- Who writes history? (Hermeneutics vs. Objectivity)
- Environmental History
- White affluent perspective
- Diverse and differing realities
- Inclusive Justice/ Structural and Systematic Change
- Pollution
- Gentrification and Housing/Living Situations
Environment is the entirety of circumstances surrounding an individual or group. This includes external physical settings as well as social and cultural conditions. However, this concept has been contextually limited when applied to the environmental movement. The environment is principally associated with the “natural” world. This creates an exclusive movement which inevitably will hinder constructive transformation. The political landscape of this nation must be renovated in order to achieve an effective environmental movement that infiltrates everyone (Bullard, 1994). An injustice to one is an injustice to all. Concepts cannot be restrictive. Understandings and perspectives of the term environment need to expand in order to create a successful, sustainable environmental movement.
A biased viewpoint of history by the dominant culture, ethnicity, and gender produces the exclusive atmosphere of the environmental movement. History is established and recorded from socially constructed knowledge. This creates a public culture that is not equally representative of society.
However, a neutral interpretation and documentation of the world is impractical. Countless combinations of possible ingredients that compose environments create infinite realities; therefore, reality is relative—a cultural, social, and political construction. Society needs to work towards multiple systems of representation, polyphony of voices. Furthermore, all researchers and historians can overtly acknowledge their biases, utilizing hermeneutics. Objectivism is ironically fiction, because the researcher bases his or her conclusions on his or her subjective observations.
A geographical representation of physical environment is a ‘science’ called topography. But topography is more of a ‘practice’ than a ‘science.’ Cultural, social, and political powers are profoundly connected to topographical understandings (Duncan and Ley, 1993). Landscapes carry historical significance, building community and culture (Duncan and Ley, 1993). The Oxford Universal Dictionary defines survey as “the act of looking at something as a whole, or from commanding position.” This illustrates the influence of observation which is the tool that generates topography. It is not a rational and universal ‘science,’ but in fact, “it is usually a white, male, elite, Eurocentric observer who orders the world that he looks upon, one whose observations and classifications provide the rules of representation, of inclusion and exclusion, of precedent and antecedent, or inferior and superior” (Duncan and Ley, 1993).
Racial divisions produce favorable conditions for warped cultural representations. Traditionally, a destructive white understanding of black culture has been strengthened by the media, justified by social sciences, and assimilated by the state. Unequal life opportunities detained within the inner city reputed the ‘the black ghetto’ (Duncan and Ley, 1993). One needs to remember to ask how this reality was created.
In addition to distorted representations, certain narrations are completely forgotten, such as the history of Native Americans. Therefore, the indigenous perspectives of nature are omitted from mainstream histories of environmentalism. The acceptance of the common law private property system from England marks the historical commencement of legal management of land. This structure led to the exploitation of natural resources due to the unchecked land development in the U.S. Land became a commodity (Brooks, Jones, and Virginia, 2002). The division between humans and their natural environment was fortified.
The emerging industrialization in the eighteenth century saw wealth in nature. In 1800, approximately 35 percent of the world’s land surface was controlled by Europe and by 1878 that had risen to 67 percent (Douglas, Hugget, and Robinson, 1996). This restructuring of whole economic, political, and social systems through conquering and controlling of other people’s land and goods inevitably brought detrimental changes. Colonization made the industrial era more destructive of the environment through deculturization and expansion of capitalism. Production, investment, and profit drove the Europeans, who mercilessly stole power and rights from indigenous people.
Colonized frontiers became zones of deculturization. Every individual involved was in a state of transition, including the Europeans. The Europeans themselves were unstable in the absence of their home. They were removed from the stability of their controlled government, economy, borders, and their culture. They had claimed their rights to the land by physical domination, but they lacked the spiritual and social connection to the land.
