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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.
