Enhancing environmental justice research and praxis: the inclusion of human security, resilience and vulnerabilities literature

Int. J. Innovation and Sustainable Development, Vol. 8, No. 4, 2014 409

Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Enhancing environmental justice research and praxis: the inclusion of human security, resilience and vulnerabilities literature

Beth Schaefer Caniglia, Beatrice Frank*, Daisha Delano and Bridget Kerner Oklahoma State University, Department of Sociology, 470 Murray Hall, Stillwater, OK 74078, USA E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] *Corresponding author

Abstract: Despite the diversification in research topics, the increase of academic fields addressing environmental wrongs and the global level reached by the environmental justice discipline, this scholarship still struggles in its effectiveness. To empower sociologists and build bridges that allow more synergistic development between disciplines dealing with environmental wrongs, we examine critical points of divergence and synergy between the fields of environmental justice, human security, coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) and resilience. We discuss powerful tools within these literatures to pinpoint how different fields have approached and addressed the exposure of individuals, groups and places to environmental risks and hazards, with a special emphasis on how environmental justice can be served by cross-fertilisation with other fields of study. Finally, we suggest a new line of argumentation and research to directly enhance environmental justice in communities of concern.

Keywords: environmental risks and hazards; environmental justice; human security; resilience; coupled human-natural systems; vulnerability; innovation and sustainable development.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Caniglia, B.S., Frank, B., Delano, D. and Kerner, B. (2014) ‘Enhancing environmental justice research and praxis: the inclusion of human security, resilience and vulnerabilities literature’, Int. J. Innovation and Sustainable Development, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp.409–426.

Biographical notes: Beth Schaefer Caniglia conducts research focused at the intersection of social movements, organisation and policymaking, especially related to the environmental movement. She has collected extensive data on the Multistakeholder Dialogues at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, where she also served as a consultant to the NGO Steering Committee. Her more recent work has turned toward the interaction of science, social movements and public opinion in the creation of environmental policy.

410 B.S. Caniglia et al.

Beatrice Frank is a National Science Foundation (NSF) EPSCoR postdoctoral fellow working on the human-nature interface and the environmental challenges related to global socio-ecological changes. She has a trans-disciplinary background obtained through a BSc in Biology, an MSc in Conservation Biology and a PhD in Natural Resources Management. Her current research focus on coupled human and natural systems sensitivity to climate variability and change.

Daisha Delano is a Master student at Oklahoma State University, where she is a graduate research assistant on the NSF EPSCoR project “Adapting Socio-ecological Systems to Increased Climate Variability”. Her current research interests and thesis project are focusing on urban coping capacity to climate change and urban environmental justice regarding access to green spaces and ecological diversity.

Bridget Kerner is a Masters Student in the Sociology Department at Oklahoma State University and a Research Assistant on the NSF (NSF) project “Adapting Socio-ecological Systems to Increased Climate Variability”. Her current research interests include environmental sociology, environmental justice, and social stratification. Ultimately, her goal is to translate these research interests into meaningful policy relevant research.

This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘Enhancing environmental justice research and praxis: the inclusion of human security, resilience & vulnerabilities literature’ presented at Environment, Technology & Sustainable Development Conference, Gwalior, India, 2–4 March, 2014.

1 Introduction

There is a pressing need to develop clear definitions of resilience, vulnerability, environmental justice and human security and to model their relationships with one another. Sociologists have recently incorporated literature on resilience and vulnerability in their efforts to understand and explain environmental justice (Roberts and Parks, 2007). Coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) scholarship also bridges concepts from environmental sociology and environmental justice with resilience and vulnerability and played a key role in extending the ecological resilience literature to evaluations of communities and other social systems (Clark and Dickson, 2003; Kasperson et al., 2010; Kates et al., 2001; Liu et al., 2007). The recently coined literature on human security has developed its own definitions of vulnerability, which diverge from those utilised by ecologists, sociologists and CHANS scholars (Brklacich et al., 2010; O’Brien and Barnett, 2013).

