Northeastern Political Science Association

Identity Politics, Disinterested Politics, and Environmental Justice

Author(s): Sylvia N. Tesh and Bruce A. Williams
Source: Polity, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Spring, 1996), pp. 285-305
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
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Identity Politics, DisinterestedPolitics,

and EnvironmentalJustice*
Sylvia N. Tesh

Universityof Michigan

Bruce A. Williams
Universityof Illinois
The environmentaljustice movementpracticestwo kinds of politicsan identitypolitics basingappealson the experiential,subjective
knowledgeof its grassrootsmembersand a disinterestedpolitics
basingappealson the expert, objectiveknowledgeof scientists. Yet
eachform of politics currentlyunderminesthe other becausethey
draw on very differentassumptionsabout the natureof scientific
knowledge. The movementcan increasethe likelihoodof reachingits
goals if it reconcilesits twoforms of politics by propagatingsocial
constructionistviews of knowledgestressingthe inevitableinterrelation
of facts and values.
SylviaN. Tesh, a political scientist, is AssistantProfessor of Health
Behaviorand Health Educationat the Universityof MichiganSchool
of Public Health. She is the author of HiddenArguments:Political
Ideology and Disease PreventionPolicy (1988).
BruceA. Williamsis Associate Professor of Urbanand Regional
Planningand ResearchAssociate Professor in the Instituteof
CommunicationsResearchat the Universityof Illinois, UrbanaChampaign.He and AlbertA. Mathenyare co-authorsof Democracy,
Dialogue, and EnvironmentalDisputes:The ContestedLanguagesof
Social Regulation(1996).
In the last few years, a number of environmentalactivists, both academics and membersof grassrootsgroups, have arguedthat our coun*Earlierversionsof this paper were presentedat the 1994meetingsof the American
Political ScienceAssociationand the AmericanPublic Health Association.The authors
thank Bunyon Bryant, GregoryButton, George Coling, Arline Geronimus,and Paul
Mohai for theirhelp.

Polity
Polity

XXVHI,Number
Volume
Number33
VolumeXXVIII,

Spring1996
1996
Spring

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286 IdentityPolitics & EnvironmentalJustice

try's shameful history of discriminatingagainst racial minoritiesand
poor people extends to environmentalpolicy. Prompting a call for
"environmentaljustice," the argumenthas induced policymakersto
reevaluatetheirprioritiesand has strengthenedthe environmentalmovement as a wholeby bringingto it new groupsof supporters.Whatkindof
long-termeffect the environmentaljusticemovementwill have, however,
may dependon whether,and in whatway, it decidesto reconcilethe contradictionbetweenthe two types of politics it employs.
At present, the environmentaljustice movementbases its appealsto
policymakerson both apparentlyobjectivescientificresearchand manifestly subjectiveexperientialknowledge.We suggestthat the movement
should reconcilethese two kinds of politics by arguingforthrightlyto
policymakersthat scientific knowledgeis socially constructed.Such an
argumentwould not just bring into the political arena a dialoguenow
carriedout primarilyin academia,but, if successful,would increasethe
rate at whichthe environmentaljusticemovementachievesits goals of a
cleanerenvironmentand a more participatorydemocracy.
I. The Evolutionof the EnvironmentalMovement
The currentenvironmentaljustice movementis the third wave of U.S.
environmentalism.The first wave, whichcameto politicalprominencein
the late 1960s,was formalizedin the organizationof new publicinterest
groupsdedicatedto protectingour naturalresources.The movementwas
not an isolated phenomenon,but ratherpart of a much broaderquestioning about the worth of technologicalprogress and the ability of
establishedpolitical institutionsto representthe public interest.1What
set it apartfrom othersocial movementswas its themethat peoplehavea
responsibilityto nature, not just to each other. Using symbolslike the
photographsof Earthtaken from outer space and picturesof wounded
animalsand devastatedforests, the first waveconveyedthe new idea that
our planet is fragile and that everyone living on Earth must work
togetherto protectit.2

1. See BruceA. Williamsand AlbertR. Matheny,Democracy,Dialogue, and Social

Regulation:TheContestedLanguagesof EnvironmentalDisputes(New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1996),esp. ch. 1 and 2.
2. On this firstwaveof environmentalism
see PeterBorelli,ed., Crossroads:EnvironmentalPrioritiesfor the Future(Washington,DC: IslandPress, 1988);SamuelP. Hays,
Beauty, Health, and Permanence:EnvironmentalPolitics in the UnitedStates1955-1985
(NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1987);JamesP. Lester,ed., EnvironmentalPolitics andPolicy: TheoriesandEvidence(Durham:Duke UniversityPress, 1989);WalterA.

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Sylvia N. Tesh & BruceA. Williams 287

The secondwaveof environmentalism
shiftedthe emphasis.Insteadof
the
humans
about
the
being
ways
destroy environment,it was about the
a
environment
ways polluted
destroyspeople. Comingof age in the late
wave
this
second
turned
attentionto the health consequencesof
1970s,
exposure to hazardous waste, and to the powerlessnessof peopleespecially those in poor and working class communities-to protect
themselves. This second wave depended less on professional lobby
organizationsthan on grassrootsassociationsof ordinarypeople whose
primarytask was to rejectproposedwaste facilitiesand securerelocation
or compensation for families exposed to pollution. The members
thoughtof themselvesnot as protectorsof natureand defendersof wildlife but as abusedvictims, exploitedand exposedprimarilybecausethey
were not rich or powerful.3For this reasonthey eventuallybegan referring to their goal as environmentaljustice and to their campaignas the
environmentaljustice movement.4
The thirdwave, evidentby the late 1980s,also calleditselfthe environmental justice movement but defined the problem and identified its
membershipmore precisely. It assertedthat people of color were the
greatestvictimsof environmentalmistreatmentand set itself apartfrom
the second wave with the concept of environmentalracism. "Environmentalracism,"coinedin 1987by BenjaminChavis,5positsthat government and industrypursuepolicies that disproportionatelyexpose racial
minoritiesto hazardouswastes.6This linkage between racism and en-

