Capitalism Nature Socialism

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Decolonizing Environmental Justice Studies: a Latin
American perspective
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Journal: Capitalism Nature Socialism

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Manuscript ID RCNS-2017-0072.R1

Manuscript Type: Original Manuscript

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Keywords: decolonial theory, coloniality of justice, critical environmental justice

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URL: http:/mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rcns
Page 1 of 19 Capitalism Nature Socialism

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3 Decolonizing Environmental Justice Studies: a Latin American perspective
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7 Abstract
8 The “environment” and “justice” of environmental justice are often defined through
9 Eurocentric ways of thinking. Empirical environmental justice research, however,
10 increasingly takes place in the context of the Global South. As a result, there is a tendency to
11 transpose Western concepts and frameworks to the Global South, running the risk of being
12 ineffective and of producing additional injustices. Drawing on decolonial thought, a Latin
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American and Caribbean theoretical movement, this paper analyses the problems which arise
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15 when Western-centric concepts are used as the main organizing principles of non-Western
16 environmental justice movements. Examples include: failing to account for cases involving
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17 mutually undermining modes of life, hence presenting deliberate exposure to environmental
18 harm as a fair solution; rendering invisible the fact that “participation” may contribute to the
19 reproduction of environmental injustices, sometimes with the consent of those who are likely
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20 to be the first victims of environmental injustices; or reproducing the idea that communities in
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the Global South do not produce knowledge, that their knowledge is inferior, or only useful
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23 for empirical observation, while Western science provides for the underlying theoretical
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24 framework. We conclude by highlighting some of the principles of a decolonial

25 environmental justice.
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28 Keywords
29 Environmental justice, decolonialism, coloniality of justice, modernity, critical environmental
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30 justice studies
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Introduction
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35 Over the last three decades, environmental justice has become a rallying cry for communities and
36 social movements across the world struggling to protect their environment and ways of life against the
37 appropriation, transformation and dispossession of nature. The Environmental Justice Atlas1 provides
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38 a powerful illustration of this, listing over 2000 ongoing ecological conflicts, many of them in the
39 Global South (Temper et al. 2015). In The environmentalism of the poor, Joan Martínez Alier argued
40 that “the environmental justice movement is potentially of great importance [for the Global South],
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provided it learns to speak [...] for the majorities outside the USA” (2002, 14). “Second generation”
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43 environmental justice studies hence have taken on the challenge to broaden environmental justice
44 beyond its original political, geographical and theoretical boundaries (e.g. Schlosberg 2007; Holifield
45 et al. 2009). These works popularize an idea of environmental justice as multivalent, nourished by a
46 radical plurality of justice claims.
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48 But conceptual environmental justice work has largely remained a Western endeavour nevertheless
49 (Reed and George 2011); the “environment” and “justice” of environmental justice often defined only
50 through Eurocentric ways of thinking (Agyeman et al. 2010). Empirical environmental justice work,
51 however, increasingly takes place in the context of the Global South, as illustrated below. As a result,
52 there is a tendency to transpose Western concepts and frameworks to the Global South, running the
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risk of being ineffective at best, and of producing (environmental) injustices which run deeper and are
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more perverse than the apparent ecological conflicts referred to above, at worst.
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3 Some environmental justice colleagues have therefore called for the emergence of a critical
4 environmental justice studies, which questions the universality, framings and concepts underpinning
5 previous environmental justice scholarship (Pellow 2018; Holifield et al. 2009). Yet despite the
6 historic relation of environmental justice with racial issues, the academic pluralization of
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environmental justice and the increasing geographic focus on the Global South, there has been
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surprisingly little engagement with decolonial theory. This paper attends to this gap by critically
10 examining some of the concepts and ideas in the environmental justice literature using insights of
11 decolonial theory. This theoretical movement, introduced below, focuses on understanding how
12 Western civilization2 consolidates its power and dominance, through economical, political and
13 epistemological means.
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15 The paper starts by briefly introducing both decolonial theory and environmental justice. Drawing on
16 examples and concepts from the environmental justice literature, we then identify and discuss some of
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17 the colonial pitfalls an environmental scholar may encounter when addressing justice concerns. We
18 show that using Western-centric concepts as the main organizing principles of non-Western
19 environmental justice movements - at the expense of other, pre-existing conceptual formations -
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creates new processes of subjugation; which we gather under a new term: “coloniality of justice”. We
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22 argue that in failing to explicitly include a decolonial analysis, environmental justice scholarship not
23 only risks undermining its emancipatory power, but may also deepen some of the injustices it claims
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24 to address. We conclude by highlighting some of the principles of a decolonial environmental justice.

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Coloniality and decolonial theory
28 While the term ‘decolonial’ has been used indistinctly to refer to ideas belonging to different schools
29 of thought (e.g. postcolonial, subaltern or cultural studies), this paper analyses environmental justice
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30 through one specific approach: the ‘Modernity/coloniality-decoloniality project’ (hereafter,

