Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199286299 ISBN 13: 9780199286294

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2007

The basic task of this book is to explore what, exactly, is meant by 'justice' in definitions of environmental and ecological justice. It examines how the term is used in both self-described environmental justice movements and in theories of environmental and ecological justice. The central argument is that a theory and practice of environmental justice necessarily includes distributive conceptions of justice, but must also embrace notions of justice based in recognition, capabilities, and participation. Throughout, the goal is the development of a broad, multi-faceted, yet integrated notion of justice that can be applied to both relations regarding environmental risks in human populations and relations between human communities and non-human nature.

About the Author:

David Schlosberg is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Northern Arizona University, where he teaches political theory and environmental politics. He also teaches in the Environmental Science and Policy and the Grand Canyon Semester programs. He has had recent work supported by the National Science Foundation, and has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar and Visiting Fellow in the Social and Political Theory Program at Australian National University. His books include Environmental Justice and the New Pluralism (Oxford 1999), Green States and Social Movements (Oxford 2003, co-authored with John Dryzek, Christian Hunold, and David Downes), and Debating the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader (Oxford 1998, 2nd edition 2005, co-edited with John Dryzek).

Review:

"David Schlosber'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... "efining 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 & International Affiars