One example is in Mara , Tanzania , where land rights and ownership were dependent on the past, ancestors, and rituals. The spirit of land equated the spirits of the ancestors (Bender Shetler, 2002). This is a prominent difference in industrial societies—settlers are removed from their own land so they do not care as much about the future of the land. Much of the new colonized land was still an ‘open’ frontier, without stable borders and territories. Newcomers in the colonies roamed freely in and out of the newly conquered lands—trading, hunting, and plundering without a conscience (Douglas, Hugget, and Robinson, 1996) . They were focused on the gains and mindless of their impacts. The endorsement of democracy and individualism was wrapped up in the frontier.
Settlers colonized persons as objects; they were instruments of production. Minds cultivated the belief that the exploiters were the superior and the exploited the inferior. Images of insider and outsider were established. Racial differences became by-products of emerging class relations. These hierarchies of class and race allowed capitalism to expand through finding excess labor and paying low wages. Deculturization brought the ‘othering’ of vast numbers of people through the exploitation of the colonized land to create industrialization.
Colonization set the trend for environmental destruction. Taxes were tied to land to raise revenue. This forced farmers to use extractive methods of cultivation that were destructive to the delicate semi-arid environment (Atkins, Simmons, and Roberts, 1998). Deforestation exploded. One prominent example is the scrupulous clearing in Brazil by European colonizers from the seventeenth century onward. First, the objective was the prized hardwoods, then the clearing of land for cultivation of export cash crops. This plundering continued with consequences. Mineral extraction resulted in widespread soil erosion and exhaustion. Further destruction clearing arose from the creation of cattle ranches or logging for corporate enterprises (Atkins, Simmons, and Roberts, 1998). Colonialism has been primarily responsible for plant dispersal. Foreign plants will inevitably alter the land—through dominating the native species, altering soil, requiring innovation and adaptation for production. The marginal lands received the most alternations. Solutions were sought to expand cultivation and settlement on these lands. This includes the development of irrigation (Atkins, Simmons, and Roberts, 1998). With new plants, also came new pests, which led to modern pesticides. European diseases were introduced. “The most compelling fact of life in the Virginia colony….was death, caused largely by the colonists’ ignorance of food procurement techniques” (Douglas, Hugget, and Robinson, 1996).
Consequences of these imbalanced relationships are unmistakably evident. American historians are copiously aware of the rapid and drastic change but haven’t yet thought of it ecologically. An ecosystem regime wasn’t developed until around 1970, when the first Earth Day took place. Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring, is accredited for establishing a relationship between ecology and public policy (Brooks, Jones, and Virginia, 2002). Carson instigated the transformation of environmentalism from an elitist to a popular movement, but one needs to remember that the audience still remains restricted (Crosby, 1995).
Environmental historians are typically conservationists, those with environmental interests. The major environmental visionaries of course hold an appreciation for nature, which is a privileged perspective. Even though the movement may not have received significant federal aid, scholars established their own institution to provide mutual support (Crosby, 1995).
The inquiry of privilege had not been associated with the relationship between environment and labor. Throughout the 1980s, environmentalists were often blamed for the loss of industrial jobs—conflict formed between the environmental community and struggling organized labor. Capitalist goals that push for globalization were never held properly responsible, since those in power uphold these objectives (Routhman, 2002).
Environmental laws that have developed only reinforce the stratification of people. Those in power have been tainted by the biased, dominant perspective. They impose regulations that contribute to their gains. Decision-making models represent top-down relationships. Due to geographical location, race and class, certain individuals, groups, and communities receive less protection against environmental problems, such as pollution, that pose public health threats. Risks are localized, while benefits are generalized (Bullard, 1994). Policies administer, control, and allocate risks. Ultimately, the oppressed support the affluent. The hierarchy cannot hold up without a solid foundation. “The current system provides greater benefits and protection for middle and upper-income whites shifting costs to the poor and people of color” (Bullard, 1994).
The relationship between humans and their surroundings is significant in the social order. Identity originates from place, how one views their place, and from how others view their place. The landscape is a way of seeing the world; it is a physical record of history.
There are distinct sentiments that materialize in reference to a rural or urban environment. In the environmental field, it is essential to ask what meanings are attached to the inner city. These settings need to be valued and defined in an appropriate manner that is compatible with the environmental movement.