Despite the rising interest in environmental justice scholarship and the increase of academic fields addressing environmental wrongs, this discipline still struggles in its effectiveness at ameliorating environmental wrongs. In this paper, we review the conceptual and theoretical overlap between the fields of environmental justice, human security, CHANS and ecological resilience for the first time. We examine critical points of divergence and synergy with a special emphasis on how environmental justice can be served by cross-fertilisation with these fields of study. Ultimately, we feel this synthesis will empower sociologists to engage with the language being used in other

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fields, better model dimensions of environmental justice and build bridges that allow more synergistic development of all of the fields examined. Through this innovative approach we believe that environmental justice movements and scholars can enhance their credibility and momentum becoming a more effective scholarship. Most importantly, however, we see two roles that environmental justice scholarship should pursue in the future. Traditional scholarship should of course, continue to refine models that highlight and explain the causes of environmental injustice. However, we believe a more public sociologies-oriented environmental justice scholarship is necessary – one that propels us forward to the ways individuals and local authorities can ameliorate and even prevent those environmental injustices that can be foreseen. We find powerful tools within the literatures we review here that enable us to better cooperate with local authorities and pinpoint specific vulnerabilities that fall under their purview to address.

We begin by reviewing where current debates and models stand in the environmental justice literature. We then review the human security literature, because it, too, focuses on individual security as its emphasis. Thereafter, we introduce three literatures that share an emphasis on characteristics of systems, rather than individuals. The resilience literature focuses on the stability, adaptation and change of ecological systems over time. The CHANS literature incorporates human communities into their examination of resilience, and the vulnerabilities literature emphasises features of social and ecological systems that increase or decrease the extent to which those systems can absorb external shocks. We end with a brief discussion of how these literatures explicitly advance the environmental justice literature and the potential a new line of argumentation and research has to enhance environmental justice in communities of concern.

2 Environmental justice and human security: how do we protect people from environmental harms?

2.1 Environmental justice

Environmental justice scholarship emerged in the early 1980s to address empirically and theoretically what appeared to be disproportionate siting of noxious facilities in communities of colour (Brulle and Pellow, 2006; Pellow and Brehm, 2013; Schlosberg, 2013). Environmental justice is “the concept that every individual, regardless of race, ethnicity, or class, has the right to be free from ecological destruction and deserves equal protection of his or her environment, health, employment, housing, and transportation” (Roberts and Toffolon-Weis, 2001, p.10). This definition of the concept was promulgated into US law in 1994 when President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12898 which called “on all the agencies of the federal government, not just the environmental protection agency (EPA), to take environmental justice concerns into account in all rule making” (Mohai et al., 2009, p.410). Despite the progress made by environmental justice law there has been little progress in bringing an end to the unequal distribution of environmental ‘bads’ during the 20 years since it was signed.

Environmental justice scholars offer a variety of explanations for why this discipline has struggled in its effectiveness. First, there is the problem of operationalisation and model specification. Many scholars have attempted to operationalise indicators of environmental inequality, however they have discovered “documenting the existence of ‘disproportional impact’ of people of colour or poor populations has turned out not to be


a simple issue” (Mohai et al., 2009, p.407). A debate seems constantly to be waged over whether race or class is the better predictor of environmental inequality.

“In different studies when socioeconomic factors have been controlled for racial disparities continue to persist, and in other studies when racial factors are controlled socioeconomic factors persist. This does not mean one or the other ought to be examined as more important rather that further investigation is needed.” (Mohai et al., 2009, p.411)

While scholars have found that both income and poverty consistently correspond with the presence of environmental hazards and many studies have found significant evidence of racial inequality in terms of environmental impact, when it comes to environmental injustice there do not seem to be consistent findings (Downey et al., 2008; Pellow and Brehm, 2013).

Some contribute the inconsistent findings to the methodologies employed by different scholars in these areas: choice of statistical method applied to the dataset, different racial groups in the study, the type of exposure to environmental ‘bads’ (different forms of pollution) and the scale chosen to study (city block, county, state, geographic region) (Downey et al., 2008, p.271). This impedes potential policy outcomes. Without clear indicators of environmental inequalities it is hard for policy makers to develop an appropriate solution. “Environmental inequality outcomes and the role that residential segregation and racial income inequality play in shaping environmental inequality outcomes appear to be highly contingent on local conditions that, in turn, are likely to be the product of historical forces that vary from one metropolitan area to another” (Downey et al., 2008, p.273).

