The meaning and the scope of Environmental Justice are still a topic of debate in the research community. For some, it provides a collective action framework that denounces situations where low income ethno-racial minorities (Bullard 1990) are overexposed to environmental dangers and disturbances. These situations are exclusively considered through the distributive justice lenses (compensation of health and quality of life damages). According to this interpretation, the Environmental Justice scope remains and must remain limited to the North American socio-racial context in which it emerged and which gives it meaning, as well as to the decisive influence of Civil Rights (Fol et Pflieger, 2000). For others, on the contrary, the variety of mobilizations that proceed under the banner of Environmental Justice and the variety of justice issues they defend prove that this movement represents a master frame, not only for minorities of color (Taylor, 2000) but also for poor populations, which are predominant in Southern countries and are victims of major environmental damages (overexploitation of resources, destruction of mangroves, water pollution, etc.) (Martinez-Alier, 2008). Some authors refuse to adopt the restrictive definition of environmental justice that prevails in some research and government agencies. Instead, they put forward an integrative understanding of Environmental Justice (Holifield, 2001) which consequently encompasses several issues :
- Issues of social justice, not only distributive but also procedural (involvement in public policies, use of the law), of capacity (of self-determination or to benefit from a healthy and fruitful environment…), recognition (as peers, legitimate users, etc.) (Schlosberg, 2007; Taylor, 2000).
- Issues of ecological justice, which recognizes that justice among human beings cannot be achieved without justice for nature (Schlosberg, 2007).
A such, Environmental Justice would not be a resurgence of human exceptionalism. However, it could represent an alternative to the New Ecological Paradigm (Taylor, 2000). This alternative paradigm would allow for various environmental problems issues to be considered through the prism of the social asymmetries between “races” or ethnicities, social classes, gender, etc. Such a paradigm would not suggest to reduce these environmental issues to their social dimensions. Indeed, conversely to the assumption that, due to their very nature and scale, environmental issues transcend social cleavages and tend to level the resulting inequalities (Beck, 2001), this paradigm would assert that environmental issues cannot be dissociated from the structure of our society. As a consequence, the full materiality of the environmental issues would need to be redefined based on the experience of the most vulnerable social groups or populations, and their multidimensional causes and consequences would need to be identified. These issues would need to be jointly reviewed as matters of local and climate justice (Schlosberg, 2013), or even as a matter of global justice (Walzer, 2011).
Based on this debate, what implications can we establish for environmental social sciences? Several lines of reflection can already be developed in order to initiate collective thinking :
- To what extent can Environmental Justice represent a framework, or even a paradigm relevant to the understanding of environmental issues and the effects of environmental public action on diverse research fields, including when, as in Europe (Laurent, 2011), few social movements identified themselves as part of Environmental Justice (except for climate justice), until recently ?
- What reframing of environmental issues (diagnosis that includes the responsibility assignment, prognosis that specifies the possible solutions or the definition and allocation of the necessary effort) would this entail? In this framework, how do the scales relate to each other so that local and global justice issues can be jointly examined according to the environmental problems in question? Furthermore, how can social justice, health, food and ecological justice issues be associated (Schlosberg, 2007) when they have most often been addressed separately (in distinct fields), or even opposed to each other from very early on in the history of ecological movements?
- Thirdly, what contributions, in terms of position (and of reflection, particularly on commitment), objects, issues and methodologies, does the appropriation of this frame of thought represent for the research currently being carried out in Southern and Northern countries, both in urban and rural environments ? And, simultaneously, what limitations have been observed and what theoretical borrowings are necessary to make this research framework functional?
- Other approaches have led to the joint development of a critical analysis on the asymmetrical relations between Northern and Southern countries, the renewed forms of Western dominance and its environmental consequences (Political Ecology, postcolonial and decolonial approaches, etc.), as well as the diversity of the dominance forms and the power relations that are at play, including with regard to how individuals and social groups interact with the environment (Ecofeminism, intersectional approaches). While the common influences and the convergence of these analyses are evident, the schools of thought do not merge. Thus, what specific contribution can Environmental Justice make to this scientific (and often militant) landscape, and how can these different schools of thought fuel or reinforce each other?
- Finally, the conception of Environmental Justice as a framework for collective and public action has spread in Europe and in French-speaking countries over the past few years. This calls for an examination of its hybridization with the main schools of thought of ecology and associated fields (sustainable development, transition, conservation, etc.). Indeed, Environmental Justice differed strongly from them, even opposed them, in terms of its genesis, its actors and its principles. What are the circumstances of this hybridization and what are its consequences on the initial denunciation and on the way inequalities and injustices are addressed?
The seminars can address these questions through concrete study cases. Meanwhile, their purpose is to test the Environmental Justice framework on a wide variety of environmental fields and issues. They should therefore contribute to developing and bringing attention to French-speaking and European Environmental Justice research and networks and help build cooperative relationships with American researchers who are interested in our approach. Special interest will be given to the training and the integration of PhD and master students who work or wish to work within this framework, or who are interested in discussing it. The seminar program is intended to be flexible and collaborative as it is based on the idea that knowledge is built through discussions. The seminar sessions will, as often as possible, be organized simultaneously in metropolitan France, Reunion Island, Switzerland and across the CRDT network of Quebec Universities from Rimouski, so as to allow Quebec researchers and students to actively participate.
