Critical Environmental Justice in Contemporary Scholarship and Movements: Consensus and Plurality of the Discourse

Critical environmental justice (EJ) scholars, focused on the role of race, gender, capital, colonization, and power as key to environmental injustice, argue that EJ thinking and practice should move past the traditional focus on liberal and state-based remedies. There are many scholarly accounts of critical EJ, but no systematic examinations of such views in practice. This paper reports on a survey of the meanings of EJ circulating among activists and scholars globally. Using Q method, we found strong agreement with this more critical framing of EJ – representing an important development of EJ as a global discourse. At the same time, we found important differences in terms of knowledge and standpoints, participation, the liberal state, EJ praxis, and the politics of disruption. We argue that this heterogeneity of perspectives, within a generally critical approach, reflects the context-specificity, evolution and expanding reach of EJ and reflects the field’s overarching ethos of plurality.

聚焦种族、性别、资本、殖民主义与权力为环境不公核心成因的批判环境正义（Critical Environmental Justice，EJ）学者主张，环境正义的理念与实践应当跳出传统上对自由派与国家本位救济手段的关注。学界虽已积累了诸多关于批判环境正义的学术论述，但尚未有针对这类观点在实践中应用的系统性检视。本文报告了一项针对全球活动人士与学者所传播的环境正义内涵的调查研究。通过Q方法，我们发现研究群体对这种更具批判性的环境正义框架存在高度共识，这标志着环境正义作为一种全球话语的重要发展。与此同时，我们在认知立场、参与维度、自由派国家角色、环境正义实践以及抗争政治等方面均发现了显著差异。我们认为，在整体秉持批判研究路径的前提下，这种视角的异质性既反映了环境正义的情境特异性、演化历程与影响范围的扩张，也契合该领域多元共生的核心精神。