Martha Nussbaum has expanded the capabilities approach to defend positive duties of justice to individuals who fall below Rawls’ standard for fully cooperating members of society, including sentient nonhuman animals. Building on this, David Schlosberg has defended the extension of capabilities justice not only to individual animals but also to entire species and ecosystems. This is an attractive vision: a happy marriage of social, environmental and ecological justice, which also respects the claims of individual animals. This paper asks whether it (...) is one that the capabilities approach can really deliver. Serious obstacles are highlighted. The potential for conflict between the capability-based entitlements of humans and those of nonhuman animals or ‘nature’ is noted, but it is argued that this does not constitute a decisive objection to the expanded capabilities approach. However, intra-nature conflicts are so widespread as to do so: the situation is outside the circumstances of justice as they are standardly understood. Schlosberg attempts to reconcile such conflicts by re-examining what it means to flourish as a sentient nonhuman animal. This fails, because of the distinction between flourishing as a species, which often requires predation, and flourishing as an individual, which is as frequently incompatible with it. Finally, the paper considers how a capabilities theorist might move beyond such conflicts, identifying two possible strategies (which are not themselves unproblematic) for reconciling the demands of humans, animals and ecosystems. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine diverse political philosophical conceptualisations of justice and interrogate how these contested understandings are drawn upon in the burgeoning food justice scholarship. We suggest that three interconnected dimensions of justice—plurality, the spatial–temporal and the more-than-human—deserve further analytical attention and propose the notion of the ‘justice multiple’ to bring together a multiplicity of framings and situated practices of (food) justice. Given the lack of critical engagement food justice has received as both a concept and social movement in (...) the context of the United Kingdom (UK), we draw upon empirical research with practitioners and activists involved with heterogenous food movements working at the local, regional and national level and apply the justice multiple concept to the interview data. We highlight the diverse ways that justice is discussed in terms of access, fairness, empowerment, rights and dignity that reflect established organisational discursive framings and the fragmented nature of food system advocacy and activism. Based on this insight, we argue that a plurivocal, relational conceptualisation of socioecological justice can help enhance the multiple politics of food justice, pluralise UK food movement praxis and nurture avenues for broader coalition-building across the food system. (shrink)

This paper makes the case for an environmental justice approach to the practice and study of participation and effectiveness in agrobiodiversity governance. It is argued that, in order to understand the conditions under which participation leads to improved outcomes, the concept has to be rethought, both from a political and a methodological perspective. This can be done by applying an ex-ante environmental justice approach to participation, including notions of distribution, recognition and representation. By exploring the approach through empirical examples of (...) participation in biodiversity and environmental governance, a research framework is outlined, attempting to bridge normative and practical approaches to environmental justice, and tested on two cases of agrobiodiversity governance in Western Europe. (shrink)

Controversies around large-scale development projects offer many cases and insights which may be analyzed through the lenses of corporate social (_ir_)responsibility (CS_I_R) and business ethics studies. In this paper, we confront the CSR narratives and strategies of _WeBuild_ (formerly known as _Salini Impregilo_), an Italian transnational construction company. Starting from the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice (EJAtlas), we collect evidence from NGOs, environmental justice organizations, journalists, scholars, and community leaders on socio-environmental injustices and controversies surrounding 38 large hydropower schemes built (...) by the corporation throughout the last century. As a counter-reporting exercise, we code (un)sustainability discourses from a plurality of sources, looking at their discrepancy under the critical lenses of post-normal science and political ecology, with environmental justice as a normative framework. Our results show how the mismatch of narratives can be interpreted by considering the voluntary, self-reporting, non-binding nature of CSR accounting performed by a corporation wishing to grow in a global competitive market. Contributing to critical perspectives on political CS(I)R, we question the reliability of current CSR mechanisms and instruments, calling for the inclusion of complexity dimensions in and a re-politicization of CS(I)R accounting and ethics. We argue that the fields of post-normal science and political ecology can contribute to these goals. (shrink)

Volume 23, Issue 1, March 2020, Page 53-69.

