community Action in San Francisco, California

Health impacts on neighborhood residents from transportation systems can be an environmental justice issue. To assess the effects of transportation planning decisions, including the construction of an intraurban freeway, on residents of the Excelsior neighborhood in southeast San Francisco, PODER (People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights), a local grassroots environmental justice organization; the San Francisco Department of Public Health; and the University of California, Berkeley, collaborated on participatory research. We used our findings regarding traffic-related exposures and health hazards in the area to facilitate community education and action to address transportation-related health burdens on neighborhood residents.

OP1-4 DIAL: an interactive web based platform for real-time interpretation and analysis of laboratory test results to support analysis and reporting during the H1N1 swine origin influenza virus (S-OIV) outbreak

While public health, medical, government, and community actors agree that there is a serious asthma epidemic, there is significant disagreement over the role of outdoor environmental factors in causing or triggering asthma. The outcome of these disputes is important because it substantially influences the focus of public health prevention and government regulation. Minority communities in the United States have higher morbidity rates than white communities and, as a result, are more readily affected by debates over environmental factors and subsequent public health and government efforts. Therefore, asthma has figured prominently in community activists’ agendas concerning health inequalities. We compare and contrast the efforts of two community environmental justice organizations that include asthma as part of their overall community organizing efforts. We explore obstacles and strategies common to both groups as well as key differences in their orientation vis-à-vis science. To do so, we first discuss the discovery, current research, community action, and resultant changes in the understanding of the disease, specifically within poor and minority communities. Then, to offer a context to examine our two examples of asthma activism, we explore the social discovery of asthma and its environmental correlates, along with the political and economic conflicts surrounding asthma research and regulation. Using examples from the two activist groups, we discuss common approaches to address asthma in poor and minority communities such as challenging “transit racism”, employing an environmental justice perspective, and using education to empower community members. Finally, we explore how the issues raised in terms of asthma and the environment lead to a collective form of illness experience, in which people with asthma make direct links to the social determinants of their health.

New Allies for Nature and Culture: Exploring Common Ground for a Just and Sustainable Chicago Region

The environmental justice movement (EJM) has long focused on the intersections between environmental and social issues. Recently, movements linking these issues have been gaining momentum around the world. This article examines an initiative called New Allies for Nature and Culture that has been promoting the integration of environmental and social justice work in the Chicago region. Led by the Division of Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo) at The Field Museum with two partners, Lake County Forest Preserves and Friends of Ryerson Woods, New Allies involved a year of applied anthropological research followed by a series of gatherings that brought together representatives from diverse organizations across the Chicago region. The research identified five common concerns shared by environmental and social justice organizations: health and food, youth development, arts/creative practices, economic development, and climate change. It also identified three models for connecting social and environmental issues: creating “communities of choice,” environmental projects as holistic approaches, and linking nature and cultural heritage. New Allies' initial impact on the work of the three project partners suggests that these issues and models have the potential to build stronger relationships between organizations working on social and environmental issues. The article concludes by exploring some implications of these growing integrated movements for the EJM. Briefly the implications point toward opportunities for the EJM to expand its influence as “translation” experts and promote just sustainability, as well as to evolve from a reactive movement to a movement that promotes a radical change in our system of values.

`Is yellow black or white?'

Given recent demographic shifts and changes in the racial landscape of many urban areas, what kind of inter-group relations have emerged and what are the prospects for cross-racial coalitions to contest racial hierarchies and structures of racial inequality in the USA? Drawing on qualitative data, I examine the efforts of an environmental justice organization, defined as a `border space', to build solidarity and forge alliances between second-generation Laotians and other communities of color in the San Francisco Bay Area. I argue that the possibilities and limits to engendering cross-racial solidarity are also shaped by Laotians' status as new immigrants and as Asian Pacific Americans, as well as by everyday encounters and interactions between racial groups. Racializing processes in the US engender complex inter-minority relations that are marked by cooperation or conflict. In such a context, cross-racial alliances are based on political commitments and shared interests that are contingent and situationally specific.

Living environmentalisms: coalition politics, social reproduction, and environmental justice

This paper examines the intersectional, coalition politics forged by activists in US environmental justice and women's rights organisations. This coalitional politics articulates environmental and feminist concerns and rejects the limitations of a narrow-focused politics in favour of a more strategic, relational vision of social and environmental change. Framed by the Marxist-feminist concept of ‘social reproduction’, the analysis addresses the complex ways that globalised capitalism has transformed state and corporate responsibilities for social reproduction. The neoliberal policies of privatisation and deregulation have eroded the assurance of a liveable wage, affordable healthcare, decent education, breathable air, and clean water. Drawing on several examples from grassroots movements and community-based organisations, the essay discusses how diverse women activists conceptually link environmental justice and reproductive rights issues in their communities' struggles to sustain everyday life (or, to accomplish ‘social reproduction’). The innovative coalition politics of organisations such as Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice and the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Coalition are generating dynamic ‘living environmentalisms’ with enough political vision and community ‘groundedness’ to build broadly-based social–environmental collaborations that stand a chance at compelling people to take stronger action to curb problems as big as global warming.

“A Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens”: Women's Activism, Environmental Justice, and the Coal River Mountain Watch

This article examines the environmental justice efforts of the Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW) in Boone County, West Virginia. The CRMW is a grassroots group formed in 1998 to fight the effects of mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia. The membership of this organization is largely comprised of white, working-class women whose homes and community have been adversely impacted by this extractive industry. The CRMW serves as a watch dog of the coal industry oligarchy in the state, resisting the social and environmental injustices created by King coal and its abetting state political system. This article posits that around the country poor and working-class women respond collectively to threats on their homes and communities. However, the scale and impact of this social trend has yet to be adequately assessed by feminist and environmental justice scholars. There is a large body of important, ecofeminist scholarship examining women's connection to the natural world, mostly framed by the spiritual component of such connections. However, this scholarship frequently fails to consider the role of class and its relation to gender and the environment. Also, these analyses too often center women's individual responses to challenged environments, rarely focusing on women's collective actions. Environmental justice scholarship has done a tremendous job emphasizing the importance of class, social justice, and vulnerable communities' connection to the environment. However, the canon of environmental justice scholarship infrequently assesses the activism and importance of women in these grassroots movements. This is unfortunate considering that women make up 90% of the membership in environmental justice groups around the country. Using the Coal River Mountain Watch as a case study this article ultimately seeks to redress these shortcomings in existing scholarship, and highlight the efforts of this environmental justice organization.