Rosenbaum,EnvironmentalPolitics and Policy (Washington,DC: CongressionalQuarand theFutureof Progressive

terlyPress, 1991);andRobertC. Paehlke,Environmentalism
Politics (New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1989).
see Lois Gibbs,Love Canal:My Story(Albany,
3. For this waveof environmentalism,
NY: SUNY Press, 1982); Nicholas Freudenberg,Not in Our Backyards!(New York:
MonthlyReviewPress, 1984);RaymondL. Goldsteenand John K. Schorr,Demanding
DemocracyAfter ThreeMile Island (Gainesville:Universityof Florida Press, 1991);
MichaelR. Edelstein,ContaminatedCommunities(Boulder:WestviewPress, 1988);Paula
DiPerna,ClusterMystery:Epidemicand the Childrenof Woburn,Mass. (St. Louis:C.V.
Mosby, 1985); and Andrew Szasz, EcoPopulism:Toxic Wasteand the Movementfor
EnvironmentalJustice(Minneapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1994).
4. Everyone'sBackyard,the newsletterof The CitizensClearinghousefor Hazardous
Waste,beganidentifyingitself as "The Journalof the GrassrootsMovementfor EnvironmentalJustice"withthe Jan./Feb. 1990issue.CCHWis the premiernationalorganization
establishedto aid grassrootsenvironmentalgroups.
5. See BenjaminF. Chavis, Jr., "Preface," in UnequalProtection:Environmental
Justiceand Communitiesof Color, ed. RobertD. Bullard(San Francisco:SierraClub
Books, 1994).
6. U.S. GovernmentAccountingOffice, Siting of Hazardous WasteLandfills and
TheirCorrelationwithRacialand EconomicStatusof SurroundingCommunities(Wash-

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288 IdentityPolitics & EnvironmentalJustice

vironmentalpollutiongave new clarityto the conceptspromotedby the
secondwave of the movement.Fittinginto categoriesof thoughtalready
well developedby the civil rightsmovement,it unambiguouslyidentified
a specialcategoryof peoplewho had beentreatedunjustly,and provided
fresh energy and coherenceto communityorganizing.7Today "environmentaljustice" is increasinglythe frame within which Latino farm
workers explain their demand for better working conditions, Native
Americansdefend tribal lands, and African Americansprotest unsafe
neighborhoods.8

By arguingthat America'scommitmentto equalityand justice,as well

as its environmentalintegrityis at stake, the second and third waves of
the environmentalmovementhave extendedenvironmentalism's
appeal
well beyondthe white middleclass and have placednew obstaclesin the
way of those who would ridiculethe campaignto protectthe land, air,
and waterfromindustrialpollution.But the environmentaljusticemovement has the potential to do somethingeven more important.It could
changethe verytermsof publicdebateon the environmentalissue, for it
could bring into the political spherethe proposition, now confined to
academiccircles,that scienceis socially constructed.
Social constructionistscontendthat scientificknowledgecan neverbe
wholly objective, for scientistsinevitablybringto their work theirown
beliefs and values as well as the world view of the society in whichthey
live. Were lawmakersand bureaucratsto adopt-or even to seriously
debate-constructionism, the policymakingprocess could be changed
profoundly, for the mystiqueof science would be pierced, public participationin policymakingwould be newlylegitimated,and environmental policies would be more protectiveof publichealth.
Whetherthe environmentaljustice movementactually brings social
constructionisminto the politicalarenadependslargelyon the degreeto
whichthe movementwantsto resolvethe contradictionbetweenthe two
kinds of politics it uses. Sometimesthe movementuses identitypolitics,
basingthe legitimacyof its calls for politicalchangeon the experiences
ington,DC: GAO, 1983),RCED83-168;UnitedChurchof ChristCommissionon Racial
Justice,Toxic WastesandRace in the UnitedStates:A NationalReporton theRacialand
Socio-EconomicCharacteristics
of CommunitieswithHazardousWasteSites(New York:
UnitedChurchof Christ,1987).
7. BunyanBryant and Paul Mohai, "Introduction"in Race and the Incidenceof
EnvironmentalHazards:A Timefor Discourse(Boulder:WestviewPress, 1992).
8. The March/April1992issueof the EPA Journalis devotedto the link betweenrace
and environmentalexposure,and containsstatementsby some thirtyactivists,scholars,
and governmentofficials describingvirtuallyall civil rightsstrugglesin termsof environmentaljustice.

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Sylvia N. Tesh & BruceA. Williams 289

and values of its members.At other times the movementuses what we
call disinterestedpolitics, basing the legitimacyof its demandson the
published findings of (presumedly)neutral science. Identity politics
makesthe implicitclaim that true knowledgeis subjective.Disinterested
politicsmakesthe implicitclaim that true knowledgeis objective.As we
will note, some movementleaderssuggestthat a resolutionbetweenthese
two kinds of politics is possible.But the books, articles,and newsletters
currentlywrittenby and for movementadherents,as well as theirverbal
statementsin public meetings, typicallyjump back and forth between
these politics, never remarkingon their incongruity.
The environmentaljustice movementis not at all uniquein employing
these two kinds of politics; all social movementsdo the same to some
degree. But the strugglefor environmentaljustice is unusualbecauseit
draws-and must draw-almost equally on science and on identity.
Othermovementsare freerto concentrateon one more than the other.
For this reasonthe environmentaljusticemovementmust addressdilemmas other movementscan dodge.
The rest of this articleis dividedinto four sections. First we describe
the movement'suse of disinterestedpoliticsand arguethat disinterested
politicsputs the wholemovementat riskbecausethe sciencesupportingit
is so vulnerableto criticism.Then we describethe movement'suse of
identity politics and argue that this, too, is risky because it can easily
marginalizethe movement.Fromtherewe turn to a discussionof social
constructionisttheory,proposingthat it sits at the intersectionof positivist and interpretivistepistemologies, and thus offers a reconciliation
betweendisinterestedand identitypolitics. Finally, we discussthe ways
that social constructionismmight supportthe fight for strongerenvironmentalpolicies.
I. DisinterestedPolitics
Many people, scientistsand ordinarycitizens alike, expect that policymakerswill do the rightthing if they have the true facts. The historyof
environmentaljusticegroupstypicallystartswith someonesimplyphoning a governmentofficial, explainingthat the communityis exposedto
an environmentalhazard, and presumingthat the official will take care
of the problem.With this straightforwardact, the callerbeginspracticing what we call disinterestedpolitics. When the phone call does not
solve the problem(and it rarelydoes, to the often profounddisillusionment of the person making it) and community members begin to
organize,they continueto practicedisinterestedpolitics. They just do it
with more sophisticationand more force. Theygatherscientificdata and