Through exploring multiple contemporary conceptions of justice, this article illustrates that justice matters when considering outcomes in nongovernmental organization assistance. In environmental justice scholarship, the term justice has been underproblematized, assuming a tacit understanding of the concept as fairness or equitable distribution of environmental harms. Using the rebuilding of two heavily damaged poor and minority neighborhoods in post–Katrina New Orleans as case studies, this article makes evident the different conceptualizations of justice embedded within the strategies and techniques of NGOs and (...) community organizations. Examining both practices and outcomes, I argue that the definition of justice that NGOs implicitly or explicitly adopt in their strategies and technologies of assistance can lead to very different results in postdisaster neighborhood revitalization. For science and technology studies, conceptions of justice can help articulate a more critical social science that opens up the descriptive/normative divide. This is important in thinking about equitable social change and allied policy—as it applies not only to NGO assistance but also to other science and technology issues that intersect with marginalized communities as well. (shrink)

In discussing water justice, this paper distinguishes four concepts of water justice: Distributive justice claims a fair share of water, ecological justice focuses on the integrity of water as a vulnerable resource, cultural justice addresses values attached to water reservoirs, and procedural justice explicates fair procedures in negotiating water conflicts. After having given an overview over recent contributions to the various meanings of water justice, the paper tries to answer the question of how standards of justice can be integrated into (...) an approach that overcomes the alleged tragedies of the commons. It focuses on the example of a water reservoir whose access conditions provoke conflicts among neighbors. (shrink)

The application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare and epidemiology undoubtedly has many benefits for the population. However, due to its environmental impact, the use of AI can produce social inequalities and long-term environmental damages that may not be thoroughly contemplated. In this paper, we propose to consider the impacts of AI applications in medical care from the One Health paradigm and long-term global health. From health and environmental justice, rather than settling for a short and fleeting green honeymoon between (...) health and sustainability caused by AI, it should aim for a lasting marriage. To this end, we conclude by proposing that, in the upcoming years, it could be valuable and necessary to promote more interconnected health, call for environmental cost transparency, and increase green responsibility. (shrink)

I Ville verdier oppfordrer Sigurd Hverven til å anerkjenne at planter, dyr, arter og naturområder på jorda i løpet av naturhistorien har oppnådd et mylder av verdier. I senere tid har mennesker fått makten til å ødelegge mange av disse naturverdiene. Det gir oss som lever nå et nytt ansvar for naturen. I boka undersøker Hverven hvordan mennesker kan erkjenne natur, hva natur er og om naturen har verdi i seg selv. Tankegangen munner ut i et historisk forankret imperativ: Tenkning (...) og praksis må innrettes slik at jordas verdifulle evne til å frembringe og opprettholde mangfold ikke skades ytterligere. (shrink)

This book defends an account of justice to nonhuman beings – i.e., to animals, plants etc. – also known as ecological or interspecies justice, and which lies in the intersection of environmental political theory and environmental ethics. More specifically, against the background of the current extinction crisis this book defends a global non-ranking biocentric theory of distributive ecological/interspecies justice to wild nonhuman beings, because the extinction crisis does not only need practical solutions, but also an account of how it is (...) the outcome of large-scale injustice. This book not only provides a novel theoretical framework that supports such a claim, but it also develops the theoretical tools to find just compromises between the entitlements of intraspecies and intra-human global distributive justice to ecological space for the purpose of working towards a vision of just conservation. -/- Content: 1. Introducing Ecological Justice 2. Political Non-Ranking Biocentrism 3. The Community of Justice 4. The Currency of Distributive Justice 5. The Principles of Distributive Justice 6. Ecological Justice and the Capabilities Approach 7. Biodiversity Loss: An Injustice? 8. Who Owns the Earth? 9. Visions of Just Conservation 10. Outlook for Implementation . (shrink)

Although ethical and justice arguments operate in two distinct levels—justice being a more specific concept—they can easily be conflated. A robust justification of ecological justice requires starting at the roots of justice, rather than merely giving, for example, an argument for why certain non-human beings have moral standing of some kind. Thus, I propose that a theory of ecological justice can benefit from a four-step justification for the inclusion of non-human beings into the community of justice, starting with Hume’s circumstances (...) of justice. I will further argue that the resulting theory of ecological justice should be biocentric—meaning that all living beings should be included into the community of justice, as they constitute a ‘community of fate’. (shrink)

The normative aim of environmental justice poses two challenges to the management of agricultural systems: improvement of access for today's rural poor to vital ecosystem services ; and sustenance of critical ecosystem funds to enable future persons access to vital ecosystem services. The paper investigates whether, and how, these justices have been simultaneously enhanced by the Philippine farmer network MASIPAG. It compares evaluation data on MASIPAG and conventional farming systems within a normative framework based on the justice conceptions by Rawls (...) and Sen, and analyses the impact of certain determinants on both justices. (shrink)

As the increasing loss of ecosystem services severely affects life perspectives of today's poor and future populations, governing access to, and use of, ecosystem services in an intragenerational and intergenerational just way is an urgent issue. The author argues that theories of distributive justice should consider the distribution of access rights to ecosystem services. Three specific demands that a theory of distributive justice should fulfill to adequately cope with the distribution of access rights to ecosystem services, and show that Rawls??A (...) Theory of Justice? can be consistently extended to meet the identified demands. (shrink)

It seems intuitive that human development and environmental protection should go hand in hand. But some have worried there is no framework within environmental ethics that suitably conjoins them. I...

