Sociological Perspectives

Environmental conflict appears to be increasing exponentially. Natural resource management disputes over preservation or “wise use” rage in forests, river systems, rangelands, and mineral lands. Locating hazardous waste sites is so contentious that there is only one site in the country that accepts the high-level waste produced everywhere else in the United State. Existing waste sites are closing their gates to all but local waste. Low income and minority communities are documenting the disproportionate burden of toxic contamination in their neighborhoods and are fighting back in the environmental justice movement. NIMBY (Not In My ***BackYard) responses to LULUs (Locally Unwanted Land Uses) appear to have paralyzed both government agencies and neighborhoods as they attempt to clean up past contamination, control present pollution, and manage future responses to development. Conflicts and disputes between affected parties—stakeholders in the common parlance—are regularly in the news as local, state, and federal government agencies attempt to gain public acceptability of programs through public involvement in decision making.

Science plays a major part in environmental conflict. How that role is defined is determined by the human actors engaged in the conflict and the legal and institutional constructs that structure discourse. This article begins by tracing the authority invested in science to ideological assumptions about scientific methodology. Then, four common roles for science in environmental conflict (discoverer, mechanism of accountability, shield, and tool of persuasion), are described. These roles are increasingly unproductive in resolving environmental conflict, partly due to the misfit between the actual conduct of science and its ideal. This article proposes that a new role, one that is more consistent with a social constructionist view of science, has been crafted as a byproduct of decision-making innovations that prescribe explicit negotiations among representatives of groups engaged in an environmental dispute. As a tool of facilitation, science may be used more constructively to resolve environmental disputes.

The toxic pollution problem is composed of several interrelated parts which are involved in the process of production, use, and disposal of chemicals and products considered necessary for society. Each day, millions of pounds of toxic chemicals are used, stored, disposed of, and transported in and out of communities throughout the United States. Most Americans assume that pollution and other environmental hazards are problems faced equally by everyone in our society. But a growing body of research shows that the most common victims of environmental hazards and pollution are minorities and the poor. Disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards is part of the complex cycle of discrimination and deprivation faced by minorities in the United States. This article examines social science empirical research on the relationship between race, class, and the distribution of environmental hazards and the theoretical perspectives which have emerged to explain environmental inequities. The article also discusses the link between the environmental justice movement, which seeks to confront the causes and consequences of environmental inequities, and social science research on environmental inequity.

Citizen groups that participate in alternative dispute resolution processes have overcome many of the barriers described in Sherry Arnstein's classic article, “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” A well-structured collaborative process can remedy some of the imbalances and other stumbling blocks inherent in traditional forums, broadening the issues considered as well as the potential solutions. At the top of the ladder, there exists a three-runged extension of choices. First citizens must make the strategic choice whether or not to participate in the dispute resolution process. Second, if they choose to participate, citizens must then determine how to do so effectively. Citizen representatives can significantly influence the outcome of a negotiation if they pay attention to the critical components comprising the dispute settlement process and ensure that these are satisfactory at the outset. They must also maintain effective communication with their constituencies. At the third rung, citizen groups confront the need for continued involvement, both to ensure implementation of any agreements reached, as well as to capitalize on the productive working relationships and opportunities for further influence provided by their participation in this process.

Classical and conventional sociological theories cannot explain social-psychological dynamics in contemporary social movements. A synthesis of symbolic interactionism and New Social Movement theory offers a useful framework for analyzing and interpreting the role of consciousness/identity and culture/lifestyle in new social movements. Movement identifications are social-interactional processes that symbolize collectively constructed cognitive frameworks. Activist identities are forms of collective consciousness that function as symbolic resources in the ongoing mobilization of collective action. Activism in the radical environmentalist Earth First! movement is theorized as an ecological postmodern identity praxis that expresses biocentric, transpersonal ecological consciousness. The identity-constructs of the “Ecological Self” and “Wild Within” are expressed in activists' social gatherings and symbolic direct actions. These movement identifications/activist identities represent symbolic, counter-discursive challenges to technocracy.

The Pacific Northwest has become the site of a bitterly fought struggle over the future of the remaining 10% of the region's ancient, or “old growth,” forests. The remaining stands of these forests are important components of the local economy and of the region's ecology. The article begins with a brief description of the economic and ecological crises which are now coming to fruition as a result of the loss of 90% of these forests. It then provides a description of the cultural heritage and sense of community which is being lost in the small, timber-dependent communities of the region—a social crisis resulting from the economic and ecological crises. In conclusion, the article argues that all of these crises should be understood as resulting from the political, economic, and historical circumstances which facilitated the emergence of the largest and wealthiest timber ownership.

This analysis examines the rise and political promotion of mediation in the settlement of land-use-related environmental conflicts in the state of Hawaii and counters much of the enthusiastic praise of mediation. The study adopts a political economy approach informed by the structural class-centric state perspective in order to illustrate the economic roots of political facilitation of environmental mediation. It is argued that environmental mediation has emerged as a political tool to demobilize and depoliticize conflicts on behalf of the state and industry interests. Environmental mediation is studied as an important mechanism for the state to cope with its dual and contradictory role—a role that involves both the minimization of political legitimation crisis and the promotion of capital accumulation and expansion.

The paper links the rapid deforestation taking place in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest to the alliance of the Brazilian government with world-systemic or global institutions in developing Amazonia. This alliance accelerated the pace of destruction by extending the capitalist frontier into the region, with devastating consequences for the people of the forest, (i.e*** Indians, rubber tappers, etc.) The paper argues that changes in the ecopolitics of the world-system beginning in the mid-1980's strengthened the cause of the people of the forest against the systemic agents of destruction. They won important allies abroad, while the Brazilian government lost allies. The political leverage gained by the people of the forest allowed them to win a few important victories in attempting to preserve their lands and livelihoods. Pressured by international demand, the Brazilian government agreed to create extractive reserves and to demarcate Indian lands. The paper concludes that a country-by-country approach to the problem of deforestation is insufficient. The world-system must be taken into account for a more comprehensive picture of the problem. I also argue, however, that internal or national processes are also critical for our understanding of environmental problems in the Third World. The world-system and national processes interact.