www.environmental-justice.

com/research

A review of ‘Environmental Justice’ research in the UK

By Rebecca Nada-Rajah

November 2010

Funded by
What is Environmental Justice?

Environmental Justice is a concept and social movement that seeks

to address the reality that environmental burdens (eg. intrusive mining and
extraction, dumping of toxic & contaminated materials, high-polluting
industry etc.) are inequitably distributed and often concentrated in areas of
socio-economically marginalized people (Agyeman et al. 2003). The basic
premise of environmental justice is the notion that all people have an equal
right to live in a healthy environment and, correspondingly, that
environmental harms should be equitably distributed amongst all social
groups (McLaren 2003).
The concept of environmental justice was borne out of the
movement against environmental racism in America in the 1980s and
1990s. The notion of ‘environmental racism’ emerged from the American
Civil Rights movement and attempted to address the injustice of toxic
industry being predominantly concentrated in areas of African- American,
indigenous and Hispanic residents (Agyeman et al. 2003). The term
environmental justice gained momentum, broadening the scope of the
movement to include marginalized residents of all races who face
inequitable distribution of environmental damage (Sze & London 2001).
The tendency for hazardous industry to be concentrated in low-
income areas is often based on a ‘path- of- least resistance’ for industries
and corporations. An example of this is a 1984 Report by Cerrell
Associates for the California Waste Management Board, “openly
recommending that polluting industries and the state locate hazardous
waste facilities in ‘lower socio- economic neighbourhoods’ because those
communities had a much lower likelihood of offering political opposition”
(Faber & McCarthy 2003 p.45).
What is referred to as the Environmental Justice movement in North
America, Europe and South Africa is also known as the ‘Environmentalism
of the Poor’ in many parts of the world. Scholar Joan Martinez Allier
describes the Environmentalism of the Poor as the occurrence of "unequal
incidence of environmental harm [giving] birth to environmental
movements of the poor” (2002). Proponents of these movements are local
landowners in the Global South whose livelihoods are threatened by
environmental damage. Examples of the ‘environmentalism of the poor’
movements include Chipko tree- hugging women in India and the Green
Belt Movement in Kenya founded in 1977 by Nobel Peace prize winner
Wangari Maathai. Furthermore, the discourses of ‘popular
environmentalism’, ‘liberation ecology and ‘livelihood ecology’ are
largely based on similar sets of ideas.

Environmental Justice as ‘Praxis’: Action Research

Environmental justice activist and scholar Eurig Scandrett argues

that “environmental justice should be seen as a provisional and contested
discourse embedded within a social movement” (2007 p. 4). It is a
movement that constantly evolves in response to grassroots activism,
cultural values, community organizations, local planning and development
and the implementation and enforcement of environmental law. It is a
highly interdisciplinary concept that sits at the “crossroads of social
movement, public policy and academic research” (Sze & London 2001 p.
1333).
Environmental Justice is largely regarded as a field of social ‘praxis’,
which “draws from and integrates theory and practice is a mutually
informing dialogue” (Sze & London 2001 p. 1334). In this respect,
researchers of the field tend to immerse themselves in the movement, in
line with the notion of Puiguert & Valls that the “only way to create relevant
social theories is via engaged collaboration” (2005 p. 90). In this respect,
academic inquiry into environmental justice is fairly unconventional,
involving the “blurring of boundaries between research and subject, the
embrace of political projects and values- driven scholarship, despite the
risk of losing objectivity (Smith 1999).
 Much of the discourse of environmental justice is grounded in the
work of Brazilian educationalist Paolo Freire whose critical pedagogy calls
for the generation of knowledge via a process of dialogue (Scandrett 2007).
Here, researchers and educators alike are called to immerse themselves in
their vocational community with the radical understanding that learning
will inevitably happen in two directions: both the researcher and the
subject will be transformed by a mutual process of learning. Thereby, in
the words of activist and intellectual Jeanette Eby: “deconstructing notions
of control and condescension, and letting mutuality flourish in all
directions” (Eby 2009, p. 58). This phenomenon of mutuality in experiential
learning is known as transformative learning, and is called ‘action
research’ in practice (Puigvert & Valls 2005). The academic study of
environmental justice is based largely upon action research, as knowledge
is generated largely from the dialogue within the movement and is
constantly evolving in response to the changing context. Scandrett asserts
that: “In this dialogue epistemology, knowledge is generated in praxis […]
validated not only against the rigors of academic criteria, but also on
accountability to communities engaged in struggle and their changing
collective understanding” (Scandrett 2007). It is crucial to note that the
process of ‘uncovering’ an environmental injustice is largely based upon a
cultural dialogue: “environmental injustices are therefore not so much
discovered by research (and then responded to by policy makers) as
constructed by social processes of which research is a part” (Scandrett
2007).

