Community Theories of Change: Linking Environmental Justice to Sustainability through Stakeholder Perceptions in Milwaukee (WI, USA)

Kaitlyn Hornik, Bethany Cutts and Andrew Greenlee
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Kaitlyn Hornik: Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 1102 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL 61801, USA
Bethany Cutts: Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, North Carolina State University, 2820 Faucette Dr., Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
Andrew Greenlee: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 611 Lorado Taft Dr., Champaign, IL 61820, USA

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-17

Abstract: Environmental justice and sustainability are compatible lenses, yet action toward equity is often missing from urban sustainability initiatives. This study aims to assess the cohesion of these frameworks in practice. To do this, we parse individuals’ theories of change, or how they identify and propose to resolve environmental injustices in the pursuit of sustainability. We posit that these theories of change are comprised of three main components: (1) perceived environmental benefits and burdens; (2) the causal pathways of environmental and social injustice; and (3) visions for positive change. Drawing from 35 stakeholder interviews in Milwaukee (WI, USA) we examine individual and institutional perspectives on environmental and social change and their links to the production of injustice. Our findings reveal that participants do not distinguish between environmental and social injustices. Instead, both social and environmental factors are implicated in injustice. Furthermore, we identify two mental maps for how social and economic change reproduce injustice. These findings suggest the need to reorient how urban injustice is considered and make efforts to acknowledge how a diversity of operational theories of change could either be divisive or could bring environmental justice and sustainability initiatives together.

Keywords: production of injustice; socioecological interactions; perceptions; interviews (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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