Environmental Justice, Popular Struggle and Community Development

Description

Struggles for environmental justice involve communities mobilising against powerful forces which advocate 'development', driven increasingly by neoliberal imperatives. In doing so, communities face questions about their alliances with other groups, working with outsiders and issues of class, race, ethnicity, gender, worker/community and settler/indigenous relationships. Written by a wide range of international scholars and activists, contributors explore these dynamics and the opportunities for agency and solidarity. They critique the practice of community development professionals, academics, trade union organisers, social movements and activists and inform those engaged in the pursuit of justice as community, development and environment interact.

Anne Harley is a Lecturer in Adult education and development at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Previously, she undertook research for the National Land Commission, and the Black Sash. Anne also heads up the Paulo Freire project in the Adult Education discipline. Eurig Scandrett is a Senior Lecturer in Public Sociology at Queen Margaret University, Scotland and a trade union representative with University and College Union. He previously worked in environmental biology, community work, adult education and was Head of Community Action at Friends of the Earth Scotland.

"Riveting accounts of struggles from below for environmental justice, drawn from different continents and countries, some successful and some not, for genuine community development as a process which generates solidarity and collective agency." Jim Crowther, Honorary Fellow, University of Edinburgh