Are Justice and Sustainability Compatible Objectives?

Treading the ground between anti- poverty and environmental
movements, environmental justice can be seen as: “a social conflict which
exposes negative externalities at the heart of economic development”
(Scandrett 2007). Faber & McCarthy (2003) note the capacity of the
environmental justice movement to challenge the “’single- issue focus’ of
the traditional environmental movement, which often constrains its
capacity to affect change. Referencing the work of Paolo Eisenberg they
discuss the tendency of non- profit organizations to operate in a manner
that “fails to recognize the complexity and connectedness of our
interrelated socio-economic, ecological and political problems” (2003
p.42).
One of the key strengths of the concept of environmental justice is
that the breadth of its scope allows it to address ‘root causes’ of the
ecological crises. Middleton and O’Keefe argue that examining social
inequity should be a key tenet of the sustainability movement as: “Unless
analyses of development begin with not the symptoms, environmental or
economic instability, but with the cause, social injustice, then no
development can truly be sustainable” (2001, p. 16).
An emergent strain of discourse, especially in the non- profit sector,
concerns whether or not environmental sustainability and international
development are truly compatible agendas. In a paper declaring a
‘reluctant’ conclusion that social justice and environmental sustainability
are “not always compatible objectives,” (2003 p. 83) Andrew Dobson notes
that a tension will always exist because ‘reds’ (advocates of social justice)
and ‘greens’ (environmentalists) have inherently different motives.
For example, addressing the tendency for poverty alleviation
measures to exacerbate climate change, Terrence Dawson and Simon
Allen (2007) note the propensity of international development
organizations to advocate for the removal of trade barriers and promote
international tourism in order to bolster economic growth in the global
South. Increased global trade and tourism comes at the cost of an increase
in greenhouse gas emissions, thus acting in direct opposition to climate
change mitigation efforts. They assert: “Climate change therefore seems to
demand that the international community should find new ways of
transferring wealth from rich to poor countries, instead of relying on ever
increasing volumes of trade and tourism with their associated greenhouse
gas emissions” (2007 p. 372).
As an inherently localized movement, environmental justice groups
often eschew anti- poverty solutions involving such economic growth. In
tackling localized injustice, groups confront global and international
powers that whilst addressing environmental injustices on a local scale.
For example, the people of Bhopal, India- as a localized community- seek
justice and retribution for the 1984 chemical disaster from global
multinational corporations Union Carbide and now Dow Chemicals.
Attempts to link ecological crises with issues of global poverty has
spawned such concepts such as ‘ecological debt’ and ‘climate justice’.
Ecological debt is the notion that the existing Western consumer culture
has been built on resources exceeding the local carrying capacity and thus
the West is ecologically ‘indebted’ to other nations (Simms 2005). Climate
justice addresses the injustice present in the reality that adverse effects of
climate change are, and will continue to be, largely endured by the global
South, whilst been caused by the hyper-consumptive culture of the North
(Hill 2008). Both concepts thereby press for a justice- based redistribution
of wealth amongst and within nations, eschewing anti-poverty solutions
reliant on environmentally destructive economic growth.
Asserting that “the issue of environmental quality is inextricably
linked to that of human equality,” Agyeman et al. stress the need for the
“discourse of environmental justice to be firmly placed within the
framework of sustainability” (2003, p. 13). The core tenet of the
sustainability ethos is living within the earth’s carrying capacity such that
the global ecosystem may maintain its biodiversity and resilience for
future generations. The implementation and enforcement of the
sustainability- based values on a policy level is referred to as sustainable
development.
Perhaps the most widely acknowledged definition of sustainable
development is from the oft quoted 1987 World Commission on
Environment and Development Report (WCED), (commonly referred to as
the Bruntland Report) which identifies sustainable development as
“development that meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Baker 2006).
Sustainable development theory largely challenges core tenets of the
dominant development paradigm, perhaps most notably in challenging the
limits to economic growth. As an early precursor to the conception of
sustainable development, two seminal papers by Herman E. Daly and
Kenneth E. Boulding rattled the field of economics by challenging
fundamental assumptions about the nature of our planet. Boulding’s The
Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth (1966) and Daly’s The Economic
Growth Debate: What Some Economists Have Learned But Many Have Not
(1987) sparked the recognition that the dominant ‘growth’ paradigm of our
economy is, at best, incompatible with the exhaustible nature of the earth’s
resources (Edwards- Jones, Davies & Hussain 2000). Written with a strong
sense of urgency, both papers tackle the question of how the global
economy must adapt to a planet dipping into its final reservoirs and
reaching its limits. Daly’s The Economic Growth Debate: What Some
Economists Have Learned but Many Have Not takes a strong stance against
the ‘growth’ of the economy, defined as the “a quantitative increase in the
scale of the physical dimensions”, as opposed to the “qualitative
improvement” inherent in the economy’s ‘development’ (1987: p. 323). His
stance is triggered by his recognition that we are nearing the biophysical
and ethicosocial limits of our planet (Daly 1987). Sustainable development
theory fundamentally questions the dominant notion of ‘progress’,
specifically where it applies to progress being associated with an
increased domination over nature (Baker 2006). An example of this is the
use of integrative ‘Quality of Life’ indicators to measure sustainable
development, as opposed to traditional development indicators which
measure development in terms of GDP and human consumption of
resources. ). A combination of ‘top- down’1 (e.g. economic reforms such as
emissions ‘cap- and- trade’ programs limit the amount of pollutants that
industry may emit) and ‘bottom up’ 2 (e.g. community campaigning against
injustice in land use issues) approaches combine in a wide spectrum of
individual movements to drive structural change.

