Political-Economic Inequalities, Policy Narratives, and Pathways to Justice

Most researchers of environmental and climate justice agree that political and economic inequalities hurt the environment, racial minorities, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalized communities. Yet, these conclusions are based, almost exclusively, on analyses of the distribution of "environmental bads" (e.g., industrial pollution and toxic waste).

Drawing on a longstanding and cumulative multi-methods research program focused on the distribution of "environmental goods" (biodiversity conservation), this talk offers an alternative analysis of the relationship between environment and inequality with normative implications that are more complex than those implied in the environmental justice literature.

Such ambiguous normative implications test the ability of societies to prioritize climate justice over climate action with dubious social impacts. In conclusion, we engage in collective reflections on the prospects of developing politically-resilient strategies for promoting environmental and climate justice.

A Q&A moderated by Professor Julian Agyeman will follow.

This event is co-hosted by Cities@Tufts and Shareable with support from Barr Foundation.

About the Speaker

Prakash Kashwan is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at Brandeis University. He is also the Chair of the Environmental Justice concentration in the Master of Public Policy (MPP) program at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management.

His teaching, research, and scholarship focus on the intersections of environment, development, and socioeconomic and political dimensions of global environmental and climate change. Kashwan’s academic engagements build on this interdisciplinary background, including a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.), a Master’s in Forestry Management), and a Ph. D. in Public Policy awarded under the tutelage of late Professor Elinor Ostrom, a political economist, who was the joint winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences. Equally important, Kashwan’s research and writings are shaped profoundly by his over two decades-long engagements with global and international environmental governance, including a pre-academia career in international development (1999-2005).

He is the author of Democracy in the Woods: Environmental Conservation and Social Justice in India, Tanzania, and Mexico (Oxford University Press 2017), which has been reviewed extensively in scholarly journals and popular media. He is the Editor of Climate Justice in India (Cambridge University Press 2022), one of the Editors of the journal Environmental Politics (Taylor & Francis), and co-founder of Climate Justice Network (with Professor Lauren MacLean of Indiana University, Bloomington ). His next book project (on an advanced contract with Oxford University Press), develops a theory of governing for justice and to illustrate these arguments in the context of efforts to realize socially just climate action in the United States.

You can find out more about his work here: https://scholarworks.brandeis.edu/esploro/profile/prakash_kashwan

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