Does time colonise intergenerational environmental justice theory?

Abstract

The idea of time is critical to intergenerational environmental justice (IEJ). Focusing on time as discrete instantiations on a forward projection limits the capacity of IEJ to theorise justice for future generations. Framed by this understanding of time, IEJ then excludes peoples for whom time is spirally bound and for whom nonhuman and human are entangled within the spheres of justice. In a contribution towards decolonising IEJ theory, drawing on Māori ontology of time, IEJ is theorised as integral to being, rather than as an act of sacrifice or beneficence.