1
wherein
‘expert’
opinion
is
negotiated
by
a
select
few
and
then
integrated
into
a
tactic
2
wherein
‘expert’
opinion
is
generated
and
executed
at
a
grassroots
level,
(e.g.
community

campaigning
against
injustice
in
land
use
issues
Where ‘Top-Down’ Meets ‘Bottom Up’: Environmental Justice
and Sustainable Development

There is a growing recognition within the field of sustainable

development that tackling inequality and building resilient communities is
a vital and necessary precursor to a sustainable society (Baker 2006; Beder
2006; Jackson 2009). In addition to challenging economic growth,
sustainable development theory openly admits the ”penetration of
Western environmentally destructive development models” (Baker 2006,
p.3) as a key factor in the perpetration of poverty and inequity in the both
within Western countries and in the global South (Kirkby, O’Keefe &
Timberlake 1995). Tim Jackson’s Prosperity without Growth report (2009)
outlines ’12 Steps To a Sustainable Economy’, five of which specifically
address issues of community and inequality: “sharing the available work
and improving the work- life balance, tackling systematic inequality,
measuring capabilities and flourishing, strengthening human and social
capital and reversing the culture of consumerism” (2009 p.12)
However, it must be noted that current sustainable development
discourse has very little to say about the pragmatics of bringing about
cultural change. There are, perhaps, three main reasons for this
discrepancy. First, a large part of sustainable development discourse leans
closely to what Blowers refers to as ‘ecological modernization’, and seeks
only reform the existing infrastructure without pro-actively challenging its
core tenets, which may perpetuate consumption and thus exploitation. For
example, whilst Jackson’s 2009 report calls for the “tackling of systematic
inequality” he makes no tangible political or economic recommendations
on how this can be done, and fails to address concepts such as ‘climate
justice’ and ‘ecological debt’ which have the capacity to tackle systematic
inequality with a justice- based approach. It is important to note that whilst
sustainable development initiatives largely seek to reform existing
structures from within, the environmental justice tends to be more
oppositional, challenging the core tenets of the existing infrastructure3
(Scandrett 2007). Scandrett observes: “Mainstream policy discourse has
increasingly restricted [the operation of] environmental justice to policy
areas which do not challenge [economic] growth.” Second, as sustainable
development is predominantly a top- down initiative, it lacks the capacity
to effectively tackle core issues of community cohesion. However well-
intentioned, approaches to tackling issues of community from the ‘top-
down’ can often cripple grassroots community organizing by imposing
artificial community structures using institutions. For example, the late
social critic Ivan Illich (1973) identifies the increasingly ‘institutionalized’
nature of our communities as a factor in creating social isolation and
decreasing neighbourly reciprocity. To illustrate this the American
community development scholar John McKnight (1984) often tells the tale
of ‘the bereavement counsellor’ in which a small village has an established
system of dealing with death: when someone dies the members of the
community go over to the house of the family in mourning to comfort and
cook for them. The system functions on the ‘grassroots’ agency of the
community in taking the initiative to do so. However, in order to
‘guarantee’ and homogenize this outcome, the village then hires a
bereavement counsellor to comfort the mourning. The institutionalization’
of this duty thereby removes from the community’s initiative in dealing
with loss (McKnight 1984), thus unintentionally fracturing initiatives
towards reciprocity. This illustration implies that issues of community
cohesion are perhaps best tackled with ‘bottom- up’ approaches, instead
of the macro- level policy and economic reforms of sustainable
development. A third reason that the practice of sustainable development
perhaps lacks the capacity to affect change within the core “social logic” of
our culture is due to its rigidity as a discourse (McLaren 2003). As a higher-
3
This
is
not
true
of
all
environmental
justice
initiatives,
especially
‘top‐
down’
environmental
justice

