SCI seminar with Rebecca Pearse: Compounding barriers to environmental justice
| Dates: | 17 June 2024 |
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| Times: | 14:30 - 16:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Sustainable Consumption Institute |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Alumni, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Rebecca Pearse |
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We are delighted to announce a Sustainable Consumption Institute seminar with Rebecca Pearse on Monday 17th June from 2:30pm in room 9.041 Alliance Manchester Business School. Everyone is welcome to attend the seminar which is being held in person only.
Compounding barriers to environmental justice
Presenter: Rebecca Pearse
This paper examines how environmental justice (EJ) activists and scholars experience and think about the barriers to beneficial change. It reports findings from an international study that used Q methodology. We ask: how do activists and scholars view the barriers to realising environmental justice goals of movements? What insights from their political practice can extend contemporary theories of environmental justice? Our data reveals a broad consensus among scholars and practitioners about the forms of elite power that create injustice, particularly political and corporate corruption. Four primary categories of barriers to change were interpreted from the survey and interviews, each capturing different sites of EJ struggles and revealing distinct dimensions of environmental injustice. The first is the broadest: structural marginalisation, particularly historical and contemporary violence, which underpins the other barriers. The second is institutional obstacles, particularly weak legal and political institutions. The third is exclusionary policy processes which silence community and social justice concerns within environmental policy. And the fourth barrier to change addresses bureaucratic cultures and strategic dilemmas within the EJ movement. Together, experiences within these dimensions and sites undermine the achievements of EJ at the scales necessary for success. Overall, the results point to the multi-layered and compounding way that environmental injustice is embedded and perpetuated, highlighting that: (1) the same issues are causing environmental injustice and inhibiting practical efforts to fight that injustice; and (2) barriers to practical EJ efforts are structured and institutionalised, and compounding in distinct sites, forming a web of challenges.
Bio. This paper is presented by Beck Pearse and co-authored with Lauren Rickards, David Schlosberg, Hannah Della Bosca, Lisa de Kleyn, and Ollie Moraes.
Beck Pearse is Beck Pearse is a sociologist with a background researching the political economy of climate and energy policy, inequalities and rural issues. Beck is a co-investigator on a research project investigating the meanings of environmental justice in ‘net zero’ policymaking. She is also investigating the political economy of land and labour implications of decarbonisation.
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
9.041
Aliiance Manchester Business School
Booth Street West