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290 IdentityPolitics & EnvironmentalJustice

presentthemto policymakers,pointingout, in a varietyof ways,that the
dataarethe objective,unbiasedexplanationsfor theirdemands.At Love
Canal, the Picciano study showing that residents had high levels of
damagedchromosomeswas a key piece of evidence for activists.9At
Woburn, the Harvard health survey tying the cases of childhood
leukemiato exposureto contaminateddrinkingwaterservedas verification.10At Times Beach, citizens supportedtheir case with estimatesof
risk levels providedby the Centersfor Disease Control.1
All of today's groupssimilarlyrest a largeportionof theircampaigns
on scientificresearch.Membersare aidedby two movementpublications
whichspreadinformationaboutthe latestdevelopmentsin epidemiology
and toxicology throughoutthe grassroots. The EnvironmentalHealth
Monthly, put out by the CitizensClearinghousefor HazardousWaste,
reprintsscientific articles from the mainstreampeer reviewedjournals
(prefacingeach with a page-long commentary).Rachel's Environment
and Health Weekly12is an older, independentnewsletterconsistingof
articlesthat reporton but do not reprintthe scholarlyliterature.Both
publicationssignifyto activistsand outsidersalike that thereareneutral,
apoliticalmeansto settleenvironmentaldisputes,and that the challenge
for the movementis to get policymakersto base their decisionson disinterestedscientificresearch.
Virtuallyall the articlesand books on environmentalracismwrittenby
or for the movementrefer to scientificstudies showingthat minorities
and poor people are more likely than whitesand better-offpeople to be
exposed to environmental toxins.13 The most authoritative and
commonly-citedpublicationis the 1987reportby the United Churchof
ChristCommissionfor Racial Justice. The UCC study examinedinformationon the location of all 415 operatingcommercialhazardouswaste
facilitiesin the U.S. (as of May 1986),as well as the locationof all 18,164

9. AdelineGordonLevine,Love Canal:Science,Politics,andPeople(Lexington,MA:
LexingtonBooks, 1982).
10. Phil Brownand EdwinJ. Mikkelsen,No Safe Place: Toxic Waste,Leukemia,and
CommunityAction (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1990).
11. MichaelR. Edelstein,ContaminatedCommunities:The Social and Psychological
Impactsof ResidentialToxicExposure(Boulder:WestviewPress, 1988),pp. 134-35.
12. Formerly"RACHEL'sHazardousWasteNews."
13. For example,see BunyonBryantand Paul Mohai,eds., Race and the Incidenceof
EnvironmentalHazards;Robert D. Bullard, ed., ConfrontingEnvironmentalRacism:
Voicesfrom the Grassroots(Boston:SouthendPress, 1993);BenjaminA. Goldman,The
TruthAbout WhereYouLive:An Atlasfor Action on Toxinsand Mortality(New York:
Times Books, 1991);RobertD. Bullard,Dumpingin Dixie: Race, Class, and EnvironmentalQuality(Boulder:WestviewPress, 1990).

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Sylvia N. Tesh & BruceA. Williams 291

closed or abandonedhazardouswaste sites (as of early 1985). Its major
conclusionsare that in the nationas a whole, communitieswith the largest numberof commercialhazardouswaste facilitieshave a disproportionatepercentageof racialand ethnicminorities,andthat raceis a more
significantindicatorof the location of these hazardouswaste facilities
than is class. Scholarsand activistsalso regularlycall attentionto other
studies coming to the same conclusion, and to researchthat correlates
poverty with exposure to toxic substances.14

It is certainly not difficult to agree with the general theme of this

research.Everyoneknows that people of color are disproportionately
poor and that a frequentcharacteristicof poor neighborhoodsis their
proximityto dirtyindustries.Manypeople also know (althoughthis is a
newer and different kind of knowledge)that the protectionof public
healthrequiresregulatingthe disposalof industrialwaste. Thus it might
seem that scientificstudies are hardlynecessaryto defend the environmentaljusticemovement.But of coursethey are. In the firstplace, social
movementhistoryteachesthat appealsto plain commonsense are never
enough to change long-standingpolicies and institutions,so all movementsplay disinterestedpoliticsto some extent. In the second place, the
environmentalmovementas a whole is deeply involvedin disinterested
politics because,unlike other contemporarysocial movements,it is primarily about cause and effect. To be sure, environmentalismentails a
moral claim-the startlingnew idea that mistreatingnature is as unethicalas mistreatinghumans.But this idea is still far too radicalto supcannotsucport calls for social changeall on its own. Environmentalism
ceed unlessit also uses causalreasoning.It has to showthat if we do certain things to naturethere will be bad consequences.To show this, it
mustturnto science,the modernworld'sonly authoritativediscovererof
causality.The greatirony, however,is that as soon as the environmental
justice movementasks scienceto corroborateits common-senseknowledge, it runs the risk that its knowledgewill be questionedand its persuasivenessweakened.This can, in turn, weakenthe movementitself.
Science,by its verynature,is nevercertain.Thereare usuallyconflicting
studies;every study is imperfect.Thus in the case of the environmental
justice movement, some scientificstudiessupportits position and some
do not, and it is possibleto find many flaws in the researchthe movement relieson.

14. The exactnumberof studiesis unclear,sincewritersin this field frequentlyinclude

secondaryliteraturein liststhey prepareand do not alwaysdistinguishbetweenstudieson
race and studieson class. See, for example,the widelycited essay by Paul Mohai and
BunyanBryant,"EnvironmentalRacism:Reviewingthe Evidence"in Race and the Incidenceof EnvironmentalHazards.

