To Live in Our Damaged Worlds

Bibliographic Data

ID3914236
AuthorsMaud Hallin (University of Liège), Danièle Magda (0000-0002-6581-7447), Daniele D Magda (0000-0002-8883-7707, AGroécologie, Innovations, teRritoires), Pierre M Stassart (University of Liège)
Year2025
Volume17
Issue1
Pages170-189
Publication date2025-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Humanities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2201-1919 • E-ISSN: 2201-1919
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/22011919-11543495
OpenAlexW4409013598
LanguageEN
References cited54

The question of how to inhabit damaged worlds becomes pressing, and the notion of environmental justice, which emerged in the 1980s, is an attempt to respond to this situation. But this concept has been essentially thought around the notion of fair distribution of environmental risks among humans. Today, however, the ecological upheavals and destruction of refuge for living beings increasingly mark the end of risk-based management toward the recognition of sustainably damaged worlds and the obligation to adapt. Based on a critical analysis of academic literature, this article argues this shift to adaptation shows the limits of the normative approach of environmental justice and calls for complementary approaches to be proposed. A first move exists in literature to develop multispecies or socio-ecological justice by insisting on the importance of a relational approach to justice with other living species. Following this, the authors propose to go further by including Deweyan pragmatic approaches of inquiry in ecological justice issues. These inquiries are the processes led by publics who try to respond to their troubles. The authors defend that these processes allow them to think of justice with precariousness, in a situated and relational approach, as already being a means and not only an end to inhabiting damaged worlds. This leads them to propose a version of ecological justice enriched with four dimensions: epistemological, relational, temporal and responsibility

Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · History

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