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ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
Gyula Nagy
Introduction
The aim of the chapter is to outline the concept of environmental justice, which
implies more than the term suggests. Environmental justice uses the approaches
and methodologies of natural, social, legal and technological sciences in an
interdisciplinary manner to develop a theoretical framework, which can address
an actual problem from the angles of diverse academic fields. It is like a theoretical
kaleidoscope which presents the complex natural and social problems and processes
from varying perspectives.
In addition, environmental justice has also been a social movement from the
start. It concentrates on the distribution of environmental advantages and burdens
and on the social-political processes that determine the process of distribution.
Activism connected to environmental justice centers on the concepts of fairness
and eguality. The struggle for environmental justice is valid in areas where certain
communities bear an unfair amount of the negative impacts as a result of catastrophic
natural events or subseguent decision-making concerning environmental issues or
natural resources. All this generates social and spatial inequalities. In addition,
studies have also been conducted on the networks and relations of local communities,
organizations, and decision-makers , and the ideas these actors have about what is
just, fair and acceptable in a given situation. The framework of environmental
justice also examines the antecedents, present and future consequences of
catastrophic events, to which end it also integrates geographical perspectives.
These studies give an overview of how the social and environmental networks
which incorporate diverse geographical areas shape our environment and society
at both local and trans-local levels,and how they redefine the systems of relations
between nature and society and within society. Environmental injustice directly
or indirectly influences our social-economic acts as well as our political decisions,
through maintaining and reinforcing social and geographical processes such as
exploitation, segregation or differentiation. As a result, spatial structures emerge
that have an unequal share in the advantages and disadvantages of activities in
different environments. This in turn results in the emergence of new geographic
structures and categories of space. The environmental periphery (Kovacs 2004)
worst affected by environmental injustice is the outcome of the multiplying negative
effects and repercussions of low social participation, a lack of workers’ representation,
everyday discriminative practices and a poor quality natural environment.
Even though research in environmental justice deals with environmental events,
processes, and their short- and long-term impacts, it can also be interpreted as
criticism of social and political processes. Along this line of thought, the present
chapter aims to acquaint the reader with the conceptual elements of environmental
justice and its evolution.