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‘decolonial theory’) (see Escobar 2007). Originating in Latin America, it differentiates itself from
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other perspectives by its epistemological choices, its historical premises, and the aims it pursues.
34 Postcolonial work has largely drawn on French theory and post-structuralism (particularly on the
35 work of Derrida, Deleuze and Foucault), and tends to over-emphasize culture as a determinant for
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colonialism, hence inverting economicist tendencies of orthodox Marxism (Mignolo 2011).
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Decolonial theory, by contrast, draws on social sciences and theories produced by scholars and social
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39 movements of and in the Global South, mainly Latin America (e.g. the theology of liberation, the
40 active participatory research or the theory of dependency, Gutiérrez-Aguilar 2017). It argues that
41 theory needs to be grounded in the lived experience, thinking, places and locations of those
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42 communities that have suffered from colonialism (Dussel 2013; Mignolo 2007).
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44 Decolonial theorists establish a difference between colonization and coloniality, a term originally
45 coined by Aníbal Quijano. Coloniality refers to political and historical moments that ended with the
46 political independence of the last colonies in the 1960s, whereas the latter refers to the diversity of
47 practices that derive from the matrix of power created by colonialism but that are still at work within
48 contemporary or post-colonial societies (Maldonado-Torres 2016). Wary of the pitfalls of (cultural or
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For decolonial theorists, “Western” does not just point to a geographic origin but involves a mode of life, a
51 system of values, and a political and historical project that emerged with the colonization of the Americas. A
52 “Western civilization” is characterized by (1) primitive accumulation of capital, necessary to the re-production
53 of capitalism; (2) European hegemonic modernity, a system of thought characterized by a dualist perception of
54 the world, hierarchizing humans and non-humans; and (3) a new global configuration of the world, resulting
55 from a geosocial construct in which Europe depicts itself as the end of history, while at the same time placing
56 other modes of life as inferior in order to exploit their labor force and natural resources (See Quijano and
57 Wallerstein 1991 and the discussion below)
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3 economic) determinism, they argue that coloniality is the result of a complex entanglement of
4 different dimensions of equal importance (Grosfoguel 2011): power, knowledge and being, explored
5 below.
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7 Coloniality of power is organized around two fundamental axes: (1) the codification of racial
8 difference between Europeans and non-Europeans, aimed at making the latter appear naturally
9 inferior; and (2) the use of Western/modern institutional forms of power (like the nation-state) to non-
10 Western societies to organize and control labour, its resources and its products (Quijano 2000), but
11 also “the relationships between peoples and nature, and among the former in regard to the latter,
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especially with regard to the ownership of the resources of production” (Quijano 2014, 286, our
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14 translation). Although coloniality is intrinsically linked to capitalism, it cannot be reduced to
15 economics; it also encompasses cultural, epistemological and ontological mechanisms of subjugation.
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Coloniality of knowledge refers to the difference made between European and non-European
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knowledges and symbolic systems. The latter are seen as inferior and are deprived of scientific
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19 validity. Defined as “traditional”, they are considered as having only practical and local applicability,
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20 and their theoretical relevance is limited to their status as objects of study which allow for the
21 comprehension of local modes of life. By contrast, the former are described as having universal
22 validity, regardless of the place and moment of their production. Coloniality of knowledge is
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produced through scientific and philosophical discourses that depict themselves as being neutral,
24 impartial and detached from geo-historical conditions, thus constituting an “epistemology of point
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zero” (Castro-Gómez 2005). This constitute a form of epistemicide, i.e. “the death of alternative
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27 knowledges”, and consequently of the social groups that constitute themselves through their
28 knowledges (Santos 2006, 23-24)
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Finally, coloniality of being makes reference to the “lived experience of colonization and its
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ontological impact” (Maldonado-Torres 2016). In his seminal book Black Skins, White Masks, Frantz
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32 Fanon argued that to produce identities considered “less than human”, colonialism creates zones of
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33 nonbeing. These spaces of segregation, both real and symbolic, are produced by the “colour line”: the
34 line separating “normal” and “superior” beings from “inferior” and “unworthy” ones (Du Bois 2007;
35 Grosfoguel 2012). Unlike the two first forms of coloniality above, coloniality of being is not imposed
36 top-down and does not remain external to the individuals. On the contrary, its effectiveness lies in its
37 capacity to distort the image that the colonized has of herself, and of her perception of the world she
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inhabits. It produces a certain kind of subjectivity, which Fanon called “the wretched of earth”.
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40 If coloniality dehumanizes humanity and objectifies nature, then decoloniality refers to “efforts at re-
41 humanizing the world, to breaking hierarchies of difference that dehumanize subjects and
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communities and that destroy nature” (Maldonado-Torres 2016, 10). At a theoretical level, this project
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requires recognizing that theory is always place-bound (Escobar 2008), and demands from the scholar
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45 to decentre the perspective from the Global North to the periphery, starting from the experience of the
46 wretched of the earth (Dussel 1985). This allows shedding light on the remainders of colonialism that
47 are still at work in our discourses and practices, while at the same time provide us with alternatives to
48 a Eurocentric model of society.
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52 Environmental Justice
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54 Politically, the notion of environmental justice “has its origins in the inequalities of power and the
55 way those inequalities have distinctive environmental consequences for the marginalized and the
56 impoverished, for those who may be freely denigrated as ‘others’, or as ‘people out of place’” (Harvey
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3 1996a, 95). The concept dates back to the 1980s, with the confluence of a large set of political
4 movements in the United States (Faber and McCarthy 2003), increasingly aware of the unequal
5 distribution of environmental degradation along class, racial, cultural and gender divides. The term
6 was popularized through the struggles of low-income, disempowered communities and communities
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of colour against unequal spatial distribution of environmental pollution, particularly toxic
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contamination and hazardous waste (e.g. Bryant and Mohai 1992; Figueroa 2001).
10 Environmental justice has far moved beyond its original political and geographical framing. From “a
11 vocabulary for political opportunity, mobilization and action[, and] a policy principle,” (Agyeman
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and Evans 2006, 156) environmental justice has also become a dynamic object of scientific enquiry.
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14 First-generation environmental justice studies were primarily concerned with documenting
15 environmental injustices in the US. But subsequent work has increasingly focussed on the Global
16 South in general (e.g. Gonzalez 2015; Schroeder et al. 2008; Gedicks 2001), or on specific regions
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17 like Latin America (Carruthers 2008) or countries such as South Africa (McDonald 2004) and India
18 (Williams and Mawdsley 2006).
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20 At the core of the environmental justice movement lies a critique of mainstream environmentalism,
21 which traditionally focussed mainly on nature preservation. This critique triggered greater attention to
22 the “varieties of environmentalism” (Guha and Martínez Alier 2013) and their particularities. Scholars
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came up with new terminology, including “subaltern environmentalism” (Pulido 1996),

