BEXP 17A03 - Environmental justice

This exploratory seminar introduces the origins and foundations of the environmental justice movement and its application to current and pressing issues. Emerging in the 1980s in the United States, the environmental justice movement aims at denouncing and addressing the unfair exposure of marginalized communities to harms associated with environmental risks such as hazardous pollution, resource extraction or natural disasters. It therefore advocated for the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies. The environmental justice movement later expanded to consider other types and sources of environmental injustices, including for instance gender-based inequalities or the shifting of environmental burdens to the Global South. During the semester, we will explore the conceptual framework, strategies and practical claims of groups affected by environmental injustices through a series of case studies touching upon various issues: exposition to pollution or natural disasters, problems associated with protected areas or wildlife laws, or the unfair consequences of the global waste trade. While most of the course will focus on France and the United States, some attention will be given to international issues and perspectives. This course requires active involvement of the students through participation in class discussions and critical assessments of the implications of environmental in/justice from both theoretical and practical standpoints. The aims of this course are: • to explore how socio-economic, cultural or ethnic background can influence people's exposure to environmental hazards and access to clean, safe and productive environments; • to grasp the key concepts and strategies developed by the environmental justice movement; • to increase critical thinking about the role of law and justice in questioning the existence and persistence of environmental injustices and inequalities.

Amaena GUENIOT,Aurelien BOUAYAD

Cours magistral seul

English

Spring 2022-2023

Mid-term exam (40%): 2-hours writing exam (to be detailed during Session 4). Final exam (40%): in-class exam, organized during Session 12 (to be detailed during Session 8). Participation (20%): participation in class discussions and through the News review exercise (to be detailed during Session 1).

PART I. DEFINING ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Session 1. Introduction In this introductory session, details will be given about the organization of the seminar and the requirements for the various assessments. We will then start our exploration of the analytic and practical framework of the environmental justice movement. Additional (no mandatory reading for this session): • D. Schlosberg, Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature, Oxford University Press, 2007, pp. 3-32. Session 2. Origins of the environmental justice movement In this session, we will examine the origins of the environmental justice movement in the United States through an exploration of landmark cases and mobilizations in the 1980s and a discussion of its linkage with the civil rights movement. Mandatory: • R. Bullard, The Quest for Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution. Counterpoint, 2005, pp. 32-61. Additional: • D. Taylor, Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility. New York University Press, 2014, pp. 47-68. • L.W. Cole and S.R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement. New York University Press, 2001, pp. 19-33 and 54- 79. Session 3. New territories of environmental justice In this session, we reflect on the progressive transformation of the environmental justice movement to include other preoccupations and reflections. This will notably include discussion of cases in developing countries and issues related to North/South relationships. Mandatory: • J. Martínez-Alier et al., “Is there a global environmental justice movement?” The Journal of Peasant Studies (2016). Additional: • R. Guha, “The Paradox of Global Environmentalism.” Current History, Vol. 99(640), 2000. PART II. EXPLORING ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICES Session 4. “Natural” disasters: the politics of Hurricane Katrina Mandatory: • ME. Dyson. Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. Civitas Press, 2007, pp. ix-xii and 1-33. Additional: • Rousseau Letter To Voltaire (1756). • S. Lee, When the Levees Broke, 2006 (255 min.). Session 5. Nuclear exposures: uranium extraction in Navajo Nation Mandatory: • D.E. Powell, “Toward Transition? Challenging Extractivism and the Politics of the Inevitable on the Navajo Nation.” In Race and Rurality in the Global Economy. 2015 (215-224 only). Additional: • D.E. Powell, Landscapes of Power: Politics of Energy in the Navajo Nation. Duke University Press, 2018. (preface and chapter 1). Session 6. Nature conservation as exclusion: confronting “green colonialism” Mandatory: • R.P. Neumann, "Nature-State-Territory: Toward a critical theorization of conservation enclosures." In R. Peet and M. Watts (eds.), Liberation Ecologies. Routledge, 2004. Additional: • D.E. Taylor; The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection. Duke University Press: 2016, pp. 32-50. • D.K. Davis, “Desert ‘wastes' of the Maghreb: desertification narratives in French colonial environmental history of North Africa." Cultural Geography 11(4), 2004. Session 7. Sacred feathers: eagle protection and Native American rights Mandatory: • A.M. De Meo, “Access to Eagles and Eagle Parts: Environmental Protection v. Native American Free Exercise of Religion.” Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, 22(3), 1995. Additional: • D. Gilio-Whitaker, As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock. Beacon Press, 2020. Session 8. Toxic communities in France: the case of “traveler communities” Mandatory: • L. Foisneau, “Dedicated Caravan Sites for French Gens du Voyage: Public Health Policy or Construction of Health and Environmental Inequalities?” Health and Human Rights Jounal, Vol. 19(2), 2017: 89-98. Additional: • W. Acker. Où sont les "gens du voyage" ? inventaire critique des aires d'accueil. Éditions du Commun, 2021. Session 9. The politics of pesticide: Chlordecone in the French Caribbean Mandatory: • M. Ferdinand, “Subnational climate justice for the French Outre-mer: Postcolonial politics and geography of an epistemic shift.”, Island Studies Journal, 2018. Additional: • M. Ferdinand, Decolonial Ecology: Thinking from the Caribbean World. Wiley, 2022. Session 10. Postcolonial fallout: consequences of radioactive exposure in the French Polynesia Mandatory: • S. Philippe et al., “Radiation Exposures and Compensation of Victims of French Atmospheric Nuclear Tests in Polynesia.” Science and Global Security, 30(2), 2022: 62-94. Additional: • M. Smith-Norris, Domination and Resistance: The United States and the Marshall Islands during the Cold War. University of Hawai'i Press, 2016. Session 11. Exporting injustices: the global waste trade and the Trafigura case Mandatory: • J. Clapp, “Hazard Transfer From Rich to Poor Countries.” In Toxic Exports: The Transfer of Hazardous Wastes from Rich to Poor Countries. Cornell University Press, 2001: 1-20. Additional: • Amnesty International and Greenpeace Netherlands, The Toxic Truth, 2012. • T. Yang, “Of Borders, Fences, and Global Environmentalism.” Chicago Journal of International Law, Vol. 4(1), 2003: 237-244. Session 12. In-class exam