The dissertation employs insights from critical race theory and the environmental justice literature, questioning the sustainability of dominant state policies concerning development of informal settlements. The work explores spatialized and racialised forms of class and their normalisation in South Africa. Discussion of the rise and redefinition of urban segregation in South Africa notes racialised exclusions have not disappeared with the end of apartheid. Economic supremacy of ‘white’ populations reproduces ‘white’ control – with dirt, crime and disorder constitutive of the pathological spaces of the ‘other’. Second part examines the role of environmental ideas in reproducing ‘white’ spaces of privilege and ‘black’ spaces of degradation. Discussing neo-liberal development, sustainable development and ecological justice in South Africa – the dissertation shows service delivery and housing policy to possess similarities to apartheid projects – with weaknesses of the dominant model failing the requirements of environmental justice. The case study which follows examines a contemporary attempt to relocate an informal settlement sited in an affluent neighbourhood through ‘greenfields’ housing development, revealing environments as contested, with spatial subjugation dramatic and ongoing.

This dissertation examines how gender operates as agencies for women’s environmental justice activism. I contend that women’s activism, often taking place through collaborative and collective means, presents new opportunities to theorize rhetorical agency that include women-centric and leaderless forms of grassroots organizing. To this end, I explore various agencies for women’s collaborative environmental communication—motherhood, eco-spirituality, and political calls for recognition—that work to test the boundary conditions of rhetorical studies in ways that find empowerment and resistance in a collective rather than in any one particular person. In developing these accounts, I construct a framework that emphasizes the agentic capabilities possible through collaborative rhetorics of resistance—the communicative performances of defiance and empowerment put forth by groups of people that often result in the articulation of collective identities, the challenging of dominant structures and institutions of power, and work to inspire mutual critique and reflection in others. Theories of rhetorical agency assist in documenting and illuminating the ways speakers navigate discursive and material constraints as they bring their audience to action, but often do so by privileging the rhetoric of individual (male) speakers. By exploring collaborative rhetorics of resistance, this dissertation project tests the boundary conditions of rhetorical agency and generates a more comprehensive understanding of how loose networks of people enter into, take part in, and possibly redirect the course of environmental deliberations. This dissertation project is focused on the ways in which women rhetorically collaborate to craft collective subjectivities, protest environmental threats to their families and communities, and inspire mutual critique and reflection in others.

Local communities have the right to participate in decision-making about environmental resources near where they live. Local governments have tried to gather feedback from communities to help improve the decisions they make, but have not always done a good job getting feedback from minority or urban communities. This dissertation provides one step toward obtaining this kind of public input in a majority minority community surrounding the Jordan River in Salt Lake City. Children and adults participated in this research. I present findings from two surveys, from work with children, and from adult interviews to understand how this community relates to their local river, what they like and do not like about it, and what they would like to see improved. This research revealed that communities have both positive and negative views of the river, but overall see it as an important community resource that is highly valued. Communities would like to participate more in river decision-making and have suggestions for how they would like to see that happen. The results in this dissertation can help bridge the gap between local city government officials and this minority community to help improve the river environmental quality and connections to the community.

A water supply service can be seen as a public or private good, but this thesis makes the argument that water is vital for society and so to ensure accountability it is important that water governance includes citizens' participation for social and environmental justice concerns. Public goods are generally defined as goods and services that are provided by 'means of public policy' (Lane, 1993, p. 21), or 'collective political choice' (Stretton & Orchard, 1994, p. 54) rather than by means of an individual market mechanism in which private goods are usually provided. This thesis addresses the function of water as a public good. If social and environmental goals of water use are ignored, the implications can be detrimental particularly for the poorest members of society. An organization's goal effectiveness is usually related to its success in achieving desired outcomes of the organization's goals through a systemic management interaction across organizational aspects at the input, process, output, and outcome/impact stages. This thesis argues an evaluation model of performance measurement can be developed to reflect the characteristics of a public good for a water supply utility, and this model of performance measurement can assist in addressing issues of social and environmental justice. Harris et al argue that better governance can only be achieved by working for democracy in multiple arenas (Harriss, Stokke, & Tornquist, 2004, pp. 7-8). This study considers multidimensional performance measures taking on board the values of many stakeholders with different backgrounds. It 'unfolds' and 'sweeps in' in many dimensions in an attempt at systemic representation (Ulrich, 1983, p. 169). McIntyre- Mills states that 'service need to reflect the values of the users and for this to occur the users need to participate in and decide on policy design and governance' (McIntyre-Mills, 2003, p. 14). Performance measurement systems can be used to detect a gap between services supplied by providers and various needs demanded by stakeholders. The thesis develops an outcome performance measurement model for evaluating social equity and environmental justice concerns. It draws on and adapts four performance measurement models of the International Water Association, World Bank, Indonesian Home Affairs Department and Indonesian Water Supply Enterprise Association. A complementary combined method was developed that addresses qualitative and quantitative governance concerns as they perform to water supply performance problems. Three research methods were used, namely the case study, survey and focus group discussion for collecting qualitative and quantitative data from the three governance sectors. These were triangulated. Five research tools in the case study method were used for collecting information from stakeholders in the three governance sectors including interview, personal communication or email, document analysis, direct observation and documentation. The survey was used to investigate 431 respondents from three case study locations in Cinusa1 city, and the two focus groups were conducted in the city's water supply company management for discussing problems of water supply performance as summarized from the survey. The locus of this study was concentrated in the Cinusa city jurisdiction area, and the focus was the performance problem of the water supply company in Cinusa during 2001-2004. However, a comparative study of water supply performance nationally and internationally is presented for analyzing relative performance gaps.This research evaluates interconnections among cost inefficiency, tariff escalation and other non-financial performances: water supply quantity, quality, continuity and pressure. Inefficient costs because of corrupt, collusive and nepotistic practices in this Indonesian water supply company implicate cost burdens in the company and prevent this water local public enterprise perform its social and environmental missions. The Cinusa local government as the owner of this local public enterprise and the Cinusa local parliament hold a monopoly power in some important decisions related to this local public enterprise, including tariff policy, senior management positions and the total amount of profit share paid to the local government. Such customers from lower income household instead of being subsidized as specified in the national regulation are paying at a profitable tariff and subsidizing this enterprise's inefficiency and the government's locally generated revenue. The inefficiency alongside the profit sharing policy also weakens this enterprise's capacity to invest and improve its service performances. Improving the service performance is essential for current and potential customers and could also benefit the society economically, socially and environmentally, besides being of economic benefit to the enterprise itself. Securing public health concerns and groundwater preservations can be conducted by improving the accessibility, the availability and the reliability of water quality, quantity, pressure and continuity. This research presents an evaluation model for improving the accountability of water supply by means of performance management tool and it makes policy recommendations.