approaches,
as
Scandrett
(2007)
notes,
critiquing
two
environmental
justice
research
publications

recently
commissioned
by
the
Scottish
government.
Scandrett
observes
that
while
both
the
2005

publication
by
Fairburn
et
al
Investigating
Environmental
Justice
in
Scotland,
links
between
measures

of
environmental
quality
and
social
deprivation
and
the
2005
publication
by
Curtice
et
al
Public

Attitudes
and
Environmental
Justice
in
Scotland,
present
thorough
analyses
linking
social
deprivation

and
proximity
to
environmental
harms,
both
papers
resist
making
recommendations
that
challenge

the
core
tenets
of
a
system
that
perpetuates
the
correlation.

level policy oriented concept, whose very discourse was generated and
perpetuated by international conferences (Baker 2006), its is inherently
unable to be responsive to the fluid and localized events that drive cultural
change from the bottom- up.
The environmental justice movement identifies strongly as a
grassroots, ‘bottom- up’ approach- challenging the core tenets of a
political and economic system that perpetuates exploitation and excess-
consumption. Benjamin Zephaniah, a poet who famously turned down the
prestigious OBE notes the importance of being able to maintain one’s
ability to be oppositional. “I don’t want to do government or monarchy
approved poetry. We need the freedom to be critical of these institutions,
and once you become part of them, that’s very difficult” (Zephaniah in Pool
2009).