Vocabulary of ‘wilderness’ and ‘frontier’ complement each other. History has established settlement of the American west as positive, conquering the undeveloped brings prosperity. The privileged reduce the current inhabitants to nothing more than an aspect of the problem, thus mitigating certain urban redevelopment (Duncan and Ley, 1993). Advertisements and city plans are directed toward a specific economic, political, and social group, creating exclusive goals (Duncan and Ley, 1993). Society embraces certain imagery of landscapes as an improvement. These values are enforced upon all, but originate from the elite and affluent.
Environmental campaigns have predominantly been grass-roots efforts. Intentions are valid, but priorities within the conventional movement have been skewed. The preservation of wildlife and wilderness embody these exclusive campaigns. The mainstream movement symbolizes “white, bourgeois values, values that are foreign to African Americans, Latinos Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans (Bullard, 1994). However, lower-class and people of color presumably are more concerned with pollution, since their communities are the most affected. Nature is favored over society and individual’s experience within nature is valued over the collective experience. It is simply ignorant to say that these conservation objectives are more significant than the survival of people and the communities which they inhabit. Daily basic needs may dominant concerns of people of lower-class. They may not have the privilege of worrying about the preservation of “nature.” Diversity is smothered, uplifting and embracing the governing cultural values. Therefore, poor minority people tend to consider their concerns are not “environmental. This fallacy compartmentalizes people’s problems. “Thus, the sickening, poisonous odors emitted by landfills and sewage plants are considered matters of public health or government accountability, while workplace contamination is a labor issue, and lead-based paint in public housing projects is a landlord-tenant problem” (Bullard, 1994).
Several rationales exist why people of color might feel isolated. Interactions with nature that establish inspiration are constrained. Inaccessibility, cost, and residence requirements for admission are a few discriminations that restrict use of parks and recreational areas. Minimal economic power and control over natural resource exploitation eliminates their responsibility of harm done to the environment by industrial development.
Economic and political disadvantages are a part of the unjust structure of society. A systemic change is necessary to defeat biases from the dominant perspective that penetrate society, effecting public policy.
“The environmental groups are not responding to try to right the wrongs and change
the motivation of industry, which is greed and profit at the expense of everyone.
When you start dealing with that issue, you’re dealing with structural change in terms
of how decisions are made and who benefits from them. The agenda of the
environmental movement seems to be focused on getting rid of a particular chemical.
This is not enough, because they’ll replace it with something else that’s worse…” (Bullard, 1994)
Generally, people of color are more economically impoverished and vulnerable than whites. This makes communities of color prime targets for potentially harmful technologies. Industries and policy-makers are aware that low-income and working-class people with a limited education cannot as effectively voice their opposition to activities as communities of middle or upper-income people. For both minority and majority groups, poverty creates a grave obstacle that averts people from reaching their optimum function in society. Limited education and skills will perpetuate the cycle of poverty, leaving those behind who do not have the opportunity to participate in the regular economy (Anderson, 1992). The emerging popularity of NIMBY (not in my backyard) groups are posing another significant threat (Bullard, 1994). The capability to address this concern inherently classifies any participant as privileged.
Private corporations have a strong hold on the attitudes and actions of public officials (Allen, 1971). Furthermore, commercial development brings hope of job creation and other economic benefits to neighbors, so those already at an economic disadvantage are likely to tolerate any pollution-generating development, even though it is detrimental to their health, community, and culture (Bullard, 1994).
In order to alleviate the disproportionate suffering from environmental problems, the fight for environmental justice needs to be placed in a broader context—an expansion of the civil rights and human rights struggle by people of color. The struggle against racism and poverty, the effort to preserve and improve the environment, and the undeniable need to alter social institutions from class divisions and environmental exhaustion to social unity and global sustainability all structure the environmental justice movement.
Martin Luther King, Jr. contributed to this notion of collectively fighting, accumulating power and strength through compiling the various injustices that minorities face. In 1968, when King was assassinated, he was on his way to Memphis on an environmental justice assignment—going to stand in solidarity with African American garbage workers striking due to poor working conditions and pay.
