Review

Spaces of environmental justice

Ryan Holifield, Michael Porter and Gordon Walker (Eds.)
Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, MA, 2010, viii+263pp., ISBN: 978-1444332452

Contemporary Political Theory (2015) 14, e45–e47. doi:10.1057/cpt.2015.7;
published online 17 February 2015

Until the mid-1990s, ‘environmental (in)justice’ was conceived largely in terms of
the racialized distribution of environmental ‘bads,’ usually in the United States.
Environmental justice (hereafter EJ) research largely consisted of rigorous empirical
studies demonstrating that racial minorities in the United States were disproportio-
nately exposed to environmental hazards. This research not only led to important
debates about the racialization of ‘environmentalism’, but also to policy action,
including President Clinton’s 1994 signing of Executive Order 12 898 (‘Federal
Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income
Populations’).

The field has evolved considerably since the mid-1990s, as the editors of this
collection map out in their introduction. First, scholars and activists outside of the
United States have been pushed to consider whether or how EJ might be applied in
different national contexts. Second, and perhaps of even greater significance for
readers of this journal, those earlier studies’ limited theoretical depth and engagement
was increasingly seen as a liability. David Schlosberg’s seminal work emphasized
the need to conceptualize EJ in terms of participation and recognition, as well as
distribution, and also that ‘doing justice’ includes allowing the subjects of (in)justice
to define justice for themselves. The limits of traditional policy interventions also
may have helped to clarify the ways in which such key concepts as ‘space’, ‘race’,
‘justice’ and ‘politics’ need to be theorized more carefully. Spaces of Environmental
Justice thus refers to bringing the concepts of EJ to new geographic locations, and to
placing EJ into new theoretical contexts and conversations.

After the editors’ introduction, the book is divided into two parts, each with four
chapters. In Part 1, ‘Frameworks for Critical Environmental Justice Research,’
contributors argue for opening up new ways of thinking about and conducting EJ
research. Gordon Walker’s first chapter provides a nice opening, laying out the
connections between critical geography’s more complex theorizations of space
(‘constructed by and through social practices’ (p. 25)) and Schlosberg’s development
of the idea of EJ as ‘trivalent, integrating questions of distribution with those of

© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 14, 4, e45–e47
www.palgrave-journals.com/cpt/

http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2015.7
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/cpt


recognition’ (p. 35). Ryan Holifield then contrasts urban political ecology, which has
become a significant theoretical framework in EJ research, with more recent attempts
to use Actor-Network Theory in an EJ context. Holifield argues provocatively
against a theoretical synthesis of these two approaches, as each asks different
questions and thus illuminates different aspects of EJ. Susan Buckingham and
Rakibe Kulcur’s chapter focuses on questions of gender. Despite the fact that women
have led many EJ movements (p. 73), they argue that gender analysis has been
conspicuously absent from EJ research. Part of the case for this is built on an analysis
of the gender composition of major European environmental organizations. And
while male domination of these organizations may have significant consequences
for broader public understandings of ‘environmental justice,’ this is not to say that
grassroots EJ organizations or movements are gendered in the same way. More
persuasively, they also point to the relative inattention paid to the scales of the
household and the body, where the burdens of responsibility fall disproportionately
on women. Hilda Kurtz’s chapter draws on theories of the racial state, to argue that
even though EJ activists often look to the state for protection against environmental
injustice (as in Executive Order 12 898), the state itself plays a significant role in
‘shaping racialized patterns of spatial injustice’ (p. 97).

Part 2, ‘Spaces for Critical Environmental Justice Research’, turns to more
geographically specific case studies. Petra Tschakert’s chapter discusses her work
with artisanal gold miners in Ghana, illuminating the complex politics of scale
involved in mining in the global south. Both local labour and host states are
significantly disadvantaged vis-à-vis multinational mining corporations. At the same
time, Ghanaian ‘artisanal’ miners, who comprise a majority of the mining labour
force, operate outside of the formal economy, and often without legal protection or
recognition. Tschakert’s participatory research methods show the importance of
focusing on inequities of recognition and participation, but also the ways that highly
engaged local research may appear problematic at larger scales: ‘galamsey [artisanal]
miners did not envision any radical changes themselves …. The large majority …
wished to be employed by one of the large mining companies’ (pp. 135, 138). The
call for legal (state) recognition of artisanal miners also lies in tension with the
understanding of the state developed in Kurtz’s chapter. Zoe Meletis and Lisa
Campbell innovatively apply an EJ frame to an ecotourism site in Costa Rica. That
site’s ‘isolation’ is an important part of its ecotourist appeal: ‘with no access by road
and no cars in town … [it] seems more “natural” ’ (p. 170). At the same time, this
‘isolation,’ contributes to a significant problem in dealing with solid waste. Recalling
that ecotourism sites are in fact ‘produced’, not ‘natural’, underlines the power
imbalances, and hence EJ issues, at play. Karen Bickerstaff and Julian Agyeman’s
chapter on a conflict over shipbreaking in northeast England focuses on the politics
of shifting scale-frames. Perhaps because the identity politics that is so central to US
EJ struggles is less entrenched in England, and perhaps because this particular
struggle involved an international NGO involved in a local campaign, there is greater

Review

e46 © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 14, 4, e45–e47



political room for manoeuvre on both sides. The final chapter, by Julie Sze et al.,
examines a policy-making process for managing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
in California’s Central Valley. Here, too, ‘the conflict over scale [is] at the core of the
politics’ (p. 221). How is ‘the Delta’ defined and represented? Who is and is not
afforded representation in the processes that manage the Delta? In a classic move of
EJ analysis, the authors note that ‘local interests are constructed as parochial, short
sighted, and irrational, whereas advocates for the state are considered to be acting for
the abstract good, rather than in the service of capital and large water users
(agriculture and urban water districts)’ (p. 238).

While each of the individual chapters provides interesting insights, a firmer
editorial hand might have helped the book as a whole to initiate a fuller dialogue about
the development of the field. Outside of the editors’ introduction, there are very few
references made by the authors to other chapters in the book, despite obvious
opportunities to do so. More generally, the chapters each seek to push EJ research in
new, and different, directions. The result is that occasionally terrain that is deplored as
conventional and inadequate in one chapter is what is covered in another. A number of
contributors comment on the US-centrism of the first wave of EJ research, but chapters
discussing US case studies do not critically reflect on their location. Sze et al.’s chapter
title refers simply to ‘the Delta’ (my emphasis). Kurtz’s chapter, despite what
sometimes appear to be broader claims, is singularly focused on the American (United
States) state. This is of course not to suggest that other states are not racialized, but
rather that specific histories and geographies have racialized the Canadian, English,
Brazilian and so on states in different ways. On the other hand, Kurtz’s demand for
a more careful theorization of the (racial) state and its role in EJ conflicts is important,
and remains underdeveloped or unacknowledged in some other chapters.

In sum, while the collection does not quite provide a map of the new ‘spaces of
environmental justice,’ it does provide signposts that point in a number of useful and
provocative directions.

Andrew Biro
Acadia University, Wolfville, NS, Canada B4P 2R6

andrew.biro@acadiau.ca

Review

e47© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1470-8914 Contemporary Political Theory Vol. 14, 4, e45–e47


	Spaces of environmental justice