عنوان

The Lost War and battles of environmental justice :

Number

TLets699549

Title Proper

The Lost War and battles of environmental justice :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Stern, Daniel Alexis Wolfe

Title Proper by Another Author

the emergence of environmental justice in England : political potential in a post-political context

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Durham University

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2016

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

Durham University

Text preceding or following the note

2016

Text of Note

Environmental Justice (EJ) is the name of both a concept and a social movement that originated in the United States (US) in the early 1980s. Broadly, EJ describes attempts to ameliorate and rectify an intimate relationship between environmental and social inequality, where environmental ills are disproportionately suffered by certain members of society, usually the marginalised and the poor. EJ is shown to be a discourse that is capable of possessing both democratic and political potential, however, in its various manifestations, this potential is frequently not realised. This study engages in recent critiques of the nature of politics itself and the argument that the current context has become post-political, exploring the emergence of the concept of EJ and nature of environmental injustice (EiJ) within this context in England. To do this, this research examines the emergence and development of EJ in English civil society through the account of key actors, and the Non-Government Organisation of Friends of the Earth (FoE) in particular, and investigates a case study of a mobilisation against a stereotypical instance of EiJ. The concept of EJ is seen to emerge at an elite civil society level around the turn of the millennium, most noticeably with FoE, where in a discourse coalition, a version of EJ was produced that aimed to overcome a technocratic deficit within sustainable development. At the grassroots level, however, EJ discourses and the explicit EJ frame has little presence, and a number of barriers relating to both the nature of the organisations trying to push the concept, and the nature of the EiJs themselves are explored. The analysis of the case study provides valuable insight into the types of discourses that are present in an EiJ mobilisation against an incinerator and the way in which these discourses play out in a post-political context.

Stern, Daniel Alexis Wolfe

Durham University

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y