An Infrastructure of Consumption and Exploitation

In the World Watch Institute’s State of the World 2008 report, Tim
Jackson (2008) argues that a key reason that materialistic consumerism is
so deeply entrenched in our society is that it is perpetuated by an
“infrastructure of consumption”. The summation of the effects of dominant
structures and institutions in society are geared to promote wasteful and
consumptive behaviour: “private transport is incentivised over public
transport; motorists are prioritized over pedestrians; energy supply is
subsidized and protected, while demand management is often chaotic
and expensive, waste disposal is cheap, economically and
behaviourally; recycling demands time and effort: ‘bring centres’ few
and far between and often overflowing with waste” (Jackson 2008, p.
56) This recognition does not negate the role of individual choice in
sustainable decision- making, but instead highlights the means by which
our structures and institutions largely promote a “social logic of
consumerism”(Jackson 2009). Living in a society with such a heavy
predisposition towards excess, Jackson asserts, makes it difficult for even
the most highly motivated individuals to live sustainable lifestyles. Noting
that “the issue of environmental quality is inextricably linked to that of
human equality” (Agyeman et al. 2003) Jackson’s conception can be built
upon to argue that our Western consumer society is also constructed with a
predisposition towards exploitative behaviour: disruptive, polluting
industry is more likely to go into low- income neighbourhoods than
wealthy neighbourhoods, goods produced with ethical labour tend to be
more expensive than products of sweatshop labour et cetera. Thus,
perhaps a more comprehensive term for that which perpetuates both
unsustainable and inequitable behaviour in society is the ‘Infrastructure of
Consumption and Exploitation’.
The structures and institutions that perpetuate such hyper-
consumptive, exploitative behaviour in our social system are built upon a
core set of ideas and assumptions that inform their internal logic (Meadows
1999). This set of dominant ideas and assumptions are woven together to
form a social paradigm, or the dominant cultural narrative. In the
sociological sense, a paradigm refers to “a constellation of concepts,
values, perceptions and practices shared by a community, which forms a
particular vision of reality […] paradigms provide the framework of
meaning within which "facts" and experiences acquire significance and can
be interpreted” (Capra 1996).
The concept of a paradigm allows us to examine the root causes of
our social and ecological crises by providing a framework for the
discussion of ideas and assumptions which are not always explicitly stated.
Tim Jackson notes how the manifestation of these ideas and assumptions
can be seen in “…the subtle but damaging signals sent by government,
regulatory frameworks, financial institutions, the media and our education
systems: business salaries are higher than those in the public sector,
particularly at the top; nurses and those in the caring profession are
consistently lower paid; private investment is written down at high
discount rates, making long- term costs invisible; success is counted in
terms of material status (salary, house size etc.); children are brought up as
a ‘shopping generation’, hooked on brand celebrity and status” (2008,
p.56).
 Thus, although social structures are predisposed to perpetuate
wasteful materialism and exploitation, it is vital to address this “extremely
powerful social logic” (Jackson 2008, p. 56) that locks both people and
institutions into this type of behaviour. For the purpose of this exploration,
the paradigm, or social logic, underlying our social infrastructure is
referred to as a ‘core cultural mythology’. The core cultural mythology is
defined as the ‘lowest common denominator’ of a shared narrative which
governs our lifestyles, incorporating the values and assumptions which are
widely experienced but rarely explicitly stated.

Addressing the ‘Core Cultural Mythology’

Environmental scientist Donella Meadows addresses the subject of
paradigmatic change in her 12 Places to Intervene in a System. She asserts
that: “transcending paradigms may go beyond challenging fundamental
assumptions, into the realm of changing the values and priorities that lead
to the assumptions, and being able to choose among value sets at will”
(1999). Referring to Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,
Meadows concludes that paradigmatic change can best occur when a wide
variety of individuals systematically point out the deficiencies of the ‘old’
paradigm while others lead us outside of ‘old’ paradigm by proactively
modelling a new one (Meadows 1999).
So what are the deficiencies of our current paradigm that have led to
such consumptive materialism and exploitation on a macro scale? Suppose
that our core cultural mythology is largely informed by both the varied and
dynamic means by which we pursue truth (ie. art, science, spirituality), in
addition to more fixed and static considerations such as our biological
nature and our historical context. Imagining the ‘core cultural mythology’
as a dynamic entity that is in constant flux, it becomes evident that there
will be a constant power struggle for the control of the ideas and
assumptions which form the dominant cultural narrative. Since the dynamic
processes by which we collectively pursue truth, such as through the
sciences, the arts and through spirituality are highly influential in their
ability to impact the core cultural mythology, they are also especially
vulnerable to the interests of power (Greig 2007).
In an essay calling upon artists to pursue the truths of the times we
live in through honest, socio-politically responsive work, Scottish
playwright David Greig argues that one of the key roles of theatre in our
times is to resist “the management of the imagination by power” (2007, p.
215). Here, Greig paints a picture of the influence of capital and power on
the core cultural mythology:

“The institutions of global capital mange the imagination in the first instance through
media institutions. Hollywood cinema, the television and newspapers of the great
media empires like Fox and CNN. These forms create the narrative superstructure
around which our imagination grows. In this way we learn to think along certain
paths, to believe certain truths, all of which tend, in the end to further the aims of
capital and the continuance of economic growth. Once the superstructure is in
place, our own individual creativity will tend to grow around it and assume its shape
so that the stories we tell ourselves, the photographs we take and so forth, are put in
the service of the same narratives and assumptions […]Very few imaginations are
totally colonized, just as very few are totally liberated. In most minds there is a
constant back and forth- a dialogue between challenge and assumption like waves
washing against a shoreline. […] By intervening in the realm of the imaginary,
power continually shapes our understanding of reality” (2007, p. 216)