ABSTRACTGiven the existing inequities in climate change, any proposed climate engineering strategy to solve the climate problem must meet a high threshold for justice. In contrast to an overly thin paradigm for justice that demands only a science-based assessment of potential temperature-related benefits and harms, we argue for the importance of attention to recognitional justice. Recognitional justice, we go on to claim, calls for a different type of assessment tool. Such an assessment would pay attention to neglected considerations such as (...) relationships, context, power, vulnerability, narrative, and affect. Here we develop a care-ethics related tool for assessing the justice of climate engineering with stratospheric aerosols, and suggest that qualitative social science methods may be required for its effective application. We illustrate the use of this tool with a case study involving interviews about stratospheric aerosol injection conducted in Kenya, the Solomon Islands... (shrink)

Procedural justice, or the ability of people affected by decisions to participate in making them, is widely recognized as an important aspect of environmental justice. Procedural justice, moreover, requires that affected people have a substantial understanding of the hazards that a particular decision would impose. While EJ scholars and activists point out a number of obstacles to ensuring substantial understanding—including industry’s nondisclosure of relevant information and technocratic problem framings—this article shows how key insights from Science and Technology Studies about the (...) nature of knowledge pose even more fundamental challenges for procedural justice. In particular, the knowledge necessary to inform participation in decision making is likely not to exist at the time of decision making, undermining the potential for people to give their informed consent to being exposed to an environmental hazard. In addition, much of the local knowledge important to understanding the consequences of hazards will develop only after decisions have been made, and technoscientific knowledge of environmental effects will inevitably change over the period during which people will be affected by a hazard. The changing landscape of knowledge calls into question the idea that consent or participation during one decision-making process can by itself constitute procedural justice. An STS-informed understanding of the nature of knowledge, this article argues, implies that procedural justice should include proactive knowledge production to fill in knowledge gaps, and ongoing opportunities for communities to consent to the presence of hazards as local knowledge emerges and scientific knowledge changes. (shrink)

The rapid growth of human population and associated industrialisation creates strains on resources and climate. One way to understand the impact of human activity is to quantify the total environmental pressures by measuring the ‘footprint’. Footprints account for the total direct and/or indirect effects of a product or a consumption activity, which may be related to e.g. carbon, water or land use, and can be seen as a proxy for environmental responsibility. Footprints shape climate and resource debates, especially concerning environmental (...) strategies. However, in general, footprints hold a dichotomous producer–consumer perspective that is not unanimously accepted. In addition, the current footprinting system transmits a simplistic message about environmental responsibility that taints the justice debate and jeopardises the validity of policies based on them. Consequently, it is crucial to question who is accountable for adverse environmental effects. It is also critical to investigate how the methodological characteristics of footprints shape and affect the efficacy of policies on climate and natural resources. This article examines these challenges, focusing on negative justice and policy implications resulting from assigning environmental responsibility to a sole agent. The article proposes, and morally justifies, the development of a footprinting method that includes justice parameters in an attempt to render fair results that are more meaningful for environmental action. The second objective is to establish the potential of this new framework to promote environmental responsibility and justice while facilitating policymaking. The suggested justice elements aim at turning footprints into a concrete environmental policy instrument framed under the value of environmental fairness. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach is today one of the most influential theories of justice. In her earlier works on the capabilities approach, Nussbaum only applies it to humans, but in later works she extends the capabilities approach to include sentient animals. Contrary to Nussbaum’s own view, some scholars, for example, David Schlosberg, Teea Kortetmäki and Daniel L. Crescenzo, want to extend the capabilities approach even further to include collective entities, such as species and ecosystems. Though I think we have strong (...) reasons for preserving ecosystems and species within the capabilities approach, there are several problems with ascribing capabilities to them, especially if we connect it with the view that species and ecosystems are subjects of justice. These problems are partly a consequence of the fact that an ascription of capabilities to species and ecosystems needs to be based on an overlapping consensus between different comprehensive doctrines, in accordance with the framework of political liberalism on which the capabilities approach builds. First, the ascription of capabilities to species and ecosystems presupposes the controversial standpoint that they are objectively existing entities. Second, the ascription of capabilities to ecosystems and species and the view that they are subjects of justice is justified by claiming that they have integrity and agency, but these characteristics have different meanings when applied to collective entities and humans, respectively. Third, the view that species and ecosystems are subjects of justice seems to require the controversial assumption that they have interests of their own, which differ from the interests of the sentient beings that are part of them. However, even if we do not ascribe capabilities to species and ecosystems and regard them as subjects of justice, there are still strong reasons to protect them within the capabilities approach, as the preservation of ecosystems and species is an important precondition for many human and animal capabilities. (shrink)

