ABSTRACT
Environmental justice explores the nexus between structural inequalities and
environmental degradation. Although scholarship on environmental justice is vast, this
literature is centred in developed countries, rather than exploring the injustices occurring
in international contexts. This study aims to address this gap through a combined
phenomenological and ethnographic approach in Jam City, a poor community in Nairobi,
Kenya. Findings that are discussed include the similarities of environmental injustices
between Jam City and the established literature as well as several nuances with the
literature, including how lack of resources for response perpetuates injustice and how
environmental hazards may not be explicitly dangerous but can still cause disparate
harms. This study supports the argument that social workers should be more involved in
promoting environmental justice by increasing our focus on the topic in our curriculum,
research and practice.
