Abstract
Opening with a brief history of the deep roots and expansive branches of environmental justice struggles, this chapter challenges community health-care practitioners to familiarize themselves and join in the participatory action research discourse championed by advocates of environmental justice. Of particular concern in this paper is the outline of a critique of contemporary risk science and the explication of an argument for the incorporation of scientific studies of structural violence and historical trauma as aspects of cumulative risk that are overlooked in contemporary frameworks and practices that privilege remote social science and a reduction of evidence to a cost/benefit analytical matrix. The author argues that this is both scientifically problematic and antidemocratic in its effects. The chapter analyzes how these epistemological and methodological concepts – combined with a revaluing of local place-based knowledge and promotion of institutions of collective action – are being addressed in ongoing theory and practice within the environmental justice and community environmental health movements.
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Notes
- 1.
For a continuously updated and fully referenced diagram showing the growth of the corporate ownership of the organic foods sector, see: http://www.certifiedorganic.bc.ca/rcbtoa/services/corporate-ownership.html. And for the recent acquisitions of organic food companies by the top 20 largest transnational corporations, go to: http://www.certifiedorganic.bc.ca/rcbtoa/services/corporate-acquisitions.html.
- 2.
Tezozomoc, in personal communication to the author (April 10, 2010, Seattle, WA).
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Peña, D.G. (2011). Structural Violence, Historical Trauma, and Public Health: The Environmental Justice Critique of Contemporary Risk Science and Practice. In: Burton, L., Matthews, S., Leung, M., Kemp, S., Takeuchi, D. (eds) Communities, Neighborhoods, and Health. Social Disparities in Health and Health Care, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7482-2_11
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