En este artículo se estudia el enfoque de las capacidades de Martha Nussbaum como un intento de fundamentar la inclusión de los anima les no humanos dentro de la dimensión cívica de los derechos. En esta perspectiva se pretende establecer ciertos «deberes directos de justicia» para los seres sentientes, poseedores de cierta complejidad, que el Estado debe cautelar y procurar como un mínimo exigido. Tras analizar esta propuesta, se desarrollan algunas de las críticas originadas por la «ética animal» defendida por (...) Nussbaum, entre las que se cuentan las de Donaldson, Kymlicka, Smith, Cortina y Schlosberg. This paper describes the capabilities approach Martha Nussbaum as an attempt to justify the inclusion of non-human animals within the civic rights dimension is studied. In this perspective is to establish certain «direct duties of justice» for sentient beings, possessors of some complexity, that the State must seek precautionary and as a minimum requirement. After analyzing this proposal, they develop some of the criticism caused by the «animal ethics» defended by Nussbaum, among which are counted Donaldson, Kymlicka, Smith, Cortina and Schlosberg. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem that has so far been neglected by scholars investigating the ethics of Big Data and policy makers: that is the ethical implications of Big Data initiatives’ environmental impact. Building on literature in environmental studies, cultural studies and Science and Technology Studies, the article draws attention to the physical presence of data, the material configuration of digital service, and the space occupied by data. It then explains how this material and situated character of data raises questions (...) concerning the ethics of the increasingly fashionable Big Data discourses. It argues that attention should be paid to the vocabulary currently used when discussing the governance of data initiatives; the internal tension between current data initiatives and environmental policies; issues of fair distribution. The article explains how taking into account these aspects would allow for a more responsible behaviour in the context of data storage and production. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem that has so far been neglected by scholars investigating the ethics of Big Data and policy makers: that is the ethical implications of Big Data initiatives’ environmental impact. Building on literature in environmental studies, cultural studies and Science and Technology Studies, the article draws attention to the physical presence of data, the material configuration of digital service, and the space occupied by data. It then explains how this material and situated character of data raises questions (...) concerning the ethics of the increasingly fashionable Big Data discourses. It argues that attention should be paid to the vocabulary currently used when discussing the governance of data initiatives; the internal tension between current data initiatives and environmental policies; issues of fair distribution. The article explains how taking into account these aspects would allow for a more responsible behaviour in the context of data storage and production. (shrink)

Political respect for nature is an important part of cultivating a more emancipatory and ecologically sustainable politics. As a political principle, it can supplement respect for persons with institutional mechanisms that formally constrain how human power may be exercised over non-human beings and things and that require us to use our power in ways that are attentive to nature’s well-being along with our own. Moreover, when internalized by citizens as part of their shared political ethos and public culture, respect for (...) nature has the potential to protect against the abuse of power in our interpersonal relations with Earth’s non-human parts. Political respect for nature means acknowledging that non-human beings and things count, that they deserve to be treated according to standards of right and that there are principled limits to how human power may be exercised over them. It means formalizing these constraints in the basic structure of society and fostering a public culture of self-restraint and responsiveness. (shrink)