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292 IdentityPolitics & EnvironmentalJustice

The most frequentcriticismof the studieson environmentalracismis
that researchersdid not ask about the racial compositionof the communities in question at the time of the initial dumping. It is possible,
criticssay, that racialminoritiesmoved into the area afterwardsbecause
propertyvaluesaroundthe site declinedor becausenewjobs wereavailable. If that is what has happened,environmentalracismin siting hazardous waste facilities has not occurred (although disproportionate
exposurecould certainlystill exist). A secondcriticismis that a questionable measureof social class was employedto conclude that race, not
class, predictsthe locationof the facilities.Social class is famouslydifficult to measure,and in the United States, where race and class are so
highly correlated,distinguishingbetweenthe two is especiallydifficult.
The UCC study, for example,uses meanhouseholdincomeandthe mean
value of owner-occupiedhomes as a proxy for class, and these may be
misleadingsince both could be affected by the presenceof hazardous
waste facilities.A thirdcriticismis that the classificationof "facility" is
too generalto capturethe fundamentalproblem.The UCC studylumped
togetherfacilities that treat, store, or dispose of hazardouswaste, and
failed to distinguishbetween new, state-of-the-artfacilities and aging,
poorlyrun sites. Thus it is possibleto arguethat some, or even many, of
them pose no dangerto public health.
Finally, the studies are unclear about who, if anyone, is actually
exposedto the hazardouswaste facilitiesbecauseof the way they define
the affected communities.The UCC reportuses zip codes to represent
neighborhoods,therebyimplicitlydefining"community"in a varietyof
ways-sometimes limiting the definition to a small urban area, other
times includinglarge ruraltracts. Thus the actual danger of exposure
presentedby each hazardouswaste facility could vary markedlyfrom
communityto community.Moreover,the UCC's data do not includethe
locationof the facilityor facilitieswithinthe zip code area so thereis no
way of knowinghow manyof them are actuallynearpeople.15Exactsite
informationwouldbe only partiallyuseful, however,for generalproximity to a hazardouswastefacilitydoes not necessarilymeanexposureto it.
The dangermore likely comes with living downstreamor downwind.
But even if the exposuredata were sharper,the studiesthe environ-

15. Vicki Been, "Locally Undesirable Land Uses in Minority Neighborhoods: Disproportionate Siting or Market Dynamics?" The Yale Law Journal, 102 (April 1994);
Douglas L. Anderton, Andy B. Anderson, John Michael Oakes, and Robert R. Fraser,
"Environmental Equity: The Demographics of Dumping," Demography, 31 (1994):
22947; Michael Greenberg, "Proving Environmental Inequity in Siting Locally Unwanted
Land Uses," Risk: Issues in Health and Safety, 235 (1993): 244-49.

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Sylvia N. Tesh & BruceA. Williams 293

mentaljustice movementcites on the outcomeof exposurecould still be
criticized. While no one doubts that many synthetic chemicals are
extremelytoxic at high doses to certain laboratoryanimals, and while
some studieson very large populationshave been able to correlatelung
diseases with exposure to some air pollutants,'1and one study has
shown a relationshipbetweenbirthdefectsin largepopulationsand hazardous waste sites,17there is surprisinglylittle scientific information
from which to conclude that syntheticchemicalshave actually caused
diseases in the general population. Epidemiologists have found it
especially difficult to link diseases in a particular community with envi-

ronmentalhazards.
The reasonsmay be largelytechnical,becauseenvironmentalepidemiology is a verylimitedtool for identifyingthe effects on communitiesof
exposureto toxic substances.The latency periodbetweenexposureand
diseaseis usuallyso long, the size of the communityexposedis usuallyso
small, the difficulty of measuringthe exposureis usually so great, and
the problem of distinguishingamong multiple diseases and multiple
possiblecausesis so onerousthat communityhealthstudiesaretypically
either inconclusive or negative.18Most of the time, therefore, when
environmentaljustice activists point to a relationship between the
diseasesof people in theircommunitiesand the presenceof environmental pollution, they have no reallygood data to back them up.
We are not suggestingthat the public's exposureto environmental
pollutantsis benign.Nor do we concludethat worriesabouta specialrisk
to minoritiesare irrationalor ill-founded.Ourpoint hereis that the scientific data confirmingthe dangersare especiallyvulnerableto criticism.
Thus, disinterestedpolitics can easily backfire on the environmental
justice movement.The movementcannot escapeappealingto scienceto
corroborateits basic claims-that minoritiesand the poor get the short
end of the stickon environmentalexposuresjust as they do on everything
16. For a bibliographyof smallstudiesand a recentlargestudy,see C. ArdenPope, III,
et al., "ParticulateAir Pollutionas a Predictorof Moralityin a ProspectiveStudyof U.S.
Adults,"AmericanJournalof Respiratoryand CriticalCareMedicine,51 (1995):669-74.
17. SandraA. Geschwind,et al., "Risk of CongenitalMalformationsAssociatedwith
Proximityto HazardousWaste Sites," AmericanJournal of Epidemiology,135 (1992):
1197-1207.
18. National Research Council, EnvironmentalEpidemiology:Public Health and
Hazardous Waste(Washington,DC: National AcademyPress, 1991), pp. 101-52;Ken
Sexton, et al., "EstimatingHumanExposuresto EnvironmentalPollutants:Availability
andUtilityof ExistingDatabases,"Archivesof EnvironmentalHealth,47 (1992):398-407;
GlynG. Caldwell,"Twenty-twoYearsof CancerClusterInvestigationsat the Centersfor
DiseaseControl,"AmericanJournalof Epidemiology,132, Suppl.No. 1 (1990):S43-S47.

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294 IdentityPolitics & EnvironmentalJustice

else, and that syntheticchemicalsharmfulto laboratoryanimalsare also
harmfulto people-because the movementis largelyabout science. But
when it offers the resultsof scientificstudiesto policymakersas support
for its demands,it also unavoidablyoffers the resultsto the scientific
communityfor re-evaluation.
Moreover, the appeal to science legitimates all scientific studies,
includingthosewith resultsthat do not supportthe environmentaljustice
position. The movementtherebyhands over an enormous amount of
controlto outsiders.Thismeansthat scientistsbecomethe arbitersof the
movement'sknowledge.If the scientificcommunityexaminesandrejects
the evidencesupportingthe movement, the entire strugglefor environmentaljustice is at risk. The movementhas two recourses.It can ignore
the critics and continue to exhibit as dramaticallyas possible all the
researchthat supportsthe movement'scause. Alternativelyit can charge
that scientistswho carriedout the dissentingstudieswerebiased, incompetent, or dishonest.In fact, the movementuses both theseoptions, and
some of its successesmay be the resultof havingdone so. Nevertheless,
the movement cannot achieve its goals through disinterestedpolitics
alone. The opposing forces it ralliesare too powerful.