Greig argues that art has the capacity to resist this ‘management of the
imagination’ by the interests of capital by being dedicated first and
foremost to the truth, and thereby challenging the core cultural mythology
which has led to an Infrastructure of Consumption and Exploitation. Thus, if
we are to truly address our social and ecological crises, we require both an
art and a science that is unrelenting in its pursuit of truth. This may allow us
to recover our core cultural mythology from the ‘management of the
imagination by capital’.
Perhaps this sentiment is better expressed in playwright Harold
Pinter’s 2005 Nobel Lecture: “I believe that despite the enormous odds
which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as
citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial
obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory. If such a
determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of
restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man” (Pinter 2005).
The Virtues of Storytelling
As we have seen, the environmental justice movement is a highly
localized struggle, most often arising in response to injustice affecting a
specific community. For a popular movement to take off, an injustice must
be uncovered and gain the widespread recognition of the people. Thus,
the role of the village bard is just as important as that of international policy
–makers.
Social change is never a merely intellectual process- it demands the
engagement of the senses and the passions in addition to the intellect. In
the words of Antonio Gramsci: “The intellectual’s error consists in
believing that one can know without understanding and even more without
feeling and being impassioned [...] that is, without feeling the elementary
passions of the people” (in Conquergood 2002, p.418). The arts provide a
space for the engagement of the passions with the intellect and create a
forum wherein the key paradigms that underlie a society can be called into
question as necessary.
German philosopher Jurgen Habermas describes the process of
'rational reconstruction' as the means by which intuitive knowledge is
systematically linguistically and philosophically coded into a 'rational',
logical form (1979). ‘Rational reconstruction’ is used to make sense of
external and internal realities via a process of interpretation (eg.
interpreting a smile as benevolent), as opposed to generating theoretical
knowledge via a process of deduction and description (eg. using the
scientific method). Thus, according to Habermas' conception, a great
proportion of what we construe as knowledge originates in a sensory-
intuitive experience and subsequently becomes codified via a process of
rationalization. As artistic creation is an expression of the sensory- intuitive
experience, art has the capacity to serve as a precursor to rationalized
knowledge.
In a paper entitled Interventions and Radical Research, the
performance studies scholar Dwight Conquergood explores the "indirect,
nonverbal and extralinguistic modes of communication [in society], rich in
subversive meanings and utopian yearnings” (Conquergood 2002 p.148).
Conquergood provides a particularly illuminative example of the
phenomena of 'rational reconstruction' as conceptualized by Habermas in
his discussion of the life narrative of the African- American abolitionist and
former slave, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895). He quotes at length from
Douglass' memoirs, well worth reiterating:

But, on allowance day, those who visited the great house farm
were peculiarly excited and noisy. While on their way, they
would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate
with their wild notes. These were not always merry because they
were wild. On the contrary, they were mostly of a plaintive cast,
and told a tale of grief and sorrow. In the most boisterous
outbursts of rapturous sentiment, there was ever a tinge of deep
melancholy [...]. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing
of those songs would do more to impress truly spiritual-minded
men and women with the soul-crushing and death-dealing
character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes [...].
Every tone was a testimony against slavery [...]. The hearing of
those wild notes always [...] filled my heart with ineffable
sadness [...]. To those songs I trace my first glimmering
conceptions of the dehumanizing character of slavery [...]. Those
songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and
quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds[...] If any one
wishes to be impressed with a sense of the soul-killing power of
slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, and, on
allowance day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there
let him, in silence, thoughtfully analyze the sounds that shall pass
through the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus impressed,
it will only be because “there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.”
(Douglass [1855] 1969:99 in Conquergood 2002 p. 145)