This article proposes reframing the justice discourse in climate negotiations. In so doing, it makes two claims. First, global climate negotiations deserve to be addressed as an issue of justice on their own due to their peculiar characteristics. Second, a multidimensional theory of justice is superior to distributional theories for this task. To support these arguments, I apply the multidimensional theory of justice to global climate negotiations. This analysis reveals that injustice in the negotiations is multidimensional and irreducible to distributional (...) questions. Furthermore, it shows how promoting justice in this broad sense would have significant effect on the negotiation procedures and substantive outcomes. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory has grown into one of the most frequent approaches to organizational sustainability. Stakeholder research has provided considerable insight on organization–nature relations, and advanced approaches that consider the intrinsic value of nonhuman nature. However, nonhuman nature is typically approached as an ambiguous, unified entity. Taking nonhumans adequately into account requires greater detail for both grounding the status of nonhumans and particularizing nonhuman entities as a set of potential organizational stakeholders with different characteristics, vulnerabilities, and needs. We utilize the philosophical (...) concept of ‘recognition’ to provide a normative underpinning for stakeholder theorizing on nonhuman nature in both universal and difference-sensitive terms. We discuss how the status model of recognition helps identify relevant nonhumans as organizational stakeholders, establish respect, and particularize nonhumans in their distinctiveness and in partner-like ways. The implications of the recognition approach for stakeholder research are explicated with an illustrative case that exemplifies the recognition and particularization of nonhuman nature. We contribute to stakeholder research on nonhuman nature by suggesting that recognition provides a conceptual tool for theorizing the stakeholder status and particularization of nonhuman nature. Thereby, this article reduces anthropocentric bias and increases the capacity of stakeholder theorizing to confront the challenges of the ecological crisis. (shrink)

In this article, I apply the environmental or expanded capabilities approach to species and examine whether species as wholes can have capabilities and what are the implications if they can. The examination provides support for the claim that species as evolutionary groups can possess capabilities. They have integrity, which refers to the functionings that enable the self-making and development of species, and it is conceptually possible to identify capabilities that essentially enable or contribute to species integrity. One central capability for (...) species can be identified from conservation literature: adaptive capacity, the ability of species to react to environmental changes by self-regulative evolution. After constructing the main argument that species can have capabilities and that they possess the capability to adaptive capacity, I shortly expound on the implications of these claims. It turns out that there are at least three different ways to apply the notion, and that the claim ‘species have capabilities’ does not entail that species are necessarily recipients of justice. (shrink)

Stephen Clark’s article The Rights of Wild Things from 1979 was the starting point for the consideration in the animal ethics literature of the so-called ‘predation problem’. Clark examines the response of David George Ritchie to Henry Stephens Salt, the first writer who has argued explicitly in favor of animal rights. Ritchie attempts to demonstrate—via reductio ad absurdum—that animals cannot have rights, because granting them rights would oblige us to protect prey animals against predators that wrongly violate their rights. This (...) article navigates the reader through the debate sparked off by Clarke’s article, with as final destination what I consider to be the best way to deal with the predation problem. I will successively discuss arguments against the predation reductio from Singer’s utilitarian approach, Regan’s deontological approach, Nussbaum’s capability approach, and Donadson and Kymlicka’s political theory of animal rights. (shrink)

This paper explores the nature and impact of local and global environmental injustice in Africa. It shows that some people have been and still become toxic victims, carrying the brunt of inequitable environmental costs because of the transfer of risks and environmental hazards to some African countries through the export of toxic waste and hazardous industries. This paper suggests that besides local and national efforts global governance should be in place to address the current global environmental injustice. Distributive, participatory, and (...) recognition justice along with measures that promote human capabilities is required to promote ecological democracy in the world. (shrink)

Global-scale solar geoengineering raises critical ethical questions, including questions of distributive, procedural, and intergenerational justice. Although geoengineering is sometimes framed as a response to injustice, insofar as it might benefit those most vulnerable to climate-related harms, geoengineering also has the potential to exacerbate climate injustice, especially if control of research, governance, and potential plans for deployment remains concentrated in the hands of a few. The scope and scale of solar geoengineering, the diverse concerns it raises, and the lack of consensus (...) surrounding it pose particular challenges for justice. I argue that addressing these challenges requires an inclusive, dialogical approach that takes seriously diverse perspectives, particularly the perspectives of those who are most affected by climate change and those who have had the least voice in decisions surrounding it. The concept of recognition––as developed in the work of Nancy Fraser, David Schlosberg, and others––offers a normative ground for this approach and can help guide the development of institutions and practices directed toward geoengineering justice. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn recent work, Joshua Horton and David Keith argue on distributive and consequentialist grounds that research into solar radiation management geoengineering is justified because the resulting knowledge has the potential to benefit everyone, particularly the ‘global poor.’ I argue that this view overlooks procedural and recognitional justice, and thus relegates to the background questions of how SRM research should be governed. In response to Horton and Keith, I argue for a multidimensional approach to geoengineering justice, which entails that questions of (...) how to govern SRM research should be addressed from the very outset – that is, now. (shrink)