Environmental justice scholars also cite how ineffective the environmental justice movement has been in terms of bringing about the transitions they are fighting for. Mohai et al. (2009, p.410) points out that within the USA individuals have attempted to use legal action in order to counter environmental injustice; however, “the general strategy of using legal actions to achieve justice in cases of environmental inequality has not fared well”. This not only discourages citizens from initiating court cases, it sets a precedent of court cases whereby industries and individuals responsible for the injustice have a defence. Another barrier to the implementation of environmental justice on the ground is a lack of consensus on what should be done following the documentation of an injustice (Mohai et al., 2009, p.407). Initially the primary focus of environmental justice was a fair and equitable distribution of ‘environmental injury’ (Pellow and Brehm, 2013, p.237). This approach is problematic because it does not emphasise the importance of the connection between environmental inequalities and social inequalities. Furthermore, the focus on distributive justice does nothing to illuminate the processes by which environmental injustices are created.

Pellow and Brehm (2013, p.235) argue that environmental inequality “is first and foremost a social problem, driven and legitimated by social structures and discourses”. They also argue that, despite the sometimes contradictory evidence, it is consistently supported empirically that environmental hazards affect the impoverished and minorities more than their richer, White counterparts. These are known outcomes, and in order to prevent these outcomes more focus in the literature is needed on the processes that produce environmental vulnerabilities. Understanding which factors are responsible for such environmental vulnerabilities may lead to identifying who causes disparities and to establishing what role culpable actors should have in reducing such inequities


(Mohai et al., 2009, p.416). “Contrary to the idea that community characteristics have singular, linear effects, findings show that facility and community factors combine in a variety of ways to produce risky emissions […] The question then will no longer be whether race or income matters most but in which of these recipes do they matter and how” (Grant et al., 2010, p.480).

In the model of Environmental Inequalities Formation (EIF) (Figure 1), Pellow (2000) puts forth three primary mechanisms that contribute to the production of environmental injustice. The importance of process and history is the first aspect of environmental inequality formation, this is supported by Mohai et al. (2009) who reference ‘historical forces’ and the “chicken and the egg debate”. This dimension of the model focuses on how inequalities emerge and evolve over time (Pellow, 2000, pp.588–592). The role of multiple stakeholder groups, the second pillar of Pellow’s EIF model, proposes to look at social capital in a community in order to have a more multidimensional understanding of inequalities. It stresses the need to consider the contradictory and shifting interests of the diverse groups involved in EIF (p.592). Lastly, Pellow proposes we consider the hazardous production and consumption of a resource through a life-cycle analysis (p.595). Inequalities do not just occur when waste is created during the production process; they occur throughout the whole lifecycle of each resource, from extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal (Pellow, 2000, p.11). Therefore a better understanding of the social processes by which environmental injustices are allowed is needed in order to fully comprehend the causes of these injustices.

Figure 1 The three dimensions of the environmental inequalities formation (EIF) proposed by Pellow (2000) (see online version for colours)

Pellow (2004, 2007) further emphasises the importance of socio-historical processes and stakeholders in shaping environmental injustice in the Environmental Justice Framework (EJF) (Figure 2). While these dimensions parallel the EIF model, two new aspects are added by Pellow in the EJF:


• the effect of social inequality on stakeholders

• agency or “the power of populations confronting environmental inequalities to shape the outcomes of these conflicts” (Pellow, 2004, p.514).

Figure 2 The four dimensions of the environmental justice framework (EJF) proposed by Pellow (2004, 2007) (see online version for colours)

This clarification by Pellow (2000, 2004) is laudable, but it still falls short of making the fundamental paradigmatic move we feel is needed to strengthen the environmental justice literature, which is to propose alternative social arrangements that reduce the unjust exposure of sensitive social groups (i.e., poor, ethnicity) to environmental vulnerabilities. We strongly support Pellow’s argument that environmental inequalities are known to be a pervasive part of contemporary American life. We also feel that a public sociologies approach requires some of us to move away from efforts to further operationalise and/or explain why environmental inequalities occur; rather, new approaches are needed to actively engage with politicians, local authorities and other social scientists to find ways to ameliorate the environmental injustices that will inevitably occur as the severity of environmental problems increases.

