The concept of environmental justice has offered a new direction for social movements and public policy in recent decades, and researchers worldwide now position social equity as a prerequisite for sustainability. Yet the relationship between social equity and environmental sustainability has been little studied in Canada. Speaking for Ourselves draws together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars and activists who bring equity issues to the forefront by considering environmental justice from multiple perspectives and in specifically Canadian contexts.
Julian Agyeman is a professor in and chair of the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. Peter Cole is an associate professor of Aboriginal and Northern Studies at the University College of the North. Randolph Haluza-DeLay is an assistant professor of sociology at King’s University College. Pat O’Riley is an associate professor in the Department of Equity Studies, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University.
Contributors: Julian Agyeman, Harris Ali, Jamie Baxter, F. Stuart Chapin III, Peter Cole, Leith Deacon, Lawrence K. Duffy, John Eyles, Anna Godduhn, Randolph Haluza-DeLay, Lori Hanson, Henry P. Huntington, Beenash Jafri, Roger Keil, Gary Kofinas, Bonita Lawrence, Robert Lovelace, Deborah McGregor, David C. Natcher, Melissa Ollevier, Bernard Ominayak and Kevin Thomas, Pat O’Riley, Barbara Rahder, Maureen Reed, Sarah Fleisher Trainor, Eric Tsang
This collection is the first major examination of the multidimensionality of environmental equity and injustice in Canada. It should appeal to scholars across a wide range of disciplines in the social and environmental sciences, to activists, and to citizens who want to make Canadian society more just and sustainable.
Authors and editors are to be commended for bringing together several areas of inquiry, including environmental sociology, First Nations politics, race and ethnicity, urban sociology, rural sociology, and social movements. The collection will prove valuable to a broad range of students and researchers.