Project Abstract

Environmental justice is a concept that has gained increasing attention in recent years as communities around the world grapple with the disproportionate impacts of environmental degradation and pollution. This research project aims to explore new perspectives on environmental justice, focusing on the intersectionality of race, class, and gender in shaping experiences of environmental injustice. The traditional environmental justice framework has primarily focused on the fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens across different communities. While this remains a crucial aspect of environmental justice, there is a growing recognition that a more nuanced understanding is needed to address the complexities of environmental inequality. By incorporating intersectionality into the analysis, this research seeks to highlight how multiple dimensions of identity intersect to shape individuals' vulnerability to environmental harm. Through a comprehensive review of existing literature on environmental justice and intersectionality, this project aims to identify gaps in current research and propose new directions for future scholarship. By examining case studies from diverse geographic regions and social contexts, the research will provide insights into the varying ways in which race, class, and gender intersect to produce environmental injustices. Furthermore, the project will engage with community organizations and activists working on environmental justice issues to ensure that the research is grounded in the lived experiences of those most affected by environmental inequities. By centering the voices of marginalized communities, the research aims to amplify their struggles and contribute to more inclusive and effective strategies for addressing environmental injustice. In addition to academic publications, the research findings will be disseminated through community workshops, policy briefs, and online platforms to reach a broader audience and facilitate knowledge exchange among scholars, practitioners, and advocates. By fostering dialogue and collaboration across different sectors, the project seeks to catalyze collective action towards achieving environmental justice for all. Overall, this research project offers a multidimensional analysis of environmental justice that moves beyond simplistic binaries of winners and losers. By examining the complex interplay of race, class, and gender in shaping environmental inequalities, the project aims to generate new insights that can inform more equitable and sustainable approaches to environmental governance and policy-making.

Project Overview

INTRODUCTION

Women make up the vast majority of activists and organizers of grassroots movements fighting against environmental ills that threaten poor and people of color communities. New Perspectives on Environmental Justice is the first collection of essays that pays tribute to the enormous contributions women have made in these endeavors.

The writers offer varied examples of environmental justice issues such as children’s environmental health campaigns, cancer research, AIDS/HIV activism, the Environmental Genome Project, and popular culture, among many others. Each one focuses on gender and sexuality as crucial factors in women’s or gay men’s activism and applies environmental justice principles to related struggles for sexual justice. The contributors represent a wide variety of activist and scholarly perspectives including law, environmental studies, sociology, political science, history, medical anthropology, American studies, English, African and African American studies, women’s studies, and gay and lesbian studies, offering multiple vantage points on gender, sexuality, and activism.

Feminist/womanist impulses shape and sustain environmental justice movements around the world, making an understanding of gender roles and differences crucial for the success of these efforts.