Defying gravity: environmental justice rises in California’s capital city

Abstract

Sacramento, California’s capital city has not, until recently, had the kind of cohesive and effective environmental justice (EJ) movement as seen in several other regions around the state or country. However, in the past 15 years, a variety of new forms of EJ organising are producing a vibrant if uneven movement. This article examines how and why this transformation has occurred and what challenges the movement has faced and which persist. I propose that the rise of the EJ movement in Sacramento can be traced to an explicit articulation of an EJ master frame, the development of an increasingly dense network of EJ-oriented organisations, the mobilisation of a grassroots base of residents, and several state-led EJ policy initiatives that have created openings for community mobilisation. The article begins by presenting a theoretical framework to understand the formation and development of social movements. This is followed by an overview of local environmental injustices and a series of focused case studies of key EJ struggles in the region. Finally, it closes with a discussion of the dynamic rise of the Sacramento EJ movement and further questions to track its continued development.