What is Critical Environmental Justice?

David Naguib Pellow (Author)

9781509560042, Polity Press

Hardback, published 23 May 2025

240 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.68 kg

"In my opinion, What is Critical Environmental Justice? is one of the most important environmental justice books ever written. One of the great strengths of the second edition is Pellow's discussion of the state, in which he revisits traditional assumptions with nuance and rigor. Truly a gift."
Laura Pulido, University of Oregon

"A stunning achievement from one of the leading scholar-activists in environmental justice. Updated to reflect new scholarship, this book threads a fine needle between case studies and the ways to understand how these are linked. This short, readable primer offers readers a roadmap to understand how and why environmental justice movements matter, now more than ever."
Julie Sze, University of California, Davis

Human societies have always been deeply interconnected with our ecosystems, but today those relationships witness greater frictions, tensions, and harms than ever before. These dynamics mirror those experienced by marginalized communities across the planet, but they also provide a foundation for transformative thinking and action to address these challenges.

In this updated edition of his innovative contribution, Pellow introduces a new framework for critically analyzing environmental justice scholarship and activism, extending the field's focus to topics including policing, incarceration, the Israel/Palestine struggle, and the Black Lives Matter movement. In doing so, he reveals that ecological violence is first and foremost a form of social violence, driven and legitimated by social structures and discourses. He enriches this radical approach to environmental justice by drawing on indigenous studies, the Black Radical Tradition, disability studies, queer and transgender studies, and multi-species justice, among other perspectives. Those familiar with the discipline will find themselves invited to think about the subject in entirely new ways.

This book is a vital resource for students, scholars, and policy-makers interested in innovative approaches to one of the greatest challenges facing humanity and the planet.

1. Critical Environmental Justice Studies
2. Black Lives Matter as an Environmental Justice Challenge
3. Prisons and the Fight for Environmental Justice
4. The Israel/Palestine Struggle as an Environmental Justice Conflict
Conclusion

Subject Areas: Sociology & anthropology [JH]