III. IdentityPolitics
Usingidentitypoliticsis another,different,wayto win. Insteadof basing
demandsfor new laws, rules,policies, and practiceson the resultsof disinterestedresearch,identitypolitics bases demandson the lived experiences, commonknowledge,and sharedvaluesof ordinarypeople. It is a
politics particularlyevident in the women's, gay and lesbian, and civil
rights movements,where membersstruggleto replacenegative stereotypes with strong and positive images of themselves.19But all social
movementsengagein some versionof identitypolitics when they represent the collectiveidentitiesof people who sharecharacteristics,values,
or experiencesdifferentfrom the mainstream.Thisrepresentationof collective identitiesis one of the purposesof all social movements.People
who join the peace movement,the labor movement,the populistmovement, or the environmentalmovementdo so at least partlybecausethe
movementexpressessomethingessentialto their sense of self.20
19. See CraigCalhoun,ed., Social Theoryand thePoliticsofIdentity(Cambridge,MA:
OxfordUniversityPress, 1994).
20. Alberto Melucci,Nomads of the Present(Philadelphia:TempleUniversityPress,
1989);JeanL. Cohen, "Strategyor Identity:New TheoreticalParadigmsand Contempo-

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Sylvia N. Tesh & BruceA. Williams 295

That movementsalso help create this sense of self is critical to an
understandingof their impact on both their adherentsand the policymakingprocess. Social movementideas and activitiesinspirepreviously
disparagedor ignoredpeople to think of themselvesas a collectivityand
to assignpoliticalimportanceto who they are and what they think. They
come to feel that their own knowledge, drawn from their own lived
experiences,is consequential.At its best, as Todd Gitlin says, identity
politics overcomes "exclusion and silencing." It provides "an enclave
wherethe silenced[can]find their voices."21In short, social movements
empowertheir members.
Identitypoliticsplaysout somewhatdifferentlyin the secondand third
waves of the environmentalmovement. When the initial grassroots
environmentalgroups formed, activistsstartedfrom scratch.They had
to invent new collectivitiesbased on the shared experienceof being
exposedto toxinsand beingignoredby governmentauthorities.The later
campaign against environmentalracism drew on the already-formed,
powerfulcollectiveidentitiessharedby racialminorities.What the two
waves have in common is a collective identity as victims of polluting
industryand as ordinarypeople-not experts, not elites. That identity,
becauseit emphasizestheir experientialknowledge,gives them a powerful rationale to keep fighting. "Experts can't solve your problems,"
writes Stephen Lester, the science director for the Citizens' Clearinghouse for HazardousWaste, in the organization'snewsletter."No one
knowsmore abouta communityand its situationthan the peopledirectly
affected.... Trustyour instincts;rarelywill you go wrongif you follow
what you know in your heartto be true and right."22
Sociologist Celine Krausshas analyzedthis form of identity politics
particularlywell. After interviewingwomen active in environmental
justice groups, she writes:
Unlike the more abstract,issue-orientedfocus of nationalgroups,
[these]women's focus is on environmentalissues that grow out of
their concrete, immediate experiences. . . . What emerges is an

environmentaldiscoursethat is mediatedby subjectiveexperiences

rary Social Movements," Social Research, 52 (1985): 663-716. See also the chapters by
William Gamson, Verta Taylor and Nancy Whittier, and Debra Friedman and Doug
McAdam in Frontiers of Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon D. Morris and Carol
McClurg Mueller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
21. Todd Gitlin, "From Utility to Difference: Notes on the Fragmentations of the Idea

of the Left," in Social Theoryand the Politics of Identity,p. 153.

22. "Science Lessons for the Real World," Everyone's Backyard, 11 (September/
October 1993): 17.

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296 IdentityPolitics & EnvironmentalJustice

and interpretationsand rooted in the politicaltruthswomen constructout of their identitiesas housewives,mothers,and members
of communitiesand racialand ethnicgroups.... Throughtheirinformalnetworks,they comparenotes and experiencesand develop
an oppositionalknowledgeused to resistthe dominantknowledge
of experts and the decisions of government and corporate
officials.23

Similarly,CynthiaHamilton,writingaboutAfricanAmericanwomen
fightingan incineratorin South CentralLos Angeles, pointsto their use
of knowledgegainedthrougheverydaylife. Expertassurancethat health
risksassociatedwith dioxinexposurewereless than those associatedwith
eatingpeanutbutterunleasheda fury of dissent. All the women, young
and old, workingclass and professional,had made peanutbuttersandwiches for years.24

It is this kind of challengeto their experientialknowledgethat has

emboldenedmany previouslysilent people. A woman in Albuquerque,
describinga meetingbetweencommunitymembersand representatives
from a varietyof governmentagencies,recountsher realizationthat she
knows more about the issue than the experts.
I didn'twantto say much. ... I'm not well educated.I can't speak
the way they do. But when they got to talking,they were wrongat
whattheyweresaying.I knewI was right.So I just got up and said,
"Waita minute!"And sincethen I am not afraidof anybody.I live
here. I know what is going on.25
Anotherwoman offers a similarexplanationfor her activism:
I did not come to the fight against environmentalproblemsas an
intellectualbut ratheras a concernedmother.. .. People say, "But
you'renot a scientist.How do you know it's not safe?" ... I have
commonsense ... I know if dioxinand mercuryaregoing to come
out of an incineratorstack, somebody'sgoing to be affected.26

23. Celine Krauss, "Women of Color on the Front Line," in Unique Protection, pp.
257-58 and 261.
24. Cynthia Hamilton, "Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles," in Unique
Protection, p. 215.
25. Quoted in Michael Guerrero and Louis Head, "Organizing the Frontlines," in We
Speak for Ourselves: Social Justice, Race, and Environment, ed. Dana Alston (The Panos
Institute, December 1990), p. 34.
26. Guerrero and Head, "Organizing the Frontier," p. 209.