24 “environmentalism of the poor” (Martínez Alier 2002), “post-colonial environmental justice”
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(Williams and Mawdsley 2006), “third world environmental justice” (Schroeder et al. 2008), “empty-
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27 belly environmentalism” (Guha and Martínez Alier 2013), or “environmental justice 2.0” (Carter
28 2016), amongst others.
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As Pellow (2016b, 18) notes, second-generation environmental justice studies also triggered “greater
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methodological creativity and interdisciplinarity”. Drawing on the articulations of justice by different
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32 peoples in different places, some scholars develop increasingly popular empirical approaches to
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33 environmental justice (Sikor 2013; Sikor et al. 2014). Theoretically too, the environmental justice
34 field grew. Schlosberg (2007) turned to critical theorists like Nancy Fraser, Axel Honneth and Iris
35 Marion Young to posit that these underlying reasons are rooted in the material, social, cultural and
36 institutional conditions and contexts within which a political process takes place and gives shape to
37 this distribution. His four dimensions of justice (distribution, recognition, participation, capabilities)
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have since been turned into an increasingly popular analytical framework (e.g. Walker and Bulkeley
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40 2006; Sikor 2013).
41 A more critical environmental justice body of literature grew somewhat in parallel to this; one which
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goes back to vision, principles and claims of the early days of the environmental movement (Pulido
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and De Lara 2018; Pellow 2018). Recent work has started refining the racial roots of environmental
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45 injustices in the Global South (e.g. Sundberg 2008; Mollet 2015); the links between rural dimensions
46 and environmental justice are being explored (e.g. Pellow 2016a; Coolsaet 2016), as is the intersection
47 between gender, sexuality and environmental justice (e.g. Stein 2004); the cultural dynamics of
48 environmental concerns are starting to be theorized beyond their conceptual origins (e.g. Martin et al.
49 2016) and the contributions of environmental justice for societal transformations to sustainability is
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being studied (Temper et al. 2018). And yet, even these more critical approaches have largely left
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aside decolonial theory (some recent exceptions: Rodríguez and Inturias 2018; Pulido and De Lara
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53 2018; Fraser 2018; Martin et al. 2016; Ulloa 2015). This paper hence adds to this body of work by
54 providing a decolonial perspective of environmental justice. We illustrate in what follows that
55 decolonial theory can help “push our analyses and actions beyond the human, the state and capital”
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3 (Pellow 2018, 20), complementing earlier environmental justice by highlighting particular forms of
4 oppression related to communities in the Global South and their modes of life.
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8 Coloniality of Justice
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10 By relying heavily on Western critical theory, environmental justice scholarship inherits an idea of
11 progress as the results of an incremental, developmental process (Schlosberg 2007; Brulle 2002).
12 Drawing on experience rather than universal concepts, it involves “the acceptance of a historical
13 construction of subjectivity” (Schlosberg 1999, 62). In other words, the normative principles of justice
14 are not justified by universal concepts but are grounded in a process of social learning within the (US)
15 environmental movement. While this forms a laudable attempt at developing a more empirically
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grounded and inclusive notion of justice, we argue in what follows that this justification is too
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18 geographically and conceptually bound to a hegemonic-Western idea of modernity (see above) and
19 Western-inspired political ideals (e.g. solutions to injustices are mainly conceived within the realm of
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20 the state). As a result, it cannot be transposed to different contexts without running the risk of
21 marginalizing certain positions. Doing so is a form of what we call coloniality of justice. It involves
22 and combines several forms of coloniality developed above and generates a series of problems, as
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follows.
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26 Distributing Harm
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27 A first colonial pitfall in the environmental justice literature relates to use of “environmental equity”
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as a solution to environmental injustices; understood as “a fair or equitable distribution of society’s
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technological and environmental risks and impacts” (Shrader-Frechette 2002, 24). To be sure, this has
31 been the focus of extended critique in the environmental justice literature, calling for greater attention
32 to the underlying reasons for maldistribution (among others, see Harvey 1996b; Swyngedouw and
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33 Heynen 2003; Schlosberg 2007). However, we argue that decolonial theory provides for a distributive
34 critique that is qualitatively different, and relates to the following problems.
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36 First, transposing the idea of environmental equity, a claim originally made by communities of
37 African descent in the United States, from its original context to other minority groups in both the
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38 Global South (e.g. Afro and Indigenous groups of Colombia, Peru or Bolivia) and North (e.g. native
39 peoples in developed countries) may render invisible claims conflicting with the very idea of
40 environmental distribution. Second, notwithstanding the suitability of distributive solutions in the
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context of toxic pollution or hazardous waste for example, it is intrinsically linked to an idea of
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43 environmental exploitation. What it tells us is that this exploitation does not necessarily need
44 questioning, as long as its most harmful effects are being distributed equitably within society.
45 In other words, this approach fails to account for cases which are not amenable to pluralist solutions;
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i.e. cases involving mutually undermining modes of life (i.e. political ontologies). This is particularly
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48 relevant from a decolonial perspective, in which the developmental model itself is put into question
49 (Sachs 1992; Gudynas 2012), and with it the need for a distribution of harms flowing from
50 environmental exploitation.
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These two observations make up the two components of coloniality of being discussed above.
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53 Building on this, the “fair or equitable distribution of environmental goods and bads” faces two
54 problems: (1) it may entail a misrecognition of other modes of life that are incompatible with a
55 capitalist mode of production and/or with anthropocentric ways of understanding justice; and (2) it
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3 sets aside the fact that even the requests of minority groups may be the expression of a desire that has
4 been captured by coloniality.
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6 We can illustrate the first point by understanding Marx’s “modes of production” as modes of life,
7 following Glen Coulthard (2014). Coulthard considers that a mode of production encompasses two
8 interrelated social processes: “the resources, technologies, and labour that a people deploy to produce
9 what they need to materially sustain over time, and the forms of thought, behaviour, and social
10 relationships that both condition and are themselves conditioned by these productive forces” (2014,
11 65). The difference between environmental justice struggles of US-based African American
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communities and struggles of other minority groups in both North and South lies in these diverging
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14 “thought, behaviour, and social relationships”, which are related to different modes of life (Blaser
15 2013). While we are aware that these modes of life are simplified ideal types, in what follows they
16 should be seen as serving an analytical purpose.
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The first mode of life is characterized by dualist divisions (human/nonhuman, nature/culture,
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19 mind/body, individual/community, reason/emotion, “we”/“them”, etc.) and is centred on linear time
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20 and development (Escobar 2014; Deloria 2003). Nature and land, objects detached from human
21 beings, serve to improve human existence. This mode of life values things and material accumulation
22 over (good) life, resulting in extreme forms of violence against non-European societies and nature in
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the name of “progress” and “development” (Dussel 1997, Segato 2016).

