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A GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: The EJAtlas

Project description

Mapping environmental injustice globally

Around the world, environmental conflicts are mounting. The situation underscores the urgent need for justice in the face of ecological harm. In this context, the ERC-funded EnvJustice project has developed the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas). With over 1 500 conflicts already mapped and with an ambitious plan to grow to 4 000 conflicts by the end of 2023, this global database draws on both activist and academic knowledge to document conflicts across more than 100 fields. It captures the commodities at stake, the involved actors, impacts, forms of mobilisation, and outcomes. This comprehensive approach allows for analyses aimed at developing a general theory of ecological distribution conflicts. The project will also explore the efficacy of grassroots protests versus institutional forms of contention.

Objective

"The Environmental Justice Atlas (www.ejatlas.org) is a global database built by us, drawing on activist and academic knowledge. It maps 1500 conflicts. To improve geographical and thematic coverage it will grow to 3000 by 2019. It systematizes conflicts across 100+ fields documenting the commodities at stake, the actors involved, impacts, forms of mobilizations and outcomes allowing analyses that will lead to a general theory of ecological distribution conflicts.
We shall research the links between changes in social metabolism and resource extraction conflicts at the “commodity frontiers”. Also other questions in political ecology and social movement theory such as the effectiveness of direct action by grassroots protesters compared to institutional forms of contention. Does the involvement of different actors, e.g. indigenous groups, relate to different conflict outcomes? How often does the IUCN ally itself to ""the environmentalism of the poor""? Do mobilizations and outcomes vary across sectors (mining, hydroelectric dams, waste incinerators) according to project differences in economic and biophysical dimensions, environmental and health risks? Are conflicts on point resources (mining, oil extraction) regularly different from conflicts in agriculture? Can we track networked resistances against Western companies, compared to those from China or other countries?
Resistance to environmental damage has brought into being many local and some international EJOs pushing for alternative social transformations. We shall study the Vocabulary of Environmental Justice they deploy: climate justice, water justice, food sovereignty, biopiracy, sacrifice zones, and other terms specific to countries: Chinese “cancer villages”, Indian “sand mafias”, Brazilian “green deserts” (eucalyptus plantations). Finally, are there signs of an alliance between the Global Environmental Justice Movement and the small European movement for “prosperity without growth”, décroissance, Post-Wachstum?"

Host institution

UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA
Net EU contribution
€ 1 910 811,00
Address
EDIF A CAMPUS DE LA UAB BELLATERRA CERDANYOLA V
08193 Cerdanyola Del Valles
Spain

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Region
Este Cataluña Barcelona
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
€ 1 910 811,00

Beneficiaries (1)