From the Environmentalism of the Poor and the Indigenous Toward Decolonial Environmental Justice

Abstract

Drawing from the need for distinct approaches in environmental justice (EJ) research, in this chapter, we choose decolonial EJ both theoretically and methodologically. Extractive projects are rooted in colonial logic. To illustrate the complexity behind this colonial logic, we trace multiple marginalities and oppression across different historical and social contexts in two different regions, the Arctic and India. The long-lasting colonial rush for the resources at the expense of the Global “South” (including the South in the North) shape environmental injustices along multiple mutually constituted axes of racial marginalization, poverty, gendered issue, and nature–culture relationship neglect. Thus, these intersectional ties must be problematized by engaging deeper with decolonial, Indigenous, and feminist scholarship as well as by using methodological and pedagogical aspects for decolonial research. This is because both decolonial thought and methods allow intersectional socio-environmental issues and contexts being addressed not only for the South but from the South as well. We discuss in this chapter, how ongoing research at the Barcelona school engages with these aspects, and that future research agenda needs to be more explicit and reflexive.