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25 The second type of mode of life is “relational”. It is organized around radical interdependence and
26 reciprocal relations between the land and those who inhabit it, including non-human beings (Blaser
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27 2013; Escobar 2014, de la Cadena 2015). Although land is seen as fundamental for human
28 subsistence, it is not reduced to an exploitable resource. Instead, land and place have a social and
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ethical dimension. They are conceived, experienced and produced as “a system of reciprocal relations
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and obligations” (Coulthard 2014, 13, our emphasis), which define daily practices and sacred rites.
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32 The difference between these modes of life, and the qualitative divergence between the claims of
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33 minority groups that flow from them, have important consequences for the conceptualization of
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environmental justice as distribution. Distributive equity implies that nature can be objectified,
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exploited and turned into a distributable good, a conception challenged by relational modes of life.
37 This can be illustrated through the example of three different communities. According to Coulthard,
the struggle of the Dene people3 against the dispossession of land is a struggle against colonialism and
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39 capitalism. These communities are not fighting for the distribution of “risks and impacts”, but for the
40 right to live “in relation to one another and the natural world in nondominating and nonexplotative
41 terms” (Coulthard 2014, 13). Similarly, referring to Afro-Colombian and Colombian Indigenous
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social movements, Escobar argues that the struggles of these communities go beyond capitalism and
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human rights, for their struggle is “in the name of life”, “on behalf of another conception of
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45 development, of a harmonious relationship with nature and a different form of social life [...] based on
46 another worldview” that recognizes that the world is made of many worlds (Escobar 2014, 73-75, 77).
47 Finally, referring to Bija Satyagraha, a movement for farmers’ rights in India that is opposing
48 biopiracy, Vandana Shiva claims that their struggle is “a resistance to the ultimate colonization of life
49 itself— of the future of evolution as well as the future of non-Western traditions of relating to and
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knowing nature” (Shiva 2007, 279). The very idea of environmental distribution, hence, appears to be
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incompatible with Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and Indian peasant modes of life.
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56 The ‘Dene’ refers to indigenous people living in the western Canadian Subarctic, including First Nations
57 groups such as the Chipewyan, Tlicho, Slavey, Sathu and Yellowknives.
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3 One may object to our first point by stressing that environmental equity is grounded in the demands of
4 grassroots movements, hence giving voice to those that, traditionally, have been marginalized; a
5 typical decolonial endeavour. However, claims raised by those who are marginalized and racialized
6 are not necessarily free from the risk of coloniality. On the contrary, Fanon’s work shows that the
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effectiveness of colonialism lies in its capacity to capture the desire of the subjugated. Coloniality
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does not only function through explicit, violent, and repressive means; it also operates via the consent
10 of colonized subjects (Bentouhami 2014, 101). Colonial reproduction “rests on the ability to entice
11 Indigenous peoples to identify [with] the profoundly asymmetrical and nonreciprocal forms of
12 recognition” imposed by the state (Coulthard 2009, 25). This is the second characteristic of
13 coloniality, described by Achille Mbembe as “the subjugation of the indigenous through his or her
14 desire” (2015, 175). This too is missing from the conceptualization of distribution in the
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environmental justice literature, and creates a twofold problem.
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17 First, from a local perspective, calling for an equitable distribution of environmental impacts appears
18 as the symptom of a desire of that which poisons a person’s body against their will and of that which
19 destroys the material conditions necessary for their survival; hence creating a problem of
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misrecognition. In other words, the exposure to environmental risks is not contested (as long as it is
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22 equitably distributed), and therefore, neither is misrecognition. To be sure, some scholars do explore
23 the relation between physical integrity and misrecognition (e.g. Schlosberg 2007, 60), but often fail to
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24 see the contradiction with calls for deliberate exposure through the distribution of environmental
25 impacts.
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27 Second, even if the distribution of environmental impacts and risks may, in certain cases, serve to
28 temporarily and locally address environmental injustices, when taking a global perspective, it may
29 well legitimize and deepen some of the problems of the capitalist economy. The exploitation of
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30 environmental resources in the Global South, often in the form of extractivism, is a good illustration
31 (Massuh 2012; Escobar 2014). Decolonial scholars have often argued that extractivism not only
32 affects the land but also has a direct and disruptive impact on the bodies and daily relations of the
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communities (Machado 2012). Concretely, resource extraction turns those places “into privileged
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35 spaces of war and death” (Mbembe 2003, 33), forcing people to flee their homes, and to live under
36 conditions of extreme violence. Extractivism sustains a neo-colonial relationship between states
37 providing raw materials, and states consuming them (Machado 2012; Mbembe 2003; Quijano and
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38 Wallerstein 1992). Considering this, it is hard to see how a more equitable distribution would address
39 the injustices at hand. It would render invisible the fact that the “development” of certain populations
40 may only be attained at the expense of others. This includes geographical others, but also temporal
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others, as the continued exploitation of natural resources and its related pollution, even if equally
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43 distributed for present generations, will inevitably impact future generations; a point also raised by
44 Pellow (2018).
45 We will argue below that the lack of importance given to the above issues is related to the
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epistemology that underlies environmental justice theory. But before addressing this problem, let us
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48 turn to the use of “recognition” in the environmental justice literature, and the problems it may
49 represent from a decolonial perspective.
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53 Misrecognizing the Subjective
54 Environmental justice scholars have tried addressing some of the problems discussed above by
