This paper outlines the main differences between ecocentric and anthropocentric positions in regard to justice, exploring university students’ perceptions of the concepts of social and ecological justice and reflecting on how values assigned to humans and the environment are balanced and contested. Putting justice for people before the environment is based on evidence that biological conservation can disadvantage local communities; the idea that the very notion of justice is framed by humans and therefore remains a human issue; and the assumption that humans have a higher value than other species. Putting justice for the environment first assumes that only an ecocentric ethic guarantees protection of all species, including humans, and therefore ecological justice already guarantees social justice. This research shows that many students emphasize the convergence of social and ecological justice where human and environmental interests correspond. While not wishing to diminish the underlying assumptions of either ethical orientation, the common “enemy” of both vulnerable communities and nonhuman nature, as identified by students, is an ideology of economic growth and industrial development. http://dx.doi.org/10.13135/2384-8677/2688 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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This critical, literature-review based research project, inspired by the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, examines the limitations and possibilities of restorative justice in a time of war. Any armed conflict creates and amplifies the need for extreme militarisation and securitisation, accompanied by belligerent rhetoric. Thus, for restorative justice scholars and practitioners, the outbreak of war challenges the applicability of restorative justice values and practices, as bipolar interpretations of events, conflicts, and human suffering displace more balanced views. The purpose of our research is to critically discuss the applicability of restorative justice in times of war and in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War in particular. Our motivation to focus on this specific war and to examine the (im)possibilities of restorative justice from Eurocentric perspective stems from three observations: (1) In the last 20 years restorative justice was continuously promoted in Europe as a new “culture” of justice; (2) The Russo-Ukrainian War currently takes place on the European continent and impacts the European security architecture more than that of other world regions; (3) This war has a particular meaning to the world (e.g., a violent clash between the (former) Cold War superpowers, an element of surprise, the shattered myth of overwhelming Russian military might, the nuclear threat coupled with a global energy crisis etc.).
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The transition towards sustainable and just food systems is ongoing, illustrated by an increasing number of initiatives that try to address unsustainable practices and social injustices. Insights are needed into what a just transition entails in order to critically engage with plural and potentially conflicting justice conceptualisations. Researchers play an active role in food system transitions, but it is unclear which conceptualisations and principles of justice they enact when writing about food system initiatives. To fill this gap this paper investigates: Which conceptualisations of justice emerge from the literature related to food system initiatives and which principles of justice do authors use? We developed an initial framework for which we drew on political philosophy literature. We then undertook an extensive review of the food system transitions literature using this framework and were able to identify a range of recognition, distributive, and procedural justice conceptualisations and associated principles of justice. Recognised as subjects of justice were those with a particular role in the food system, people who are marginalised, Indigenous communities, those with experiences of negative consequences of the food system, future generations, and nonhumans. The identified conceptualisations and the developed framework can be used by those involved in food system initiatives to reflect on how they conceptualise justice. We challenge them to be more explicit about who they do and do not recognise as subjects of justice and which principles of justice they use. Such clarity is needed to reflexively enact a just transition towards sustainable and just food systems.
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As many in society work towards global sustainability, we live at a time when efforts to conserve biodiversity and geodiversity, and combat climate change, take place simultaneously with land grabs by large corporations, food insecurity, and human displacement through an ecological breakdown. Many of us seek to reconcile more-than-human nature and human nature and to balance intrinsic value and the current human expansion phase. These and other challenges will fundamentally alter the way people, depending on their worldview and ethics, relate to communities and the environment. While environmental problems cannot be seen as purely ecological because they always involve people, who bring to the environmental table their different assumptions about nature and culture, so are social problems connected to environmental constraints. Similarly, social problems are fundamentally connected to environmental constraints and ecological health. While nonhumans cannot bring anything to this negotiating table, the distinct perspective of this book is that there is a need to consider the role of nonhumans as equally important stakeholders – albeit without a voice. This book develops an argument that human-environmental relationships are set within ecological reality and ecological ethics. Rather than being mutually constitutive processes, humans have obligate dependence on nature, not vice versa. We argue that over-arching ecological ethics is necessary to underpin conservation in the long-term. This requires a holistic ‘justice’, where both social justice (for humans) and ecological justice (for nature) are entwined. However, given the escalating environmental crisis and major extinction event we face, and given that social justice has been dominant for centuries, we believe that in many cases ecojustice will need to be prioritized. This will depend on the situation, but we feel that under ecological ethics, holistic ethics cannot always allow social justice to dominate, hence there is an urgent need to prioritize ecojustice today. Accordingly, this book will deal with questions of both social and ecological justice, putting forth the idea that justice for both humans and nonhumans and their habitats can only be achieved simultaneously. This book will explore the following questions: What is the relationship between social and ecological justice? How might we integrate social and ecological justice? What are the major barriers to achieving this simultaneous justice? How can these barriers be overcome? What are the major debates in conservation relevant to this? doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-13905-6 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Attending to the emergent debates on tourism and (in)justice, this study critically examines the role of the Walled Off Hotel, Banksy's tourism-artistic intervention in Palestine, in constructing justice. Utilising the evidence from 15 in-depth empathetic interviews, it explores the ways in which local residents make sense of the Hotel and how they frame and experience (in)justices. While demonstrating how these interpretations are entangled with the broader geographic, social and political context, the paper discusses how different forms of justice circulate in this particular context. The new knowledge generated contributes to our further understanding of achieving justice-through-tourism as an affirmative praxis, while addressing the broader humanitarian, earthly, or otherwise existential crisis.