We feel that the literatures on human security, vulnerability and resilience can empower environmental sociologists to engage with the language being used by sustainability and emergency managers, city planners, the National Science Foundation and the National Academies of Sciences – a step we believe will bring more credibility and momentum to environmental justice movements and scholars. We also argue that these literatures have developed tools and concepts that extend beyond current attempts to model environmental inequalities, thus bolstering the environmental justice scholarship. They also provide frameworks that allow us to directly participate in evaluating the extent to which local authorities are actively building resilient communities by putting in place appropriate resources and educational programs that ameliorate and prevent foreseen environmental harms a priori. And, finally, without a doubt, these other literatures and their models of vulnerability, resilience and human security can be strengthened by the inclusion of environmental justice scholarship.

Therefore, in the remainder of this paper, we review these other literatures and highlight the contributions they make to transition us toward the creation of a more empowered position for those groups traditionally more exposed to environmental injury.


2.2 Human security

Human security is a broad concept that refers to a wide range of circumstances that interact to leave people vulnerable or prepared in the face of social and ecological change. Environmental security is one dimension of human security, and its realisation is predicated upon external environmental shocks/changes as well as a priori personal and social circumstances, such as economic/job security and the existence of community resources that prepare people to cope with social and ecological change.

From the realisation that national security may not guarantee freedom from the risk of loss and damage for individuals grew the concept of human security (Barnett et al., 2010). Through this concept, researchers and governments began defining the major factors influencing the inherent vulnerability of human groups and places (i.e., inequity, poverty, environmental changes) (Barnett et al., 2010). The United Nations Human Security Report, for example, identified seven primary threats to human security; political, economic, food, health, community/cultural, personal, and environmental insecurities (UNDP, 1994). The Commission on Human Security (Commission of Human Security, 2003, p.4) further emphasises the need to enhance human agency through “human rights, good governance, access to education and healthcare” and the provision of a healthy natural environment for current and future generations (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Human security displayed along a continuum that goes from resilient to vulnerable individuals and/or systems (see online version for colours)

A wide range of interpretations of what human security entails have been put forth since the first conceptualisation of this term. While some scholars assert that human security should emphasise threats to physical integrity, others cast their nets much broader to include basic needs for food and shelter, human development, and human rights and dignity (Barnett et al., 2010). Most definitions of human security, however, recognise that human groups and places must have the ability to overcome vulnerabilities and to respond to environmental change in order to be defined as secure (Brklacich et al., 2010). Three basic conditions are necessary for a human system to maintain security in times of shock or change (Brklacich et al., 2010) (Figure 4). Firstly, a secure community needs to possess options that allow the avoidance and mitigation of and adaptation to threats posed to the human, environmental and cultural integrity of the system (Brklacich et al., 2010). Secondly, members of the community must have the capacity and freedom to exercise the options that are available (Brklacich et al., 2010). Thirdly, in such a system all actors must be able to “actively participate in obtaining these options” (Brklacich et al., 2010, p.37).

Human security and environmental problems like the sitting of noxious waste facilities or increasing storm severity due to climate change can and often do intersect,


creating social processes and circumstances that enhance insecurity and increase sensitivity toward environmental shocks (Barnett et al., 2010). To avoid such scenarios, Soroos (2010) suggests preventing whenever possible the rise of threats in the first place (i.e., reduce exposure) by building up barriers or buffers to the problem (i.e., reduce sensitivity). When threats can be foreseen, communities and their leaders must take action to avoid or eliminate them, and the provision of resources that increase the capacity to cope is required (Figure 5).

Figure 4 Basic conditions necessary for a human system to maintain security in times of shock or change (see online version for colours)

Figure 5 Inclusion of human security in environmental justice discourses (see online version for colours)


The inclusion of human security literature in discussions of environmental justice is important for connecting concepts of vulnerability and resilience to specific cases and individuals. The impacts of environmental change, which bring out the resilience and vulnerability of human groups and places, are influencing the livelihoods, health, and safety of people. These issues are clearly related to topics discussed within environmental justice. The human security literature allows a link and enhances our understanding of resilience and vulnerability by emphasising the context specific situations individuals, communities and nation-states face when responding to shocks and disturbances.