55 introducing the concept of recognition into their analytical frameworks (e.g. Martin et al. 2013). The
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possibility of achieving environmental justice in the Global South through distributive approaches
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3 lacks a crucial pre-condition: i.e. a “general consensus about the primacy of distributive issues and
4 applicability of utilitarian or libertarian notions of justice” (Sikor 2013, 16). In The Justices and
5 Injustices of Ecosystem Services, Sikor and colleagues find remedy in the recognition of other ways of
6 knowing, other conceptions of value and other forms of legitimizing environmental governance
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interventions, which may reflect “a selective viewing of human-environment relations” (199). And
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yet, they leave the reader guessing about how exactly this recognition would take place. They seem to
10 consider that, unlike for “utilitarian or libertarian notions of justice”, in the case of justice as
11 recognition there actually is consensus about its applicability or its meaning. However, decolonial
12 thought makes us doubt that idea and recent environmental justice work has shown that the concept of
13 recognition too entails very different views of human-environment relations (Pulido and De Lara
14 2018; Fraser 2018; Martin et al. 2016). We agree that recognition is an important element of
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environmental justice. But, following Coulthard, Escobar and Fanon, we consider that calling for
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recognition implies to more radically and thoroughly question the conditions that are at the basis of
18 injustices suffered by minority groups, by (1) expanding recognition beyond State-based solutions4,
19 including solutions of self-recognition, a dimension which is currently under-addressed in the
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20 environmental justice literature; and (2) by acknowledging the role psychological processes play in
21 the misrecognition of communities who have been deprived of their material and symbolic modes of
22 subsistence and historically excluded, racialized and oppressed.
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24 The environmental justice literature on recognition largely draws on Nancy Fraser. Fraser’s work
25 consists in combining the new identity-based imaginaries of the “post-socialist age” without erasing
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the materialist paradigm of the “old” socialist imaginary. The former refers to claims for “difference-
27 friendly” societies, while the latter is about economic redistribution, which continues to be relevant
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today (Fraser 1995). Regarding recognition, in her discussions with Axel Honneth, she moves from a
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30 Hegelian idea of recognition as a matter of individual psychology or consciousness, to the idea that
31 recognition should be attained within the public/political sphere, which depends on structural
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From a decolonial perspective, Fraser’s approach provides two advantages. First, the idea that
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35 injustices are grounded not only in economic, but also in cultural and institutional structures, is related
36 to the idea that colonial power is complex and multiple, permeating all aspects of society. Second, the
37 idea that (mis)recognition is intrinsically dependent on structural, social conditions avoids grounding
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38 the injustices solely in the individual “distorted structure of the consciousness of the oppressed”
39 (Fraser 2001, 27).
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41 However, decolonial theory also objects to Fraserian recognition in a number of ways. Firstly,
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42 Fraser’s status-model does not provide the tools to problematize the role of the state in the
43 (re)production of injustices and of colonized subjectivities. Secondly, the negative idea that Fraser has
44 of identity-based recognition, based on psychological and cultural grounds, downplays the importance
45 of the subjective dimension in overcoming injustices.
46
47 While “having a voice” within the state apparatus is important, and often perceived as a “low-hanging
48 fruit” to overcome injustices, environmental justice research has shown that it may also be an
49 ineffective, even counterproductive measure to address injustices (Pulido et al. 2016; Agyeman et al.
50
2010). A closer look at existing processes show how different sorts of neo-colonial mechanisms may
51
shape decision-making processes to serve opposing interests. Analysing the struggle of the Dene and
52
53 the Kluane First Nations against a pipeline project, Coulthard explains how the Government of
54
55 4
56 Not only towards the global level, as Fraser’s recent work on the “transnationalization of justice” does (Fraser
57 and Nash 2014), but also, and perhaps more importantly, towards the local level.
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3 Canada, through processes of deliberation guaranteeing participation of minority groups, achieved to
4 transform “how Indigenous peoples now think and act in relation to the land” (Coulthard 2014, 78).
5 Over 25 years, these processes made Indigenous representatives accept extractive projects they had
6 always opposed. Coulthard argues that this change results from a smooth process of domestication
7
through the creation of spaces where the First Nations of Canada had, to borrow Fraser’s terms, “the
8
9
possibility of participating on a par with others in social interaction” (Fraser 2001, 27).
10 To be sure, Fraser is aware of this danger, explicitly noting that the sole creation of such spaces is
11 insufficient (Fraser 2001). Nonetheless, the result is that the use of her theories in the environmental
12
justice literature often does not allow for a sufficient critique of the appropriateness of state-led
13
14 solution for the participation of minority groups. Fraser’s critique of identity-based and
15 communitarian recognition has kept environmental justice scholars from fully grasping the
16 importance of local autonomy and self-recognition in overcoming injustices. Yet, it is through the
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17 affirmation of the local that minority groups create alternatives to liberal institutions embodied by the
18 state. Without reifying the differences between groups, they hold in common a call for and the
19 construction of decentralized social institutions that give strength to the community, departing from a
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20
logic of private property. From the sistema comunal (“communal system”; Patzi 2009) in Bolivia to
21
22 Bija Satyagraha (“self-rule is our right”; Shiva 2007) in India, they are characterized by economic
23 communalization (i.e. collective instead of private property) and self-governance, including inter-
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24 cultural mechanisms. Struggles “reorganize society on the basis of local and regional autonomy,
25 characterized by social relations and forms of organizing which are neither capitalist nor liberal” and
26
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are conceived in terms of “self-organization focusing in the construction of non-state forms of power”
27 (Escobar 2014, 53-54, our translation).
28
29 This, however, is not tantamount to a complete detachment from the state, as transformative political
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30 struggle “inevitably confronts institutions” (Dussel 2011, 29-31). Alternative political organization
31 has the capacity to expose and modify the colonial rationale of the state (Dussel 2011; Mbembe 2003;
32 Walsh 2008). In Colombia, for example, the black peasant organization Asociación Campesina
iew

