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Environmental Justice in Latin America

Problems, Promise, and Practice

contributions by David V. Carruthers, Juanita Sundberg, Peter J. Newell, Henri Acselrad, Carlos Reboratti, Sarah Moore, Jordi Diez, Reyes Rodriguez, Michele Zebich-Knos, Wendy Wolford, Tom Perreault, Katherine T. McCaffrey & Stefanie Wickstrom

edited by Robert Gottlieb

Publisher
The MIT Press
Initial publish date
Feb 2008
Category
Environmental, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780262533003
    Publish Date
    Feb 2008
    List Price
    $54.00

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Description

Scholars and activists investigate the emergence of a distinctively Latin American environmental justice movement, offering analysis and case studies that illustrate the connections between popular environmental mobilization and social justice in the region.

Environmental justice concerns form an important part of popular environmental movements in many countries. Activists, scholars, and policymakers in the developing world, for example, increasingly use the tools of environmental justice to link concerns over social justice and environmental well-being. Environmental Justice in Latin America investigates the emergence of a distinctively Latin American environmental justice movement, offering analyses and case studies that examine both the promise and the limits of environmental justice in Latin America and the Caribbean—both as a rallying point for popular mobilization and as a set of principles for analysis and policymaking.

After considering such conceptual issues as the connection between environmental conditions and race, trade, and social justice, the book presents a series of case studies. These studies focus first on industrial development, examining such topics as social tension over “megadevelopment” projects in Argentina and the concentrated industrial waste hazards of the export assembly plants on the U.S.-Mexico border, and then on the power and politics involved in land and resource use. Other chapters explore ecotourism, inequitable land distribution in Brazil, the ongoing struggle for justice and accountability over the former U.S. Navy bombing range in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and water policy in Chile, Bolivia, and Mexico. Taken together, the analyses and case studies suggest that environmental justice—which highlights both broader issues of global injustice and local concerns—holds tremendous promise as a way to understand and address environmental inequities in Latin America and elsewhere.

Contributors
Henri Acselrad, David V. Carruthers, Jordi Díez, Katherine T. McCaffrey, Sarah A. Moore, Peter Newell, Tom Perreault, Carlos Reboratti, Reyes Rodríguez, Juanita Sundberg, Stefanie Wickstrom, Wendy Wolford, Michele Zebich-Knos

About the authors

David V. Carruthers is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at San Diego State University.

David V. Carruthers' profile page

Juanita Sundberg's profile page

Peter J. Newell is Professor of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia. He has published widely on the political economy of the environment, including the books Climate for Change (2000), The Effectiveness of EU Environmental Policy (2000), co-authored with Wyn Grant and Duncan Matthews, Development and the Challenge of Globalisation (2002), co-edited with Shirin M. Rai and Andrew Scott. He currently works on issues of corporate regulation and accountability and the politics of GMO regulation.

Peter J. Newell's profile page

Henri Acselrad's profile page

Carlos Reboratti's profile page

Sarah Moore is research assistant at the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance at Dalhousie University.

Sarah Moore's profile page

Jordi Diez is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Guelph. He is the author of Political Change and Environmental Policymaking in Mexico (Routledge, 2006) and editor of Canadian and Mexican Security in the New North America: Challenges and Prospects (McGill-Queen`s University Press, 2006).

Jordi Diez's profile page

Reyes Rodriguez's profile page

Michele Zebich-Knos' profile page

Wendy Wolford's profile page

Tom Perreault's profile page

Katherine T. McCaffrey's profile page

Stefanie Wickstrom's profile page

Robert Gottlieb is Emeritus Professor of Urban & Environmental Policy and founder and former Director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College. He is the author of Reinventing Los Angeles: Nature and Community in the Global City (MIT Press) and other books.

Robert Gottlieb's profile page