What is Critical Environmental Justice?

Human societies have always been deeply interconnected with our ecosystems, but today those relationships witness greater frictions, tensions, and harms than ever before. These dynamics mirror those experienced by marginalized communities across the planet, but they also provide a foundation for transformative thinking and action to address these challenges. In this updated edition of his innovative contribution, Pellow introduces a new framework for critically analyzing environmental justice scholarship and activism, extending the field's focus to topics including policing, incarceration, the Israel/Palestine struggle, and the Black Lives Matter movement. In doing so, he reveals that ecological violence is first and foremost a form of social violence, driven and legitimated by social structures and discourses. He enriches this radical approach to environmental justice by drawing on indigenous studies, the Black Radical Tradition, disability studies, queer and transgender studies, and multi-species justice, among other perspectives. Those familiar with the discipline will find themselves invited to think about the subject in entirely new ways. This book is a vital resource for students, scholars, and policy-makers interested in innovative approaches to one of the greatest challenges facing humanity and the planet.

1. Critical Environmental Justice Studies 2. Black Lives Matter as an Environmental Justice Challenge 3. Prisons and the Fight for Environmental Justice 4. The Israel/Palestine Struggle as an Environmental Justice Conflict Conclusion