This selection of Douglass' memoirs lends valuable insight into the

capability of artistic expression to provide a means for the initial voicing
and recognition of an injustice. Here, in taking in an artistic expression (ie.
the singing of the slaves) Douglass' understanding of the injustice of
slavery can be seen to develop from the intuitive to rational stage: "...to
those songs I trace my first glimmering conceptions of the dehumanizing
character of slavery", by a process perhaps akin to Habermas’ 'rational
reconstruction’. Douglass' memoirs provide a written record of how the
slave songs- a human expression of an intuitive sensibility - serve as a key
driving force in the movement towards the abolition of slavery.
 Additionally since art communicates in a deeper form of language
than words, it has the ability to ‘de-professionalize’ public debates,
broadening citizen participation in addressing and identifying key social
issues of our time. Conquergood acknowledges the ability of the arts to
communicate in a language that transcends what he refers to as
'scriptocentrism', essentially the notion that ‘everything there is to be
known can be codified in text’. In reference to Michel Foucault’s idea of
“subjugated knowledges”, he asserts that scriptocentrism is a form of
epistemic violence that has “squeezed out… the whole realm of complex,
finely nuanced meaning that is embodied, tacit, intoned, gestured,
improvised, coexperienced, covert- and all the more deeply meaningful
for its refusal to be spelt out” (Conquergood, 312). Conquergood thus
draws attention to the capability of art (in this case performance art) to
exploit these other types of knowledge for a purpose of searching for
truths and communicating understandings.
Take for example Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, a painting which depicts
the of bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The work is
remarkable in its ability to communicate the horrors of war in a language
beyond words (Martin 2003). In addition to drawing international attention
to the Spanish Civil War, it has become a global symbol of Anti- War
movements (Martin 2003). A reproduction of the painting adorns the
headquarters of the UN Security Council, whose stated mission is to “end
the scourge of war.” As a testament to the power of the artwork, US officials
had the painting covered for the press conference in February 2003 in
which the American government pressed to go to war with Iraq (Vallen
2003).
An example of a performance art that pertains directly to
environmental justice, is a performance by ‘political tricksters’ and
‘corporate ethics activists’, the Yes Men, at the 2007 Gas and Oil Exposition
in Calgary, Alberta. “Intended as a critique of the fossil fuel industry’s
influence on energy policy” (Keim 2007), the piece exploded the logical
endpoints of the political prioritization of industry amidst current
ecological crises. Posing as representatives of the Exxon- Mobil CEO Lee
Raymond, Andy Bichlbaum- posing as Shepard Wolff- had arranged to
deliver a keynote lecture at a luncheon of the conference, to announce
findings of Raymond’s study team, commissioned by the Department of
Energy (Keim 2007). Bilchbaum / ‘Wolff’ opened his lecture by
acknowledging the propensity of current energy policies to lead to
“widespread global calamities” thereby posing a threat to oil industry
(Keim 2007). Announcing the ‘results’ of the Exxon- Mobil study team’s
findings, he announced that “in the worst case scenario, the oil industry
could "keep fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of people who die
into oil, called ‘Vivoleum’".

Figure: The Yes Men’s 'Vivoleum Candles’

Bilchbaum/ ‘Woolf’’s ‘research assistant’ Mike Bonnano or “Florian

Ossenberg” announced that: "With more fossil fuels comes a greater
chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will
continue to flow for those of us left." Keim (2007) reports that:
“The impostors led growingly suspicious attendees in lighting Vivoleum candles
made, they said, from a former Exxon janitor who died from cleaning a toxic spill.
When shown a mock video of the janitor professing his desire to be turned in death
into candles, a conference organizer pulled Bonanno and Bichlbaum from the stage.
As security guards led Bonanno from the room, Bichlbaum told reporters that
"Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of humanity
 would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bodies could be turned
into fuel for the rest of us."”

In the words of the German playwright Heiner Mueller: “the role of art
is to mobilize the imagination" (Waltemath 2004). In 2005 Heavy Trash, "an
anonymous arts organization of architects, designers and urban planners"
set up viewing platforms on the streets of Los Angeles' gated communities,
wherein the general public can look onto the properties of gated homes by
climbing onto a platform and peering over (Heavy Trash 2005).

Figure: 'Viewing Platforms' into Los Angeles Gated Communities (Heavy Trash
2005)

Constructed after the viewing platforms at the Berlin Wall which

historically allowed citizens from West Berlin to see into the East of the city,
the platforms juxtapose past and present in order to spark debate on the
right to block off access to parts of the city. In a statement on their official
website, Heavy Trash voices their intent to promote dialogue on issues
concerning privatization in urban planning. USC Lusk Center Director Ed
Blakely and UC Berkeley professor Mary Gail Snyder comment: "When
public services and even local government are privatized, when the
community of responsibility stops at the gates, the function and the very
idea of democracy are threatened. Gates and barricades that separate
people from one another also reduce people's potential to understand one
another and commit to any common or collective purpose" (Heavy Trash
2005).

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