3 Resilience and vulnerabilities: How do we protect systems?

There are two primary reasons for environmental sociologists to engage the scholarship on resilience and vulnerabilities. First, the vulnerabilities literature helps us to incorporate the element of time into our models of environmental inequalities and environmental justice. According to this literature, vulnerabilities are not distributed equally, but we cannot always see them before disasters or other events make them visible. As a result, a much stronger emphasis is placed on recognising such vulnerabilities before environmental harms can take place, and the literature encourages communities to build resilience by lessening known vulnerabilities. Secondly, resilience is the new sustainability (Davidson, 2010); it is a central goal that city planners and disaster managers are planning around, which gives this literature leverage that the environmental justice literature lacks. By familiarising ourselves with this literature, we increase our credibility with the community leaders we are trying to influence.

Although the vulnerabilities literature is where we feel environmental justice models can most be expanded, the vulnerabilities literature stems directly from the ecological resilience literature and is tied to the paradigms and goals set forth in the resilience literature. Therefore, we will begin here with the resilience literature, progress through its modification by the CHANS scholars, and finally focus on the vulnerabilities literature. All three of these literatures share a systems approach to examining vulnerabilities and resilience, which often results in efforts to maintain the functions of the systems. Regardless of this functionalist orientation, together these literatures highlight the circumstances under which human-environment interactions expose vulnerabilities; and they offer suggestions for how such vulnerabilities can be ameliorated before environmental harm can strike.

3.1 Resilience and resistance

During the 1970s, ecologists began documenting how internal and external disturbances and stochastic events influence the structure and functions of ecological systems (e.g., species populations, communities, ecosystems) (Folke, 2006; Folke et al., 2010; Lake, 2013). To respond to such environmental stressors and maintain ecological integrity, ecosystems can undertake two paths: resistance and resilience (Lake, 2013). Resistance, one of the key concepts of ecological stability theories, is defined as the ability of a system to remain the same despite disturbances (Lake, 2013; López et al., 2013) and is a measure of the degree of difficulty a stressor faces in changing a system (Walker et al., 2004).


The term resilience, introduced first as an ecological concept by C.S. Holling in 1973, emphasises the capacity of the system to absorb changes and disturbances while maintaining the relationship between species populations and ecosystem variables (Barr and Devine-Wright, 2012; Brand and Jax, 2007; Holling, 1973; López et al., 2013; Webb, 2007). This concept has two paradigmatic meanings grounded in resilience engineering and the ecological definitions of resilience (Gunderson et al., 2000; Webb, 2007). While engineering resilience focuses on the efficiency of the system in returning to the original stable state, ecological resilience centres on the system’s ability to move across different stability domains to maintain key functions after expected or unexpected disturbances (Brand and Jax, 2007; Fiksel, 2006; Folke, 2006; Gunderson et al., 2000; Holling, 1996; Lake, 2013; Webb, 2007). Resilience can be measured either as the time the system needs to restore the stability state (e.g., engineering resilience) or as the amount of internal and external disturbances a system can withstand before shifting to another stability domain (e.g., ecological resilience) (Barr and Devine-Wright, 2012; Brand and Jax, 2007; Folke et al., 2010).