33
Integral del Atrato (ACIA) played a significant role in deconstructing the idea of the state as uni-
34
35 national by securing constitutional recognition as a distinct cultural group. As a result, ACIA also
36 secured collective rights over its traditional land, which provided “an important new political
37 opportunity for the [population] to mobilize” (Oslender 2016, 3); grassroot movements were
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38 strengthened and rearticulated around the right to territory of Afro-descendant communities as an

39 essential element of their identity (Oslender 2016).
40
41 This tells us that, in the case of minority groups, environmental justice cannot simply be based on
ly

42 recognition as understood by Western authors. It is necessary to include self-recognition, i.e. the re-
43 valorisation of one’s mode of life (Coulthard 2009). This inevitably implies to acknowledge the
44 importance of the subjective dimension, an element that lacks in Fraserian recognition, leading to the
45 second point.
46
47 Fraser dissolves the psychological dimension into the social one, ignoring the specificity of the
48 subjective dimension (Coulthard 2014). Consequently, and while recognizing that misrecognition may
49 have psychological negative effects on individuals (e.g. Fraser 2000), environmental justice work
50
based on Fraser does not contemplate the possibility that distorted identities may be the very cause of
51
misrecognition (and not solely an effect; see e.g. Schlosberg 2007). As we have seen above,
52
53 decolonial studies have showed how the desire of the oppressed may be co-opted. Thus, the sole
54 formal guarantee of parity of participation is insufficient to overcome injustices. Such a
55 misrecognition of the subjective dimension is the consequence of conceiving the psychological
56 dimension as Western authors traditionally do; that is, as a sphere detached from social forces,
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3 enclosed within the limits of the so-called private or individual sphere (as found for example in
4 Honneth’s work). Anticolonial authors provide a different conception of psychology which may help
5 improve Fraser’s conception of recognition.
6
7 Fanon shows how psychological processes cannot be detached from structural, material conditions.
8 On the contrary, the psychological structure results from a process of internalization, or properly
9 speaking of incorporation, of social forces (Fanon 1967)5. The aim of coloniality, in Fanon’s view, is
10 to anchor racial ideology in the psychological structure of the oppressed, to disempower them, to fix
11 them to certain spaces, and to assign them certain tasks. At the same time, the psychological
12
dimension actively informs social structures through the actions of the individuals. There is a
13
14 dialectics between these spheres. Thus, even if they are intertwined, the psychological dimension has
15 its own logic, which differs from the objective one (Fanon 1967; Coulthard 2014). This means that the
16 sole transformation of objective conditions is as insufficient as the sole transformation of the
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17 subjective sphere. The crucial point here is that if the subjective dimension is not considered, patterns
18 of oppression will be continuously reproduced through the desires of those who are oppressed, as
19 discussed previously.
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20
21
22 Speaking for Others
23
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Linda Alcoff (1991) has warned about the dangers of speaking across differences of race, culture, and
24
25
power. The location of where one speaks from—whether defined geographically, culturally or
26 philosophically—not only has epistemic significance, but can also be discursively dangerous:
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27 “Certain contexts and locations are allied with structures of oppression, and certain others are allied
28 with resistance to oppression. Therefore, all are not politically equal, and, given that politics is
29 connected to truth, all are not epistemically equal” (Alcoff 1991, 15).
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30
31 Environmental justice scholars are aware of this risk. Schlosberg (1999), for example, acknowledges
32 the importance of context for the construction of subjectivities, its relation to knowledge, and the
iew

33 necessity for a reflexive engagement with the practice of environmental justice:

34
[...] different discourses of justice, and the various experiences and articulations of injustice, inform how
35
the concept is used, understood, articulated, and demanded in practice; the engagement with what is
36
37 articulated on the ground is of crucial value to our understanding and development of the concepts we
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38 study. It continues to be unfortunate that there are those in the study of environmentalism, or in the
39 theoretical realm, who simply cannot see the importance, and range, of these articulations at the
40 intersection of theory and practice – especially when movement innovation is as broad and informative as
41 it is in environmental justice (Schlosberg 2013, 50)
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42 But his position is more ambivalent than it seems. While asking the necessary questions on how to
43
acknowledge diversity within the environmental justice movement, and going a long way into
44
45 theorizing this plurality for US-based movements, the discussion of environmental justice in other
46 parts of the world (Schlosberg 2007) does not trigger the same theoretical conceptualization. Despite
47 Schlosberg’s call for empirical environmental justice work to “expand upon” justice theories (2007,
48 5), when talking about the Global South, there does not seem to be much expanding taking place. In
49 his own work, the acknowledgment of the specificity of non-US movements does not go much further
50 than the observation that “number of factors simply do not exist, in tandem, elsewhere” (2007, 80)
51
and that movements in the South rarely have access to useful data serving their cause.
52
53
54
5
55 Fanon calls this process of internalization “in-corporation” and “epidermalization”; the conceptual nuance is
56 key to grasp how environmental coloniality works quite literally by disempowering the colonial subjects though
57 the destruction of their environment and the poisoning of their bodies.
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3 This problem relates to what decolonial scholars refer to as coloniality of knowledge, as discussed
4 above. Like Alcoff, they point to the fact that knowledge is always situated, and stress the (self-
5 conferred) “power to institute, represent, build a vision of the social and natural world recognized as
6 legitimate [...]. It is a representation in which ‘enlightened men’ define themselves as neutral and
7
impartial observers of reality.” (Castro-Gómez 2005, 25, our translation). To be sure, environmental
8
9
justice scholars seldom, if ever, claim to be neutral or impartial in analysing the environmental justice
10 movement. But by framing the claims of global environmental justice movements within Western
11 and/or liberal theories of justice only, environmental justice scholars unwittingly or deliberately
12 position themselves on point zero, producing two interrelated issues.
13
14 First, environmental justice scholars seem to consider that a theoretical framework developed in the
15 context of US environmental justice movement can serve the empirical observation of justice claims
16 regardless of the context, the object and/or the subject. While acknowledging the existence of
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17 alternatives forms of knowledge, environmental justice literature often builds on the implicit
18 presumption that critical discourse is an intrinsically Western endeavour. The recognition and
19 acceptance of difference and multiplicity requires mainly that the concept developed for and from a
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Western context and worldview “must now be opened up to contestation by those who were
21
22 previously excluded from them—but always, to be sure, on terms set [by Western epistemologies]”
23 (Allen 2016, 30). By considering that there exists a unity around the conception of justice,
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24 environmental justice scholars fail to see that many social movements in the South have organized
25 their struggles on the basis of non-Western conceptions of justice, nature, difference, culture and
26
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identity, as we have illustrated above. This opens the door to an erroneous use of Schlosberg’s
27 framework and underlying conceptual construction in the context of non-Western struggles of justice.
28
29 Second, when applied to the Global South, the transfer of knowledge is surprisingly unidirectional. As
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30 Santiago Castro-Gómez puts it, “the ‘recognition’ that is given to non-occidental systems of
31 knowledge is pragmatic rather than epistemical” (2007, 441). Non-Western communities are attached
32 to the “empirical” or the material, while Western societies are able to provide the theoretical
iew

