Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
over the relative roles of race versus class as predictors of exposure to
disproportionate levels of environmental risk (e.g., Pulido 1996; Mohai
and Saha 2006, 2007). Assessments of race and socioeconomic status
associated with facility sitings remain central to the fi eld. However,
scholars have demonstrated that environmental exposures extend to a
variety of issues, such as workplace safety and subsistence lifestyles (e.g.,
Perfecto and Velasquez 1992; Pellow and Park 2002; Corburn 2005),
and that environmental inequalities can be attributed to a diverse array
of factors, including gender (Krauss 1993), disability (Charles and
Thomas 2007), and immigration status (Pellow and Park 2002), among
others.
As many scholars were expanding their understanding of environmen-
tal inequalities and coming to recognize that a broader range of subpopu-
lations are affected by deeply entrenched patterns of inequity, others were
developing increasingly robust quantitative models to examine proximity
to and the distribution of environmental hazards among the general
population. While this research originated in the United States, parallel
investigations and analyses have been conducted in Canada (Agyeman
et al. 2009; Gosine and Teelucksingh 2008), South Africa (McDonald
2002; Jacobs 2003), Latin America (Carruthers 2008), the former Soviet
Union (Agyeman and Ogneva-Himmelberger 2009), Nigeria (Agbola
and Alabi 2003), India (Williams and Mawdsley 2006), France (Laurian
2008), The Netherlands (Kruize et al. 2007), and the United Kingdom
(Stephens, Bullock, and Scott 2001; Agyeman and Evans 2004). Collec-
tively, these studies demonstrate that vulnerable groups throughout the
world are not only shouldering a disproportionate share of both environ-
mental burdens and opportunities, but also lack recognition and voice in
the many decisions that affect their lives (Schlosberg 2007; Schrader-
Frechette 2002; Young 1990, 1996).
In recent years, environmental justice scholarship has taken a new turn.
In an effort to develop more robust theories, an emerging wave of schol-
arship builds on the understanding of inequitable distribution, but takes
a cross-disciplinary perspective to explaining the roots of inequity as well
as offering potential solutions. Rather than focus on distribution and
proximity per se, these studies explore the multiple spatialities of envi-
ronmental injustice (Walker 2010; Holifi eld, Porter, and Walker 2010)
while anchoring their analyses in social theory (e.g., Pellow 2000; Sze and
London 2008), theories of the racial state (Kurtz 2010), urban political
ecology (Swyngedouw and Heynen 2003), and gender studies (Bucking-
ham and Kulcur 2010). In addition to offering a critical perspective on
