Abstract

Building on previous work on environmental justice, in this paper, I want to move beyond discussing injustice as an already existent fact of disproportionate contamination and exposure (Pellow 2000, Varga, Kiss, and Ember 2002, Bullard 2005, Carruthers 2008) and introduce the idea of “prospective environmental injustice” to refer to situations in which prospective project proposals and the actions of state and market actors already create injustices even before the projects become a material reality. My recent research in Eastern Europe prompted me to this idea as an observation of the multiple forms of injustice currently produced merely through proposed plans for the development of new mines. While waiting for the ‘actual harm’ to happen, mountain areas in Eastern Europe are becoming targets of new development plans which already introduce other dimensions of injustice: slow community disappearance and further isolation, decaying living (economic) conditions, intra-inter family and neighborhood conflicts, intimidation, humiliation and harassment, psychological, damage, disqualification as political subjects. I suggest rethinking of the ideal of environmental justice to include fighting for the ideal of political equality: not letting harm from happening, standing up against prospective injustice in addition to demanding recognition and participation in processes often organized by those whose interests are to produce the harm in the first place (Velicu and Kaika, 2015).

Bio

Irina Velicu is a political scientist working on socio-environmental conflicts in post-communist countries at the Center for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal. Irina has previously worked as a Marie Curie Experienced Researcher within the ENTITLE European Network of Political Ecology, coordinated by the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona). Her research interests revolve around the topics of socio-environmental justice, equality, social transformation and aesthetic politics. Her recent publications can be found in New Political Science, Globalizations, Studies in Social Justice, Geoforum. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Hawaii (USA) under the mentorship of Professor Michael Shapiro.

Activity within ENTITLE  - Rede Europeia de Investigação de Ecologia Política, Oficina Ecologia e Sociedade and Núcleo de Estudos sobre Políticas Sociais, Trabalho e Desigualdades (POSTRADE)