Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
economic and political circumstances at the local and community level—
an acceptance of commodifi cation in principle seemed to be widespread
in some communities. However, as further explored in Vermeylen 2008,
the acceptance of commodifi cation should not only be translated into an
economic compensation. As the following quote illustrates, regardless of
its commercial status, the symbolic and cultural value of Hoodia should
never be underestimated:
When you eat the Hoodia you can feel the supernatural powers coming from
above. When you smell the Hoodia and taste it on your tongue you will feel how
it stimulates you, how it controls your hunger, how it gives you power and
energy. . . . When you eat the Hoodia in the veld you can enjoy the powers of
the plant. When I notice some symptoms of cancer, I eat the plant, I talk to the
plant; the plant gives me new power and energy and in return I can give all the
bad energy back to the plant; the plant knows how to deal with these bad ener-
gies. . . . You can not experience these powers and energies of the Hoodia in
pills; we gave the power away for money. Everything we had here is gone because
we traded the supernatural powers for money, for simple things . . . but the
Hoodia was good for us.
5
This indicates that the process of commodifi cation is challenged by
some San as resulting in the Hoodia losing its “life force” and power to
“heal.” The commodifi cation of the Hoodia is seen as another example
in the historical process of marginalizing the San's culture and way of
life—a process that closely ties together the injustice of misrecognition
with the distributive outcomes that are then imagined and achieved. The
benefi t-sharing agreements only compensate the economic value of a
commodity because this is the only value that is given recognition. One
of the biggest challenges faced with regard to distributive justice is there-
fore to fi nd ways to both utilize and compensate for the cultural values
that indigenous peoples like the San attribute to what others view only
in commercial and monetary terms.
Conclusion
The case of the San and the Hoodia has clearly demonstrated both the
situated process needed to make sense of what environmental justice
constitutes, and the multiple notions of justice that need to be brought
to bear. While we can fi nd clear evidence for Schlosberg's argument that
environmental justice is multivalent, that it incorporates interrelated
notions of justice as distribution, procedure, and recognition, we also
have to closely interrogate assumptions as to what constitutes value,
community, fair process, and fair outcome in applying each of these forms