Houston , Texas has an extensive history of placing solid waste facilities in minority communities. Although African Americans only comprised 28 percent of the population, from the early 1920s to the late 1970s “all five of the city-owned sanitary landfills and six of its eight municipal solid waste incinerators were located in mostly African American neighborhoods.” In 1979, the Houston Northwood Manor community filed the first lawsuit against the Browning-Ferris Industries, charging environmental discrimination. Despite the vast evidence, they lost the lawsuit (Bullard, 1994).
The location of abandoned waste sites largely depends on race, more than income or property values. A study done by the Commission for Racial Justice, found that
“(1) three out of five African Americans live in communities with abandoned
toxic waste sites; (2) 60 percent (15 million) African Americans live in communities
with one of more abandoned toxic waste sites; (3)three of the five largest commercial
hazardous waste landfills are located in predominantly African American or Latino
American communities and account for 40 percent of the nation’s total estimated landfill
capacity; and (4) African Americans are heavily overrepresented in the population of cities
with the largest number of abandoned toxic waste sites” (Bullard, 1994)
As discussed earlier, characteristics of a landscape are means of instituting social position. Landscapes shape community and culture. Gentrifcation is one concern that illustrates this significant relationship between humans and the landscape. Generally, gentrification is characterized by new investments in urban neighborhoods attended with more affluent households moving. Therefore, gentrification is a cultural method that substantiates a change in the aperture of social structure (Duncan and Ley, 1993).
Gentrification presents a multifaceted question. No clear thesis is ever stated due to an ambiguous position that is sustained throughout the article. New investments in urban neighborhoods attended with more affluent households moving in characterizes gentrification. The prominent concern, particularly for city planners and policy makers, is the source of gentrification. Is it the origin of harm or it is possibly a side effect of an extensive societal movement? Is gentrification driven by income distribution shifts or just by preference changes of the wealthy? Regardless of this uncertainty, gentrification will usually cause a land price appreciation. This change is always detrimental by lowering the living standards for the original inhabitants, generally lower-income, and minority neighborhoods (Vidgor, 2002).
The environmental justice movement needs to expand beyond grass-roots campaigns in order to begin addressing the environmental inequities. Inner city neighbors, barrios, reservations, and rural poverty areas must be given equal protection. A new national policy framework is required. However, establishing inclusive, universal language and concepts is the first criteria to ensure that environmental laws, regulations, and policies are uniformly applied across the board. We must not “single out the environment as necessarily having a special place above all other issues; rather, we recognize that issues of toxic contamination fit within an agenda which can include employment, education, housing, health care, and other issues of social, racial, and economic justice” (Bullard, 1994).
Allen, Anne. Mar. (1971). Taxonomy of Higher Education Barriers and Interventions for Minority and Low-Income Students. Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3.
Anderson, Elijah (1992). Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community. Chicago : University of Chicago .
Brooks, Richard O., Jones, Ross, and Virginia, Ross A (2002). Law and Ecology: The Rise of the Ecosystem Regime. Burlington : Ashgate Publishing.
Bullard, Robert D (1994). Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color. San Francisco : Sierra Club Books.
Crosby, Alfred W. Oct. 1995. The Past and Present of Environmental History. The American Historical Review.
Duncan , James and Ley, David (1993). Place/Culture/Representation. London : Routledge.
Douglas, Ian, Huggett, Richar, and Robinson, Mike (1996). Companion Encyclopedia of Geography: the environment and humankind. London : Routledge.
Bender Shetler, Jane. Class Lecture, 13 February 2002 .
Atkins, Peter, Simmons, Ian and Brain Roberts (1998). People, Land, and Time: An Historical Introduction to the Relations Between Landscape, Culture, and Environment. London : Arnold .
Routhman, Hal. Sept. 2002. Conceptualizing the Real: Environmental History and American Studies. American Quarterly, Vol. 54.
Vidgor, Jacob L. 2002. Does Gentrification Harm the Poor? Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs