Justice-based approaches to environmental harm - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 23

• at what point does 'risk' or 'harm' occur to an extent warranting
action or intervention?
• what is the origin and fate of the harm?
• what are the histories of 'risk' or 'harm'?
• why and how did the harm occur?
• who are the perpetrators and why and how did they do it?
• is responsibility for responding in the hands of those harming, or
of those being harmed?
• who has responsibility for proof?
• what is acceptable as evidence?
• what were the triggers for the harm?
• what were the immediate signs of 'danger' or 'harm'?
• what strategies were invoked to diminish or mitigate the harm?
• how do we stop the harm from occurring again?
Answers to these questions frequently vary depending upon stakeholder
perspective. Consider, for example, the variety of players who might be
associated with disputes over toxic landfill or stockpiled mining tailings
in a residential community adjacent to a mining operation. Because
victimisation is a contestable social process that involves a wide range
of individuals it is important to identify stakeholders and their specific
interests (for example, workers and jobs; residents and amenity). It is
useful to explore the diverse and often conflicting discourses around
'risk' and 'harm' by different stakeholders (for example, medical
practitioners' consciousness of risk in relation to the health department;
loss of livelihood in the case of farmers; limited perception that there
is a problem from local miners).
Moreover, the marshalling of particular types of evidence is typically
driven by very specific criteria requirements (and forms of evidence)
dictated by institutions and groups. Who says what and why is linked
to specific social purposes and interests, and particular discursive
domains. The language of crime and victimisation is reflective of
how an environmental problem (in this case toxic landfill) is socially
constructed depending upon how it is being considered and by whom,
and who is potentially affected and how.
Just as environmental victimisation differs concretely in its
manifestation, so too do victim responses vary greatly. In broad terms,
different events, in different countries, give rise to responses that vary
from the passive to the confrontational, and from those involving
collaborative activities aimed at redress to those based upon violence
(Williams, 1996).