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Sylvia N. Tesh & BruceA. Williams 297

Thesemessages-"I live here so I knowwhatis going on" and "I have
common sense"-come through over and over again in statementsby
environmentaljusticeactivists,whetherthey areminoritiesor not. When
your environmentis polluted, they say, and you see many diseases
amongyour neighbors,it is obvious that the pollutioncausedthe health
problems.As a memberof a South Bronxgroup writes:
Our communityhas one of the highest rates of infant mortality,
persons with compromisedimmune systems, lead poisoning and
asthma. But this comes as no surprise,becausein our immediate
communitythere are over 65 waste transferstations transporting
asbestos, lead piping, constructiondebris, medical waste, sludge
and many other toxins to places all over the U.S.27
Perhaps the most politically significant expression of this kind of
knowledgetook placein February1994duringthe Symposiumon Health
Researchand Needs to Ensure EnvironmentalJustice, a national conference sponsored by seven governmentagencies. The organizershad
scheduledEPA chief CarolBrownerto speakat the plenarysession, but
when the time came she spontaneouslyturned the session over to the
audience.For the rest of the morningdozensof communitypeoplelined
up behindthe microphonesto testify. The publishedproceedingsof the
conferencefail to reallycapturethe emotionalintensityof that morning,
but they do transmit the participants'clear message: scientists and
governmentofficials do not understandthe problem;it is the community
who has the definitive wisdom about exposure to environmental
pollution.28

The message was particularlywell expressed by the many Native

Americansin attendance, who argued that Native Americanshave a
specialkind of knowledgegarneredfrom generationsof consciousinteraction with nature.But it also came, throughoutthe conference,from a
whole varietyof otherAmericans,minoritiesand whites,includingsome
scientists.One researcher,for example,proposedthat scientistsshould
classifyenvironmentalburdensaccordingto how they are experiencedby

27. Nina Laboy, "Struggle for Survival in the South Bronx," Everyone's Backyard, 12
(March/April, 1994): 4.
28. Symposium on Health Research Needs to Ensure Environmental Justice, February
10-12, 1994, Arlington, Virginia. Sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences, the NIH Office of Minority Health Research, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the Agency for
Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National
Center for Environmental Health.

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298 IdentityPolitics & EnvironmentalJustice

the affected community.29And a physiciandeclaredthat minorityfactory workersthemselvescan tell scientistsand governmentagencieshow
toxic chemicalsget into the body and what to do about it.30
This is importanttestimony and neitherthe EPA nor any other environmentalpolicymakercan ignore it. The imperativeof democracy
alone requiresthat attentionbe paid. So do the moralunderpinningsof
the environmentalmovementwith its widelyacceptedecologicalreasoning that whatharmsnatureis likelyto harmhumansas well. In addition,
the now-familiarliteratureon risk perceptionlegitimatesexperiential
knowledge,for it defines citizens'views of risk not as irrationalbut as
perfectlysensibleforms of reasoning.31Nevertheless,in practicingthis
kind of identity politics the environmentaljustice movement courts
danger. For all its ability to empower people, knowledge arrived at
throughintuitionand personalexperienceis simplyless highlyvaluedin
our culture than knowledge arrived at through apparentlyobjective,
scientificmeans.
This is especiallytrue whenthe contrastis with the so-calledhardsciences, whichinvestigateempiricalphenomena.No matterhow movingly
people testify that their health is imperiledby environmentalpollution,
governmentagenciescan continueto ask for "the facts" beforethey act.
In contrast, membersof the civil rights movement and the women's
movementcan get away with only practicingidentitypolitics(or at least
with primarilypracticingidentitypolitics). The declarationsthey make
about the status of their lives are seldom scientificstatementsand thus
cannot be authoritativelychallengedby any other group of people. For
environmentaljustice activists,however,identitypolitics is not enough.
As an EPA scientistdeclaredat the 1994conference,"The credibilityof
environmentaljustice decisions depends on science, and better data is
[sic] neededto identifyrisk."32
29. Commentsby DavidOzonoffof the BostonUniversitySchoolof PublicHealth.See
p. 41 of the conferenceproceedings.
30. Commentsby Linda Rae Murray,directorof WinfieldMoody Health Centerin
Chicago.Seep. 9 of the conferenceproceedings.We havenot givendirectquotesfor either
Dr. Ozonoffor Dr. Murray,sinceit is impossibleto tell fromthe publishedconferenceproceedingswhichwordsareactualquotesand whichareparaphrases,andTesh,who attended
the conference,does not have verbatimnotes.
31. Paul Slovic, "Perceptionsof Risk," Science,236 (1987):280-85;BaruchFischhoff,
et al., "How Safe is Safe Enough?A PsychometricStudyof AttitudesTowardsTechnological Risksand Benefits,"Policy Sciences,9 (1978):127-52;HarryOtwayand D. von
Winterfeldt,"Beyond AcceptableRisk: On the Social Acceptabilityof Technologies,"
Policy Sciences, 14 (1982): 247-56.

32. KenSexton,directorof the EPA office of healthresearch.Seep. 6 of the conference

proceedings.Hereagain, these may not have been his exact words.

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Sylvia N. Tesh & BruceA. Williams 299

The dangerthe environmentaljustice movementcourts is that while
policymakersmay pay attention,they will treatthe movementas an irritant. There will be a lot of talk about the importanceof justice and
equity;therewill be a handfulof mainlysymbolicactions(of whichthe
tiny, poorly-fundedEPA Office of EnvironmentalJustice is one) but
policymakerswill take few concreteactionsspecificallyto protectminorities and the poor from environmentalpollutants.Those actionsthey do
take will be widelyconstruedas politicallynecessary(or worse,politically forced), but not scientificallyor "really" necessary.33
IV. Social Constructionof Science
We have painteda bleak picture.The foregoingsuggeststhat regardless
of the success of the environmentaljustice movement in revitalizing
environmentalism,politicizingnew groupsof citizens,and gettingattention from the EPA, it may have minimaleffect on actualenvironmental
policies. The movementis extremelyrelianton scientificknowledge,but
that knowledgeis easilychallenged.The movementis also extremelyreliant on experientialknowledgebut that knowledge,too, is easily contested. Moreover,the movementitself implicitlyundercutsits own argumentsas it practicesboth kindsof politics, simultaneouslyclaimingthat
objective scientific informationproves its case and rejectingscientific
expertisein favor of communityexperience.
It is possible, however,that the movementcould turn its very use of
both kinds of politics into a powerfulnew argumentfor environmental
justice. It could insist that disinterestedpolitics and identitypolitics are
interrelated.Insteadof switchingback and forth betweenthe two, the
movementcould place them both withinthe single frameworkof social
constructionism.If it did so successfully,it could considerablyreinforce
its demandsto policymakersfor betterenvironmentalpolicies.
To constructionists,reality is not simply "out there." What people
discernand give meaningto from the jumble of phenomenathat constitutesthe world is the result of a complexand not wholly understood
interactionamong empiricalobjects, culturalvalues, personalinterests,
and political power. This applies to what scientists discern, also. As
Thomas Kuhn argued in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, over-

archingand unexamined"paradigms"tell scientistswhatkindsof prob-

33. An excellentexampleis ElizabethM. Whelan'sdiatribeagainstthe environmental

movement:Toxic Terror:The TruthBehindthe CancerScares(Buffalo, NY: Prometheus
Books, 1993).