In the last 30 years, research relevant to resilience in ecology has discarded the engineering definition of resilience, favouring studies on multiple stability regimes, transitions among equilibrium domains, and the dynamic nature and variance of ecosystems (Brand and Jax, 2007; Folke et al., 2004; Walker et al., 2004). Scholars have increasingly emphasised that systems are dynamic and complex; they can cross thresholds and move into new regimes while still maintaining their critical structure, processes, and identity (Barr and Devine-Wright, 2012; Brand and Jax, 2007; Gunderson, 2000; Holling, 1996; Schwarz et al., 2011; Webb, 2007). Walker and Salt (2006) use the metaphor of a ball in a basin to demonstrate the ability of a complex adaptive system to exist in multiple stable domains. The ball represents the current state of the system, made up of all of the relevant variables working within the system at any given time. In a continuously moving and changing basin, the ball will tend toward the bottom of the basin to a seeming equilibrium state. This dynamic system, however, is not isolated from external forces and changes. Hence, the basin and the ball (i.e., the system) never rest in a completely stable state (Walker and Salt, 2006, p.54). In the case of extreme fluctuations of the basin, the ball may overcome its bounds and move into an adjoining basin characterised by different feedbacks and structure (Walker and Salt, 2006, p.55). Once a system has crossed such a threshold, the ability to bounce back into a previous state is compromised. Specific social groups might depend upon a determined status or structure of the system; hence, regime shifts can have negative and unequal repercussions on sensitive sectors of society (Walker and Salt, 2006, p.55). The effects of regime shifts on groups and places are therefore particularly important for environmental justice scholarship, especially when focusing on which vulnerable social groups and individuals will suffer the most from such system transitions.

3.2 Coupled human-natural systems (CHANS)

The idea that systems are dynamic and complex, and can cross thresholds to move into new regimes has become increasingly accredited and supported in other disciplines, making resilience a widely used term outside the field of ecology (Folke, 2006). Besides advocating for a systems approach centred on complexity and dynamism, researchers have recognised the need to better include the influence of human agency on ecological systems (Folke et al., 2002; Walker and Salt, 2006). Building off of this understanding,


a concept focused on society’s ability to withstand disturbances has emerged: social resilience. This is a development primarily found in the CHANS literature (Adger, 2000; Fiksel, 2006).

Social resilience stresses the importance of humans as an integral part of ecological systems and emphasises communities’ ability to cope with adversity (Berkes and Ross, 2012). The ability to respond to a shock enables societies to recover after disasters, this is especially important when the public wellbeing and livelihood is dependent on natural capital (i.e., food security, ecosystem services) (Adger, 2000; Barr and Wright, 2012). Social resilience is an active and human driven approach that determines society’s ability to survive and function in the face of change, uncertainty, unpredictability and surprise (Barr and Devine-Wright, 2012; Berkes and Ross, 2012; Magis, 2010). Only humans, indeed, are able to anticipate, react to and prevent risk by building up buffers to environmental shocks and other threats to the system (Barr and Wright, 2012; Folke et al., 2010). At the individual level, resilience depends on a person’s strength when facing life’s adversities (Berkes and Ross, 2012). Single actors’ resilience can influence and enhance larger groups and entire communities’ ability to cope with threats. Social cohesion (i.e., networks of social support) and human agency (i.e., planned actions to effect change) can lead to the successful mobilisation and development of material, physical, sociopolitical, sociocultural and psychological resources (Berkes and Ross, 2012; Davidson, 2010; Magis, 2010). Societal resilience can be strengthened through various avenues including:

• learning to accept change and actively building an understanding of and response to inevitable change

• utilising planning, innovation and collective action to maintain a systems’ functioning

• developing and engaging diverse resources

• becoming active agents in bringing about resilience (Berkes and Ross, 2012; Magis, 2010).

It can be measured as the “positive and negative aspects of social exclusion, marginalisation and social capital” (Adger, 2000, p.352) and is affected by the variability of the institutional rules that govern the social systems. For example, infrastructure improvement and economic diversification can be used to measure the amount of resilience in a social system (Berkes and Ross, 2012).

Social resilience involves more than individual actors; it also includes the social system’s structural capacity to remain within a threshold in the face of changes. Social systems, like ecological systems, are complex, dynamic and context-specific structures subject to external and internal stresses and disturbances (Adger, 2000; Barr and Devine-Wright, 2012; Schwarz et al., 2011). Their inherent resilience depends on social diversity, efficiency, adaptability and cohesion (Fiksel, 2006). According to many scholars who study resilience, these features enable social systems to maintain and reorganise key functions and structures when coping with changes driven from society, policy and the environment (Adger, 2000; Barr and Devine-Wright, 2012; Fiksel, 2006; Davidson, 2010; Walker and Salt, 2006). Furthermore, it is impossible to separate small changes in any given aspect of the system from the larger system as a whole, and is therefore essential to understand that human driven alterations have an impact on unanticipated levels of the system (Walker and Salt, 2006) (Figure 6).


