Defining Environmental Justice

This book will appeal to anyone interested in environmental politics, environmental movements, and justice theory. The basic task of this book is to explore what, exactly, is meant by 'justice' in definitions of environmental and ecological justice. It examines how the term is used in both self-described environmental justice movements and in theories of environmental and ecological justice. The central argument is that a theory and practice of environmental justice necessarily includes distributive conceptions of justice, but must also embrace notions of justice based in recognition, capabilities, andparticipation. Throughout, the goal is the development of a broad, multi-faceted, yet integrated notion of justice that can be applied to both relations regarding environmental risks in human populations and relations between human communities and non-human nature.

Schlosberg's definition of environmental justice is theoretically grounded and empirically informed, resulting in a thorough and nuanced account... [T]he book is essential reading for researchers and students working on environmental justice, and will be of interest to justice theorists more generally... Schlosberg's account of environmental justice...is definitive., David Schlosberg's Defining Environmental Justice is political theory at its best, providing an invaluable review of the contemporary literature, subverting traditional political categories and distinctions, and suggesting new directions for politics and policy.... Defining Environmental Justice breaks important ground not only in advancing political theory's engagement with nature but in crafting a theoretical and political framework that draws together moral consideration for nonhuman nature with environmental justice concerns... [Schlosberg] offers a powerful critique of liberal theories of justice and their often singular focus on distribution, offering a more inclusive notion of justice that embraces recognition, capabilities, and participatory democracy., Defining Environmental Justice should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding the environmental justice movement. David Schlosberg's careful, thoughtful study makes sense of the often perplexing notion of justice at the heart of the movement. Drawing on and extending recent innovations in justice theory, he argues that the "justice" of environmental justice is best understood not as a unitary concept but as a set of multi-layered, interconnected discourses encompassing distributive issues, recognition, participation and community functioning. He further makes the provocative claim that this expansive, plural discourse of justice can usefully be applied to humans' relationship with nature itself. The result is a richly nuanced and insightful contribution to the literature on social movements, justice theory and contemporary environmentalism.

David Schlosberg is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Northern Arizona University.