UC Press Blog

By Alexander Huezo, author of Visions of Global Environmental Justice: Comunidades Negras and the War on Drugs in Colombia

“Environmental justice” has become an international buzzword as of late. It’s increasingly used in places like Colombia where the current presidential administration has cited social justice and environmental justice as fundamental to total peace in a country plagued by decades of civil conflict. In the Colombian context, and in many other parts of the world, the term ‘environmental justice’ is self-evident and simply means “justice for the environment.” However, the framing of justice for a society as distinct from justice for the environment is problematized in critical environmental justice studies as well as in other critical fields of study that seek to deconstruct the nature-society divide. 

Is there value in discussing environmental justice at a global scale? What is global about environmental justice if it originated with the analysis of U.S. communities of color confronting environmental racism in the post-civil rights era? What kind of baggage comes with a term conceptualized in the Global North that may be applicable to the Global South? Does a global environmental justice framework make sense for communities outside of the U.S. that are resisting socio-environmental injustices associated with U.S. imperialism? For instance, could the U.S.-driven War on Drugs be considered an example of transnational environmental racism? How do foreign activists and scholars act in solidarity with comunidades negras (collectively titled rural Afro-descendant communities) seeking justice for socio-environmental damages in Colombia? And, beyond thinking critically about geographic scale, what about the more-than-human dimensions of environmental racism and justice?

This excerpt from the introductory chapter of my new book Visions of Global Environmental Justice addresses some those questions:

Visions of Global Environmental Justice deconstructs the transnational myths that perpetuate the violence and environmental racism of the War on Drugs. Conversely, it argues that non/humans rendered expendable by violence and pollution are indis­pensable to both the conceptualization and the realization of environmental justice globally. In doing so, this book makes important contributions to the field of environ­mental justice studies and its emerging subfield, global environmental justice studies.

 

Though some people interviewed or quoted for this book may describe the supernatural visions as “myths,” I intentionally utilize the terms myth and myth­making when discussing the geopolitical discourses that rationalize environ­mental racism. In this way I am subverting the use of a term that often connotes skepticism, if not outright disbelief. Myth often signifies the fantastical or not believable, and it is frequently applied by knowledge authorities such as anthropol­ogists interpreting other cultures from a Euro-American perspective. For instance, in chapter 3 I document an interview with the US Embassy staff in which they describe misperceptions of aerial eradication as “myths” created by ill-informed Colombian peasants. This book, in turn, questions the geopolitical myths or myth­making that justify aerial eradication as a “legal” War on Drugs strategy despite its very controversial history.

 

Visions in the book’s title, as well as in the main argument, has multiple mean­ings. For the most part, it specifically refers to the set of supernatural entities that provide a narrative structure to the book. In the last two chapters, however, the term is also employed as a synonym for different ways of perceiving environmen­tal justice. In that latter context, visions also refers to the perspectives of communi­ties struggling for survival in the Anthropocene. This book largely focuses on the perspectives of comunidades negras and, to a lesser extent, resguardos indígenas in the Colombian Pacific region. Historically these respective groups have not described themselves as environmental justice communities, but Visions of Global Environmental Justice argues that these groups, the most impacted by decades of violence and environmental racism in Colombia, should be considered environ­mental justice communities.

The book is narratively organized by accounts of these supernatural visions and features original artwork that illustrates the more-than-human dimensions of environmental justice. It is written accessibly for those interested in Latin American studies, environmental studies, and the War on Drugs.