Democratic responses to environmental injustices
(Dr. Christopher C. Robinson)
The proposed work concerns democratic responses to environmental injustices from the local – toxic waste sites located near poor, underrepresented neighborhoods – to the global (climate change, etc.). In particular, the student will focus on a specific brand of democratic response called “restorative justice.” Restorative Justice has emerged as an orientation to and set of procedures for political communities that have undergone the trauma of apartheid, genocide, and/or war crimes. Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in South Africa, Argentina, Bosnia, El Salvador, and Rwanda are prime examples of restorative justice in action. The goal of these commissions is to give those victimized by inhumanity an opportunity to face the perpetrators of these crimes and testify on the effects the crimes have had on their lives and on the lives of family members. Perpetrators must face those they victimized, recount their crimes, and ask for forgiveness. Retribution is not part of the definition of justice at work here. Rather, the goal is to restore the underlying relations of trust supporting any human community and healthy human life. The REU student will select a case study to investigate local attempts to apply restorative justice to an instance of environmental injustices. Our tendency is to see environmental problem-solving as largely a scientific and technological enterprise. Implicit in notions of sustainability and restorative justice is a shared concern for what we owe future generations. This kind of moral and political thinking gives way to a deeper comprehension that justice can be achieved only by altering fundamentally the way we live, consume, and respond to the plight of others (including non-humans). While our research will begin with local applications of restorative justice to environmental crises, these applications will eventually be woven into a wider political and legal vision.
