Where We Live, Work and Play: The Environmental Justice Movement and the Struggle for a New Environmentalism / Edition 1

by Patrick Novotny

Overview

Numerous studies have revealed that the poor disproportionately bear the burden of environmental problems in America today. Issues range from higher levels of poisonous wastes, carbon dioxide, and ozone, to greater than normal incidences of asthma and lead poisoning. The environmental justice movement, which has emerged in working class and low-income African American and Latino communities since the early 1990s, is an effort that is reinterpreting the definition of the environment as where we live, work, and play to connect new constituencies traditionally outside of the postwar environmental movement. Novotny documents this expanding constituency through case studies of four community groups ranging from South Central Los Angeles to Louisiana.

Environmental racism is understood as yet another type of discrimination which results in a high incidence of environmental concerns in poorer communities due to what many activists see as discriminatory land use practices, decisions by industry that intentionally locate hazardous wastes in these communities, and the uneven enforcement of environmental regulations by federal, state, and local officials. Community leaders have added environmental causes to their fight against unemployment, impoverishment, and substandard housing. This study explores various attempts to put a halt to illegal practices and to broaden public awareness of the issues involved.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275960261
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/30/2000
Series:	Praeger Series in Transformational Politics and Political Science
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.38(d)
Lexile:	1560L (what's this?)

About the Author

PATRICK NOVOTNY is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Georgia Southern University. He has published in jourbanals including The Harvard International Jourbanal of Press/Politics, Social Science Computer Review, Law Political Science, Peace and Change, Social Justice, and Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. He is currently working on a study of the history of education and civil rights in the state of Georgia during the early 1940s.

Table of Contents

From Warren County To the Environmental Justice Movement
Where We Live, Work, and Play: Framing, Political Mobilization and Environmentalism in the Environmental Justice Movement
Race, Ethnicity and the Politics of the Environmental Justice Movement
The SouthWest Organizing Project
Working Class Politics and Environmental Consciousness in the Environmental Justice Movement
The Labor/Community Strategy Center
"More Political Than Chemical": Toward a Cultural and Political Perspective of the Environmental Justice Movement
Conclusion: "The Environmental Crisis Impacts Us All but Not Equally": Language, Ideology and the Contested Narrative of the Environment in the Environmental Justice Movement
Index

Editorial Reviews

Novotny (political science, Georgia Southern University) considers discriminatory land-use practices, their relation to race and class, and the recent history of resistance to such practices. Centering the discussion on two examples from this developing movement<-->the Southwest Organizing Project and the Labor/Community Strategy Center<- ->he considers the strategies employed in specific campaigns and the theoretical concerns underlying the movement's analysis of and presentation of the relevant issues. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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