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This article will briefly discuss the implications of the recognition of ecological justice in relation to environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). It is argued that the present conception of environment taught through EE and ESD negates the subjectivity of non-human species and ignores the ethical imperatives of ecological justice. Evocating environmental ethics, major directions integrating ecological justice into EE and ESD are proposed. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in "Chinese Journal of Population, Resources and Environment" on 09/23/14, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/10042857.2014.933498 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Indigenous rights’ relationship to ecological justice in Amazonia has not been explicitly explored in the literature. As social scientists rarely talk about violence against non-humans, this case study of conservation in Amazonia will explore this new area of concern. Ethical inquiries in conservation also engage with the manifold ways through which human and nonhuman lives are entangled and emplaced within wider ecological relationships, converging in the notion of environmental justice, which often fails to account for overt violence or exploitation of non-humans. Reflecting on this omission, this chapter discusses the applicability of engaged social science and conservation to habitat destruction in Amazonia, and broader contexts involving violence against non-humans. The questions addressed in this chapter are: is the idea of ecological justice sufficiently supported in conservation debate, and more practical Amazonian contexts? Can advocacy of inherent rights be applied to the case of non-humans? Can indigenous communities still be considered 'traditional' considering population growth and increased consumptive practices? Concluding that the existing forms of justice are inadequate in dealing with the massive scale of non-human abuse, this chapter provides directions for conservation that engage with deep ecology and ecological justice in the Amazonian context. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-29153-2 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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This article will discuss liberal arts college students’ perceptions of environmental and ecological justice. Complementing emerging studies of education that tackles human-environment relationships, this article discusses student assignments related to the debates in social/environmental and ecological justice written as part of the course “Environment and Development”. Student assignments are analyzed with the aim of gauging their view on the environment and society, identifying reasoning patterns about anthropocentrism-ecocentrism continuum. In conclusion, this article distills recommendations for the design of a university curriculum that can facilitate the development of a non-anthropocentric worldview. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0973408219840567 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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The recent shift towards the interdisciplinary study of the human-environment relationship is largely driven by environmental justice debates. This article will distinguish four types of environmental justice and link them to questions of neoliberalism and altruism. First, environmental justice seeks to redress inequitable distribution of environmental burdens to vulnerable groups and economically disadvantaged populations. Second, environmental justice highlights the developed and developing countries’ unequal exposure to environmental risks and benefits. Third, temporal environmental justice refers to the issues associated with intergenerational justice or concern for future generations of humans. In all three cases, environmental justice entails equitable distribution of burdens and benefits to different nations or social groups. By contrast, ecological justice involves biospheric egalitarianism or justice between species. This article will focus on ecological justice since the rights of non-human species lags behind social justice debates and discuss the implications of including biospheric egalitarianism in environmental justice debates. https://doi.org/10.1186/2194-6434-1-8 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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This is a review of the literature on community energy. We analyze more than 250 studies that appeared in the academic literature in the period 1997-2018. We investigate the timing regarding the appearance of these studies, the geographical orientation of the research, and the journals in which the articles appeared. We also analyse the keywords used to identify the research. Further, we relate the articles to the theoretical perspectives employed. We also analyse keywords used by the authors in relation to the particular approaches employed and reflect on the country specifics of the case studies. We find that the majority of studies on community energy did appear in the last couple of years. Especially the UK, US, Germany and the Netherlands are being investigated. Energy Policy published most of the studies. Different theoretical perspectives study community energy, especially Governance, Sociology, Economics, Planning, Technology, and Transition. We conclude that the study of community energy is still in its infancy as there is little commonality in the terminology and key concepts used. Studying community energy requires further improvement in order to better integrate the different theoretical perspectives and to ground policy decisions.
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