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300 IdentityPolitics & EnvironmentalJustice

lems to studyand what kindsof methodsto use.34His book has inspired
a substantialliteratureshowingthat scientificfacts cannot be separated
from the people, the institutions,and the culturesthat generatethem.
Some scholarssay that these situationalfactorsaffect only the direction
of scientificinquiry.35Othersgo even further,arguingthat not only the
questions,but also the answers,are inescapablyinfluencedby the social
context withinwhich the scientificenterpriseoccurs.36
Some proponentsof constructionismhave takenit to justify a kind of
radicalimpartiality.If the way evenscientistslook at the worldcannotbe
disentangledfrom social values, this reasoninghas it, then there is no
truth.Any one person'sview is as acceptableas any otherperson'sview.
By this logic, the risk perceptionstudies we mentionedearlier(which
describethe specialkindof rationalitynon-expertsuse to raterisks)validate any and all opinions on environmentalhazards;everything,one
often hearsthese days, is perception.Thusmanyscholarswho studyrisk
perceptionsimplyarguethat both expertknowledgeand popularknowledge should inform risk management.37Relativismof this sort is also
seen in some versionsof identitypolitics. Environmentaljusticeactivists
reflectit whentheyinsistthat lay opinionaboutenvironmentalhazardsis
just as reliableas scientificopinion.
Regardlessof the enthusiasmwith which some people promote this
application of egalitarianideals to knowledge, it is troublesomefor
policymakers.If expertknowledgesays that a chemicalis not harmfulto
humanbeingsand lay knowledgesays that it is very harmful,thereis no
way to treat these two pieces of informationequally and simply blend
theminto one riskmanagementstrategy.A blendingwould requirecompromise and a compromiseinvalidatesthe initial premisethat truth is
relative,for it impliesthat one or both kindsof knowledgeis inaccurate.
In a morepoliticallyloadedexampleof the conceptualproblem,consider
a situationwherecitizensinsistthat childreninfectedwiththe AIDS virus
34. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1962).
35. This view is closely associated with the work of Robert Merton on the sociology of
science. For a recent application of this work to the social sciences, see Paul Diesing, How
Does Social Science Work? (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1991).
36. Helen Longino, Science as Social Knowledge (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1990); Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1986); Bruno Latour, We Have NeverBeen Modern (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
37. See, for example, Susan Hadden, "Public Perception of Hazardous Waste," Risk
Analysis, 11 (1991): 47-57; Daniel J. Fiorino, "Technical and Democratic Values in Risk
Analysis," Risk Analysis, 9 (1989): 293-299.

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SylviaN. Tesh & BruceA. Williams 301

pose a public health hazardand should be not allowedto attendpublic
school. If lay opinion is as reliableas expert opinion, health agencies
have no authoritativesuperiorknowledgeto arguefor a more humanitarianpolicy.
But constructionismneed not imply these kinds of dilemmas. Just
because facts include values does not mean that facts disappear.Nor
does it mean that all values are equallyacceptable.Instead, social constructionismcan turn our attention to the values scientists accept.
Followingthis line of thinking,some scholarsarguethat when scientists
are unawareof the extentto whichvaluesinfluencetheirwork, they are
susceptibleto the unconsciousemploymentof their society's undemoFor example,Evelyn
cratic,racist, sexist, or ethnocentricassumptions.38
Fox Keller shows how "masculine" notions about the desirabilityof
hierarchyin societypromptmost biologiststo see hierarchyat the cellular and sub-cellularlevels even when other ways of seeing are more
accurate.39In a similarvein, Nancy Kriegerand her colleaguesmaintain
that the generallyacceptedmodels scientistsuse to investigateinequalities in healthare racist.40Otherscholarstake a somewhatdifferenttack.
They argue not that unacknowledgedassumptionsguide researchbut
that the assumptionsfill in the inevitable gaps in completed studies.
MichaelMulkay,for example,showsthat althoughDarwindid not have
enough empiricalevidence to prove that natural selection occurs, his
studies were embracedby his contemporariesbecause they reinforced
commonly held religious beliefs about God, philosophical principles
about nature,and politicalassumptionsabout the structureof society.4'
It is this understandingof social constructionism-the uncoveringof
the hiddenassumptionsthat affect science-that we find mostintriguing.
Insteadof concentratingon the relativityof facts, it concentrateson the
power of culture. It thus raises some vital issues. Which of society's
valuesshouldguide scientists'formationof questions,choiceof methodologies, and interpretationof results?What assumptionsabout a society's goals and structureshould fill the inevitable gaps in scientific
studies? We recognize that these are enormous, enduringissues. But

38. SandraHarding, TheScienceQuestionin Feminism.

39. EvelynFox Keller,Reflectionson Genderand Science(NewHaven:YaleUniversity
Press, 1985).
40. NancyKriegeret al., "Racism,Sexism,andSocialClass:Implicationsfor Studiesof
Health, Disease,and Well-being,"AmericanJournalof PreventiveMedicine(December,
1993):82-122.
41. Michael Mulkay, Science and the Sociology of Knowledge(Boston: Allen and
Unwin, 1979).

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302 IdentityPolitics & EnvironmentalJustice

