Defining Environmental Justice

Reviews / Votes

Schlosberg's definition of environmental justice is theoretically grounded and empirically informed, resulting in a thorough and nuanced account... [T]he book is essential reading for researchers and students working on environmental justice, and will be of interest to justice theorists more generally... Schlosberg's account of environmental justice...is definitive. * Perspectives on Politics * David Schlosberg's Defining Environmental Justice is political theory at its best, providing an invaluable review of the contemporary literature, subverting traditional political categories and distinctions, and suggesting new directions for politics and policy.... Defining Environmental Justice breaks important ground not only in advancing political theory's engagement with nature but in crafting a theoretical and political framework that draws together moral consideration for nonhuman nature with environmental justice concerns... [Schlosberg] offers a powerful critique of liberal theories of justice and their often singular focus on distribution, offering a more inclusive notion of justice that embraces recognition, capabilities, and participatory democracy. * Ethics and International Affairs * Defining Environmental Justice should be required reading for anyone interested in understanding the environmental justice movement. David Schlosberg's careful, thoughtful study makes sense of the often perplexing notion of justice at the heart of the movement. Drawing on and extending recent innovations in justice theory, he argues that the "justice" of environmental justice is best understood not as a unitary concept but as a set of multi-layered, interconnected discourses encompassing distributive issues, recognition, participation and community functioning. He further makes the provocative claim that this expansive, plural discourse of justice can usefully be applied to humans' relationship with nature itself. The result is a richly nuanced and insightful contribution to the literature on social movements, justice theory and contemporary environmentalism. * Kim Smith, Associate Professor of Political Science, Carleton College *