Figure 6 Socio-ecological systems resilience formation (see online version for colours)

Social resilience stresses the concepts of persistence, adaptability, and transformability (Folke, 2006; Folke et al., 2010). Persistence emphasises the interplay and the ability of the CHANS to remain within critical thresholds in periods of gradual and rapid change. As an integral component of resilience, adaptability enables such systems to learn, combine experience and knowledge, and build persistence through collective action (Berkes et al., 2003; Folke et al., 2010; Walker et al., 2004). It also allows the CHANS “to respond to and shape ecosystem dynamics and change in an informed manner” (Folke, 2006, p.262). Transformability, instead, drives the system to new regimes “when ecological, economic, or social structures make the existing system untenable” (Walker et al., 2004, p.5). Transformation at smaller scales fosters resilience at larger levels by using crises as opportunities to develop innovation in the system (Folke et al., 2010). As highlighted by Miller et al. (2010), resilience can be described as ‘specified’ or ‘general’ in the socio-ecological domain. While ‘specified’ resilience focuses on selected features of a socio-ecological system, such as the ecosystem services, the ‘general’ resilience looks at all aspects of the human-natural system, including novel and unforeseen disturbances.


Based on those considerations, social resilience has in some ways replaced the end goal of sustainability by creating a more versatile way to understand and benefit complex and ever changing systems (Davidson, 2010). Resilience literature in sociology and in CHANS more broadly underlines the importance of societies’ ability to respond to disaster and change, and emphasises the necessity of a resilience approach over sustainability for its focus on system maintenance and reorganisation in the face of inevitable change (Magis, 2010). The future of the environmental justice literature is moving toward a more holistic approach, which can be seen as falling under the discipline of CHANS (Schlosberg, 2013). This widening of the environmental justice perspective is where resilience thinking can be brought in to provide a better understanding of inequalities in social-ecological systems.

3.3 Vulnerabilities

Like social resilience literature, the vulnerability literature emphasis both human and natural systems and bases its approach on the interconnected nature of these systems (Adger, 2006; Gallopin, 2006; Miller et al., 2010). Rather than focusing on the coupled system’s ability to adjust to longer-term changes, vulnerability looks at the physical, social and economic predisposition and susceptibility to hazard, shock events or damage (Birkmann, 2006; Miller et al., 2010; Nelson et al., 2007). It attempts to define the sensitivity and coping capacity of human groups or places and to understand why some systems are less likely to be harmed and others are more prone to cope and adapt when dealing with disturbances (Adger, 2006; Kasperson et al., 2005; Miller et al., 2010). Thus, vulnerability is described as being a basic characteristic present in all human and natural systems, which is revealed only when the system is exposed to some shock or threat (Brklacich et al., 2010).

Exposure, sensitivity, and resilience are described as the three dimensions determining the vulnerability of human groups or places (Adger, 2006; Birkmann, 2006; Gallopin, 2006; Kasperson et al., 2005). Exposure refers to the system’s susceptibility to stresses, perturbations and shocks (Gallopin, 2006; Kasperson et al., 2005). This includes, but is not limited to, a system being subjected to a major weather event (e.g., drought), a pollutant or toxic chemical (e.g., DDT), an outbreak of disease (e.g., influenza), or any other environmental stress placed on a CHANS. The second dimension of vulnerability refers to the sensitivity of “people, places, and ecosystems, to the stress or perturbation, including their capacity to anticipate and cope with stress” (Kasperson et al., 2005, p.146). Having a greater diversity of resources and a strong economic system allows certain groups or communities to be less susceptible to hazards, thus alleviating the risk of exposure toward stressors (Gallopin, 2006; Kasperson et al., 2005). For example, warning systems for natural disasters, such as the one used to forecast the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011, can help people and communities to prepare for and reduce exposure to disasters and other forms of environmental stressors. The last aspect of vulnerability, resilience or adaptive capacity, refers to the ability of a system to recover from a shock and to buffer against and adapt to future perturbation events (Gallopin, 2006; Kasperson et al., 2005). This dimension includes resources available within a system that allow it to regroup after a shock in order to return to its original state (Gallopin, 2006; Kasperson et al., 2005). While this is the dominant definition for resilience within the vulnerability literature, ecological resilience scholars would argue that some aspects of both the ‘resilience’ and ‘sensitivity’ dimensions of vulnerability


actually fall within the concept of resilience (Miller et al., 2010). As argued before, resilience and vulnerability do overlap in many aspects. The potential for a response of each exists continuously and determines whether a social-ecological system will be able to respond in a way that maintains human security and reduces environmental justice in times of shock or change (Brklacich et al., 2010).

