ABSTRACT
The environmental justice movement has long been associated with local struggles tied to place, with strong organizing principles that demand distributive and procedural justice as well as recognition. Early in the movement’s history, its radical critique of standard environmental management and local scale were viewed as limiting factors for a universal political project with global reach. This chapter examines evidence of the environmental justice movement’s linkages to global issues and the parallel institutionalization of the environmental justice discourse by mainstream environmental groups and government agencies. While environmental justice is becoming a ubiquitous term, the contrast between the underlying meanings ascribed to the concept and its practical application by different groups come into stark relief. How do these patterns of institutionalization, globalization, and co-option shed light on the potential for systemic transformations that link local struggles to global action?