In this paper I address the question of what it is to be alienated from nature. The focus is alienation in the sense of estrangement, a ‘being cut off from’ a wider world. That we are so estranged is a claim associated with ecological critique of contemporary society. But what is it to be estranged from nature given that everything we are, do and produce, always remains within a wider nature? I explore the possibility that this might be understood with (...) reference to Merleau-Ponty’s notion of ‘flesh’. I set the scene for this with some discussion of Honneth’s recent account of reification as a ‘distorted praxis’ and then, drawing upon Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and especially his later ontology of flesh, develop the idea of estrangement from the natural world as an inadequate participation in a ‘primordial’ perceptual relation. This idea of estrangement brings together various elements of ecological critique. However, I argue that although this idea of estrangement might inform and help to articulate such a critique, it cannot be the sole concern of an environmental political philosophy: other kinds of alienation within the humanised environmental context need to be considered too. (shrink)

Sustainability has become a powerful discourse, guiding the efforts of various stakeholders to find strategies for dealing with current and future social-ecological crises. To overcome the latter, we argue that sustainability discourse needs to be based on a critical-emancipatory conceptualization. Therefore, we engage two such approaches—environmental justice approaches informed by a plural understanding of justice and feminist political economy ones focusing on care—and their analytical potential for productive critique of normative assumptions in the dominant sustainability discourse. Both of these approaches (...) highlight aspects of sustainability that are particularly relevant today. First, although sustainable development was conceptualized from the outset based upon a twofold notion of justice (intra- and intergenerational), the integration of justice in the dominant sustainability discourse and praxis often manifests merely as a normative aspiration. Meanwhile, the environmental justice and care approaches offer conceptualizations of justice that can act as a powerful lever and as transformation-strategy. Second, the dominant sustainability discourse largely remains within a neoliberal economic framework that continues to promote economic growth as the means to reach prosperity while neglecting the bases of every economy: care work and nature. Its focus lies solely on paid work and the market economy. By integrating (a) social and ecological ‘reproductivity’ (unpaid care and subsistence work as well as nature) and (b) democratic processes for just distribution of environmental burdens and benefits, as well as participatory equity in relevant decision making, feminist political economy and environmental justice approaches offer substantial strategies towards building humane, just and caring societies. (shrink)

Despite the substantial research into the peculiar political and legal status of climate migrants, there is comparatively little exploration of the particular forms of loss such migrants might face or how efforts might mitigate such loss. This paper aims to begin filling that void by characterizing such loss, using the framework of the UNFCC’s Warsaw Mechanism, as agential harm. Using existing models for thinking about the preservation of values and links with the past, I aim to use this idea of (...) a threat to agency to discuss how migration could occur to better preserve the agential control of displaced populations. (shrink)

Humanity will face water scarcity as this century progresses. Water use grew twice as fast as the global human population last century, and an increasing number of regions around the world are facing, or will face, freshwater scarcity. Four billion people face water scarcity at least one month out of the year. Scarcity makes water valuable for privatizers and commodifiers as an investment vehicle; it emboldens the currency of commodification. I will argue for water justice as socioenvironmental justice. The injustices (...) that can and do attach to water are not reducible to merely distributional wrongs or injustices, they are moral and political harms as markers of a failing democracy; water injustice, then, is a structural harm. I build on the literature of power dynamics from Iris Marion Young and David Schlosberg and argue that water injustice is structural and involves mis- and malrecognition and participation; moreover, I introduce the argument that water justice is participatory, a method of development that walks in lockstep with reflexive and discursive democracy. (shrink)

Corrective measures and remediation efforts aimed at alleviating the conditions of environmental injustice usually depend on federal or state funding. However, such resources could disappear, leavi...

Transportation infrastructure tremendously affects the quality of life for urban residents, influences public and mental health, and shapes social relations. Historically, the topic is rich with social and political controversy and the resultant transit systems in the United States cause problems for minority residents and issues for the public. Environmental justice frameworks provide a means to identify and address harms that affect marginalized groups, but environmental justice has limits that cannot account for the mainstream population. To account for this condition, (...) I employ a complex moral assessment measure that provides a way to talk about harms that affect the public. (shrink)