33
framework to conceptualize such practices. The conceptualization of environmental justice through
34
35 Eurocentric theories leads to a division of object and subject when transposing the concept to another,
36 non-Western context (Santos 2014). In order to avoid coloniality of knowledge, environmental justice
37 theories should embrace the idea that a variety of knowledge configurations exist, going beyond the
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38 ones recognized by academia (Escobar 2014, 21). "Inter-epistemic studies" (Escobar 2011, 21),
39 “epistemical democracy” (Castro-Gomez 2007, 444) or “cognitive justice” (Santos 2014) are the
40 names given by decolonial thinkers to such an approach.
41
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42 Inter-epistemic studies encompass a dialogue between different ontologies and different

43 epistemologies; in which “science stops being a slave of capitalism” (Castro-Gomez 2007, 444). The
44 relevance of these approaches for environmental justice studies is threefold. First, at the
45 epistemological level, they help identify how certain theoretical ideas or practices may reinforce or
46
contribute to environmental injustices. Tensions between them are conceived as positive
47
48 contradictions that render possible their mutual critique and lay bare their respective limitations.
49 Second, they require an active participation of communities in and of the Global South not only as
50 subjects of study, but also as knowledge-holders capable of re-imagining the meaning of
51 environmental justice and its underlying concepts (Pulido and De Lara 2018). Third, decolonial EJ
52 demands a detachment from the false idea of scientific neutrality. The inter-epistemic scholar
53 explicitly engages in the defence of the very first victims of capitalist and neo-colonial system.
54
55 In other words, this form of epistemology does not simply recognize the existence of a multiplicity of
56 epistemologies, nor does it stress the primacy of one knowledge over the other. Taking a step further,
57
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3 it emphasizes the possibility and the importance of interactions and conflicts between different forms
4 of knowing.
5
6
7 Conclusion
8 The aim of this paper was to discuss some of the epistemic limitations that environmental justice work
9 may entail. This paper has argued that these limitations not only marginalize certain conceptual
10 formations but can also produce new injustices or perpetuate existing ones; a situation we have termed
11
coloniality of justice. The problem is not, however, that Western academics use Western justice
12
13 theories in trying to conceptually frame environmental justice. The problem arises when Western-
14 centred environmental justice frameworks, and their underlying philosophical theories, are used
15 (deliberately or not) as the sole sources of critical reflection to comprehend environmental justice
16 concerns. We have argued in this paper that this may result in policy which would present deliberate
Fo
17 exposure to environmental harm as a fair solution; it may prevent scholars or policymakers from
18 seeing that the exploitation of natural resources may only be attained at the expense of some peoples,
19
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even when distributively offset; and it may render invisible the fact that parity of participation may
20
21 contribute to the reproduction of environmental injustices when detached from a radical
22 transformation of the institutions where participation takes place. The difficulty moreover lies in
23
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understanding that this may happen with the consent of those who are likely to be the first victims of
24 environmental injustice.
25
26 Although we have adopted a deconstructive approach throughout the paper, we want to conclude by
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27 highlighting some of the principles underpinning a decolonial environmental justice. If it wishes “to
28 speak [...] for the majorities outside the USA”, environmental justice research will need to engage
29 more thoroughly with the colonial difference. Not, however, from a (critical) Western perspective
ev

30 “but from the perspective of the receivers of the alleged benefits of the modern world” (Escobar 2007,
31
189) in “racial/ethnic subaltern locations” (Grosfuguel 2007, 212).
32
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33 Epistemologically, this means that researchers need to question the universal relevance of their
34 theoretical frameworks and develop a “victim-centred” justice. It requires drawing on place-bound
35 perspectives that will serve as the basis to confront different modes of life and how they are being
36
affected by capitalism. This will inevitably lead to acknowledge that capitalist destruction of nature
37
operates through heterogeneous mechanisms that are typically more brutal in places marked by
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38
39 colonialism and which continue to be constructed as the periphery of the world-system. Politically, a
40 decolonial environmental justice takes the “differentiated responsibilities” principle to the local level.
41 It creates heterogeneous strategies deliberately targeting those individuals, communities and
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42 ecosystems facing most of the environmental burdens. These strategies require to be constructed by
43 and with the communities that are the first affected. It implies not only broadening the group of
44
movements who are heard and listened to, but also help set in motion process of self-recognition.
45
46 The divergences between Northern and Southern conceptions of environmental justice should not lead
47 to a dualist distinction between human societies, and therefore of an irreducible gap between modes of
48 life. On the one hand, internal colonization of Southern communities must be critically addressed and
49
deconstructed. On the other, the global North comprises a great variety of movements struggling for
50
51 life, through relational political ontologies and against capitalism. Thus, a decolonial theory of
52 environmental justice should not limit itself to describe this multiplicity or to suggest basic (and non-
53 problematic) articulations between them. Instead, it should focus on finding both the contradictions
54 and commonalities between them, to render visible possible underlying injustices and solutions.
55 Through affirmative encounters and intercultural dialogue environmental justice research can lay the
56
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3 groundwork for tackling the economic, cultural and institutional structures that contribute to the
4 reproduction of coloniality.
5
6
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14 659.
15
Walsh, Catherine. 2008. “Interculturalidad, Plurinacionalidad y Decolonialidad: Las Insurgencias Político-
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Epistémicas de Refundar El Estado.” Tabula Rasa, no. 9.
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18 Williams, Glyn, and Emma Mawdsley. 2006. “Postcolonial Environmental Justice: Government and Governance
19 in India.” Geoforum 37 (5): 660–6.
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Page 17 of 19 Capitalism Nature Socialism

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3 Decolonizing Environmental Justice Studies: a Latin American perspective
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5 Reviewers’ comments
6 #R1
7
8
9 Comment Modification
10
11 The title of the piece indicates the lack The title has been changed
12 of precision
13
14
15 Limited conception of decoloniality, Thank you for stressing this. Drawing on the Latin
16 from a Latin American perspective American decolonial school (the Modernity/coloniality-
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17 only decoloniality project) is the core idea of the paper. We have
18 clarified this in the text. The title has been changed to reflect
19 this.
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21 Cite recent work by Pellow & Pulido Thanks for mentioning Pellow’s excellent new book. It was
22 not published yet when this paper was first submitted. It has
23 been included now, alongside recent work by Laura Pulido.
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24 But even their work does not address decolonial theory.