The TAMU Water Project is a trans-disciplinary collaborative that works to address the water needs of rural communities along the Texas/Mexico border called colonias. Modeled initially after the work of Potters for Peace, the TAMU Water Project recognizes access to potable water as a human right and is dedicated to the production, distribution, and research of affordable, appropriate technology to purify water. This thesis proposes critical environmental justice as the theoretical framework and lens through which to examine the TAMU Water Project as a praxis of public pedagogy. Extant data in the form of articles, publications, presentations, photo essays, and video, were analyzed using an inductive process of content analysis and thick description to prove that the TAMU Water Project fulfills the criteria of critical environmental justice and can be used as an example of critical environmental justice as pedagogy.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2008. / "May, 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 195-212). Library also has microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [2009]. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, August, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Central Florida, 2009. / Adviser: Penelope Canan. Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-71).

This report explores issues surrounding health concerns in the State of Louisiana in the context of environmental justice. It provides a history of Cancer Alley, an area along the Mississippi River with disproportionately high cancer rates. It discusses case studies of environmental justice issues within the state. The researcher provides a geographical analysis and statistical analysis to estimate whether there is a relationship between the presence of industrial plants and health indicators, specifically cancer and infant mortality. Using cancer and infant mortality as health indicators for a population, the evidence supports a correlation between the presence of industrial pollution and waste with cancer rates and infant mortality rates across the State of Louisiana. Given that these populations are predominantly minority and low-income, these results reflect an environmental injustice. / text

Environmental injustice has received high attention in the field of environmental studies. The concept of environmental justice is well defined within different academic disciplines. It refers to the rightness, fairness, and equity that a person in his own living environment is entitled to. In contrast, environmental injustice refers to the failure for one to receive the environmental justice that he is entitled to. Environmental injustice has been well substantiated by numerous international studies and evidenced in many countries overseas. A key question thus emerges: Is environmental injustice well evidenced in Hong Kong? Air pollution presents a major environmental challenge to the socially deprived communities both internationally and locally. Whilst the relationship between air pollution and social deprivation is well established internationally, given the strong evidence supporting the hypothesis that the socially deprived are exposed to more air pollution, the validity of such claim in the local context is not as obvious. Existing local studies investigating the relationship between air pollution and social deprivation are limited by, first, the lack of fine-grained air pollution data at a smaller geographical scale, which constrains the observation and conclusion of such hypothesis at a more refined geographical scale (Stern, 2003) and second, a stronger tendency to focus on the vulnerability of air pollution on different socio-economic spectrums (C. M. Wong et al., 2008). The current study aims to close the research gap by (a) developing a sophisticated methodology to enhance the collection and analysis of air pollution data at the Territorial Planning Unit, (b) examining the relationship between air pollution exposure and social deprivation at the TPU level, and (c) examining whether environmental injustice in relation to air pollution exists in Hong Kong. Our key research questions thus include the following: (1) Are the socially deprived in Hong Kong exposed to more air pollution? (2) Can we break through the existing methodological constraint and develop a brand new sophisticated air pollution data estimation methodology to interpolate air pollution at a smaller geographical scale? (3) If (1) is positive, would the exposure to more air pollution by the socially deprived in Hong Kong constitute the case of environmental injustice? A more sophisticated and accurate air pollution estimation methodology to estimate air pollution at a smaller geographical scale with the least root mean square error (RMSE) as compared to other key traditional models is introduced. The model identifies key spatial factors that affect the dispersion of air pollution in Hong Kong. By regression analysis, it is shown that the relationship between exposure to air pollution and social deprivation is positive and statistically significant. Both NO2 and PM10, the two major road-based pollutants, are positively correlated with the social deprivation index (for NO2: coefficient=0.4404 R= 0.6937, p<0.01; for PM10: coefficient = 0.4185, R = 0.6430, p<0.01). This leads to the conclusion that the socially deprived in Hong Kong are exposed to more air pollution, thus establishing the case of environmental injustice. This study has generated a key methodological breakthrough by developing a sophisticated air pollution estimation model that generates more accurate and fine-grained air pollution data at the TPU level – which was not previously available due to the limited number of air pollution monitoring stations in Hong Kong. This methodology allows the pursuit of social-economic air pollution study at a more refined geographical scale. The study strongly points to the existence of air-pollution related environmental injustice in Hong Kong. It calls for the Hong Kong Government to immediately address this under-researched and long neglected social-environmental problem, by formulating and implementing effective policies based on the fine-grained air pollution and socio-economic data, and the evidence generated from this study. / published_or_final_version / Environmental Management / Master / Master of Science in Environmental Management