4 Conclusion

Our purpose for bringing the literatures related to human security, resilience and vulnerability into dialogue with environmental justice are two-fold. First, we believe the concepts of vulnerabilities and resilience can propel the ongoing modelling efforts within the environmental justice literature. Second, and most strongly related to our collective agenda, we believe these literatures empower sociologists to transition away from describing and discussing the causes of environmental injustice toward pinpointing the ways that local authorities and other agents can prevent and ameliorate environmental harms before they occur. They emphasise the context-specific situations and timeframes in which individuals, communities and nation-states must respond to shocks and disturbances.

Human security, resilience and vulnerability broaden our treatment of environmental justice by highlighting other dimensions conditioning the impacts of environmental change. Environmental justice literature consistently and systematically shows that people of colour, women, children and those in middle, lower and working classes currently bear disproportionate environmental harms and are most vulnerable to future environmental disasters like severe weather events and climate change. Human security focuses explicitly on the specific human social processes that reduce such insecurities, which includes addressing a wide range of vulnerabilities and enhancing social and ecological resilience in ways that lessen the consequences of environmental change, especially among the most vulnerable groups (Barnett et al., 2010; Brklacich et al., 2010). This literature draws our attention to the community contexts that enable or constrain adaptation, such as governance structures, transparency, capacity building and the meeting of basic needs, such as health, nutrition and job security. Unless these are available to everyone, the community is vulnerable and lacks adaptive capacity.

The inclusion of CHANS literature in discussions of environmental justice is important to pinpoint the relevance of human security, vulnerability and resilience to a connected and broader socio-ecological system with the introduction of social resilience as a central concept. Community diversity, adaptability, cohesion and collective action are critical to human agency in the face of external shocks. These must be facilitated by local authorities through the city planning process, and this process needs to be transparent and inclusive of all stakeholder groups. City planners, managers and sustainability officers should also consider lessons from the vulnerabilities literature and attend to the exposure, sensitivity and resilience of all of their residents. New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina shows that the general economy and character of the neighbourhood NOLA has been quite resilience, while many individuals remain in permanent exile – unable to afford to rejoin the community they once called home. A comprehensive vulnerability analysis that draws from the insights of environmental justice, human security, social resilience and vulnerabilities scholarship will use the planning process in a way that anticipates the complex vectors that disasters impact their


citizens, with a particular emphasis on vulnerable groups. By embedding these disciplines into environmental justice discourses, local authorities and other agents can enhance human security and overall community resilience and reduce those vulnerabilities that can be foreseen before environmental change occurs. Together these literatures highlight ways that community leaders, city planners and managers can plan for the impacts of environmental change through anticipatory actions, environmental stewardship and system thinking.

Certainly, more theoretical and empirical work is needed to fully realise the ways these literatures and models can enhance each other’s theoretical and empirical goals. We hope our efforts serve as a jumping off point for such cross-fertilisation. At the least, we hope we have encouraged the development of a more explicitly public sociologies approach to the environmental justice endeavour – one that transitions from a rather defensive position that is constantly compelled to prove that environmental injustices plague communities of colour and the poor more than their richer, White counterparts. We hope that our paper inspires an applied environmental justice scholarship that leverages the language and frameworks of the human security, resilience, CHANS and vulnerabilities scholarship to better anticipate, prevent and ameliorate environmental harms.

Acknowledgements

This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. IIA-1301789. The authors are pleased to acknowledge the support by all involved project partners.

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Enhancing environmental justice research and praxis: the inclusion of human security, resilience and vulnerabilities literature

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