25
26 EJ lit review is too brief. Important We agree with this important comment. However, the point
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27 literature is neglected: Voyles here is not to provide for an exhaustive overview of the EJ
28
(Wastelanding) and Correia (properties literature. Including the literature suggested by the reviewer
of law), Harrison’s work on justice, would not change our point that EJ literature does not cover
29
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Stein’s work on gender decolonial theory

30
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decoloniality literature: the literature We have added some extra points to the discussion, but this
32 review is not complete or conceptually comment goes beyond the scope of this paper. The argument
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33 sophisticated enough is not to discuss decolonial theory, but to use it to explore

34 the EJ literature.
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On

38 #R2
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40
Comment Suggested edit
41
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43 I think the abstract should preferably The abstract has been reworked and shortened
44 be a single paragraph, avoiding jargon.
45 I don’t understand what the author
46 means by [or only attached to the
47 “empirical” or the material
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49 Check use of quotation marks (“), This is a CNS style requirement.
50 inverted comma (‘) would suffice
51
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53 No reference to Pellow’s recent book Thanks for mentioning Pellow’s excellent new book. It
54 was not published yet when this paper was first submitted.
55 It has been included now, even though his work does not
56 address decolonial theory.
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 Capitalism Nature Socialism Page 18 of 19

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3 line 6, pg 2 & line 20, pg 3: use a Thank you for pointing this out. We have clarified in a
4 blanket term such as “Western footnote.
5 Civilization” without elaborating
6
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8 the term “decolonial reduction”, the Fair point, we have deleted the concept and rephrased the
9 paper never comes back to this notion. paragraph.
10 If it is not going to be operationalized,
11 why mention it?
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13
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15 Summary of decolonial theory is Thank you for pointing this out. Mignolo’s work had been
16 incomplete (cf. Mignolo). added.
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19 No mention of post-colonial theory. I We have clarified the difference between postcolonial and
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20 don’t see a reason why such an decolonial work, and justified why we are only using the
21 important literature can be left out. Can latter. The title has also been changed to reflect this.
22 you possibly reflect on key
23 separations?
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24
Literature review on EJ is important The following references used in the literature review are
25
but again too much focused on the US. all focused on non-US EJ struggles:
26
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• Figueroa 2001;
Gender-environmental justice nexus is • Agyeman and Evans 2006;
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underexplored
29 • Gonzalez 2015;
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30 • Schroeder et al. 2008;

31 • Gedicks 2001;
32 • Carruthers 2008;
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33 • McDonald 200;
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• Williams and Mawdsley 2006;
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36 • Guha and Martínez Alier 2013;
37 • Martínez Alier 2002;
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38 • Sundberg 2008; Mollet 2015;

39 • Martin et al. 2016;
40 • Rodríguez and Inturias 2018;
41 • Fraser 2018;
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42
• Coolsaet 2016;
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• Ulloa 2015
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46 We have added some of the references suggested by the
47 reviewer, but the point remains: none of these address
48 decolonial theory
49 Elaborate on Habermasian – post- This part was deleted, as addressing the comment would
50 Habermasian approaches in western have taken us too far beyond the scope of this paper.
51 critical theory
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54 on line 50 pg. 4, the reference (1999, Well spotted. The reference has been completed
55 62) is not clear.
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Page 19 of 19 Capitalism Nature Socialism

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3 “environmental equity” suggested to This has been the subject of numerous critiques in the EJ
4 be used widely. Where? By whom? literature. We have added references.
5
6
7 In line 37, the author assumes that we Thanks for highlighting this. A footnote was added
8 need to know what Yellowknives Dene
9 denotes
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11 In the next paragraph, the author refers Thank you for highlighting this confusion. The paragraphs
12 to the difference between US-based following this one were actually exploring the different
13 African American communities and modes of life, but the confusion came for the combined
14 just leaves it there without exploring use of ‘modes of life’ & ‘ontologies’, which were used as
15 this notion of modes of life. synonyms. We have now clarified this.
16
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18 I’m not sure what ideal-type ontologies An ideal type is a Weberian analytical concept. We have
19 (line 45, pg. 5) are. clarified this.
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21 In pg 6, “relational ontologies” needs Thank you for pointing this out. We have modified the
22 to be explored and expanded further as text to clarify our point.
23
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“qualitative divergence … [has]

24 important consequences for the
25 conceptualization of justice-related
26
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environmental demands”
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28 In pg. 8, line 47 “the global poor”: Well spotted, thank you. We are not using the term
29 introduced but not defined. anymore.
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30
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32 “The absence of identity-based and Agreed, the claim has been rephrased
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33 communitarian recognition” is a bold

34 claim and requires further elaboration
35 with evidence
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37
On

38 (pg. 9 line 3) “the idea is to expose and We have developed this and added an example.
39 modify the colonial rationale of the
40 state through alternative political
41 organization”: which alternative
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42 political organization? Where is it?

43 How is it epistemologically different
44 and transformative?
45
46 (line 55-56 and line 3 on pg-10-11) We have further developed this with a new paragraph in
47 “going beyond knowledge the last section.
48 configurations recognized by
49 academia”: what is novel about this?
50 what do these “knowledge
51 configurations” mean in practice
52 beyond the mainstream EJ
53 recognition?
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