unless scientific studies have no implicationsat all for public policies,
both scientistsand citizensneed continuallyto grapplewith them.
Thus social constructionisttheorymeansmore democracy.By calling
attentionto the dependenceof scienceon society, it gives new legitimacy
to public participation.It demands-no, it requires-the citizenryto
deliberateoverthe valuesthat will guide science.It disallowswaitingfor
expertsto work out the "best" policiesin the privacyof their offices. It
says that science alone cannot show us how to find the commongood,
but that the pathwayis alwaysa complexcombinationof scientificfacts
and socialvalues. In this waysocial constructionismsupportsthosepolitical theoristswho emphasizethe importanceof the deliberativeprocessin
strengtheningpublic policy.42
V. Social Constructionismand EnvironmentalJustice
Overthe past decadethe environmentaljusticemovementhas beenmoving toward argumentsthat some values are betterthan others and that
the better ones should guide science. The point was made straightforwardly, for example, during a two-day conference on environmental
justice attendedby about a hundredacademicsand communityactivists
at the Universityof Michigan'sSchool of NaturalResourcesin January,
1993. In one of the principaladdresses,Conner Bailey, a sociologist
from AuburnUniversity,contrastedtwo worldviews. The first, technocratic, linear, and rational, is a world view whereexpertiseand neutral
informationpredominate.The other,democratic,worldview emphasizes
individualexperience,communityparticipation,and subjectiveunderstandingsof reality. Conferenceattendeesrespondedenthusiasticallyto
Bailey'spresentation.Embracingthe secondworld view, they discussed
for half an hour or so its implicationsfor the environmentaljustice
movement.At the end the consensusseemedto be that the valuesmost
scientists bring to the study of environmentalpollution prevent them
from findingproblems,and that different,more democraticvaluesneed
to be used to guide scientificresearch.43
42. John Dryzek,DiscursiveDemocracy:Politics, Policy, and Political Science(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1990);BenjaminBarber,StrongDemocracy:ParticipatoryPoliticsfor a New Age (Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1984);Jane
Mansbridge,BeyondAdversaryDemocracy(New York:BasicBooks, 1980).
43. Althoughthe publishedpapersfromthe conferencedo not includeBailey'spresentation, Teshattendedthe conferenceandthis synopsiscomes fromhernotes. Thepublished
papersdo containan essayby Baileyand othersarguingthat specializationcontributesto
the power scientistshave over communitypeople. See ConnerBailey et al., "Environ-

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Sylvia N. Tesh & Bruce A. Williams 303

Robert Bullard, the leading environmental justice scholar, has discussed more precisely how constructionist theory can be employed to
alter public debate. In one essay he contrasts the conclusions drawn by
using normal scientific assumption and by consciously adopting an environmental justice framework.44 His example is the health effects of
eating fish contaminated with toxins. Investigators using the traditional
assumption of a largely homogeneous public will conclude that because
the "average" consumer eats little fish, the levels of toxins observed are
not hazardous to public health. Investigators using an environmental
justice framework, however, will not envision a homogeneous public.
Aware that many people's lives are deeply affected by poverty and
racism, they see a public composed of various discrete groups. Some of
these groups are so poor that they depend on fish caught in local contaminated water for a large part of their diet. For these people, the level
of toxins observed in fish will be a significant health hazard. A scientist
working within the environmental justice framework will conclude,
therefore, that contaminated fish are a public health hazard.
Taking the social construction of science seriously, as Bullard does in
his essay, has profound implications for the way the environmental
justice movement practices politics. It cannot continue to play disinterested politics by labelling certain scientific studies as neutral and
demanding that policies be based on their findings. Nor can it retreat into
identity politics and say that "perception" trumps "evidence." Rather,
it must argue to government agencies and the wider public that science
necessarily involves values just as politics involves values and there is no
single privileged position from which to study toxic pollution. It then
must make the case that the values it champions are the ones that should
guide science and be incorporated into studies of toxic pollution.
These are only relatively difficult tasks for the environmental justice
movement. The movement already knows how to use scientific studies to
argue for better environmental policies and it already knows how to
employ appeals to values. It even knows how to put the two together.
What it needs to do is put them together consciously and consistently.
The principal problem for the environmental justice movement in

mental Justice and the Professional," in Issues, Policies, and Solutions for Environmental
Justice, ed. Bunyon Bryant (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan School of Natural
Resources, 1994).
44. Robert D. Bullard, "Unequal Environmental Protection: Incorporating Environmental Justice in Decision Making," in Worst Things First? The Debate over Risk-Based
National Environmental Priorities, ed. Alan M. Finkel and Dominic Golding (Washington,
DC: Resources for the Future, 1994), quote on page 250.

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304

Identity Politics & Environmental Justice

advancing this view is that it clashes dramatically with the value-neutral

model of science assumed by the government decisionmaking process
and by most citizens. Whatever the overt claims of policymakers that
they do consider the limits of scientific evidence for deciding policy
issues, again and again the techniques employed within regulatory agencies presuppose that neutral expertise can decide contested policy issues.
So, for example, the EPA's National Priority List to determine the allocation of Superfund monies for hazardous waste clean-up was designed
to objectively rank the severity of sites, without regard for the social setting within which the sites existed.45Throughout the Reagan-Bush years,
funding to support public participation in policymaking was cut back on
the grounds that the use of "objective" techniques like cost/benefit
analysis made such participation unnecessary at best, and an impediment
to good decisionmaking at worst.46 All the evidence so far suggests that
this model of science's role in the policy process is also the "official"
model of the Clinton Administration.
This conception of a neutral science as the way to decide policy controversies means that, given the weaknesses of the scientific studies used
by the environmental justice movement, policymakers are constrained
from taking the movement's claims into account. If they consider the
claims, they can do so only on political grounds, not on grounds that
science supports them. If, however, the environmental justice movement can successfully undermine this model of neutral science and
replace it with one emphasizing the social construction of scientific evidence and the relevance of values to the production of knowledge, it may
be able to prevent its claims from being placed somewhere on the periphery of the decisionmaking process. The great strength of the social constructionist view of science as a basis for making demands on government is that it calls attention to the relevance of the totality of lived
experience. It connects environmental pollution to past and current
racial discrimination, economic inequality, and all of their consequences.
But the very logic of most scientific studies, seeking to isolate individual
variables while controlling for everything else, draws our attention away
from this broader context. It is this bias that is highlighted by many of
the critiques of science originating from the social constructivist argument. And it is this bias that the environmental justice movement is in
such a good position to contest.

45. Williams and Matheny, Democracy, Dialogue and Social Regulation, ch. 2.
46. Richard A. Harris and Sidney M. Milkis, The Politics of Regulatory Change: A Tale
of Two Agencies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

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SylviaN. Tesh & BruceA. Williams 305

Werethe environmentaljusticemovementto take on the challengeof
raisingthe social constructivistcritiquein the politicalrealm,it wouldbe
workingto advance not only environmentalpolicy but also the whole
democraticprocess. This challengeis not trivial. The abilityto evaluate
competingclaimsis centralto the goal of protectingpeople and nature
from harmfulpollutants.A scientificpracticeand discoursethat forthrightlyincludedthe valuesof justice and the recognitionof past discriminationwould go a long way to gettingus to that goal and to a morejust
society.

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