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A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE METHODOLOGY OF ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM RESEARCH *
Author(s) -
Pulido Laura
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8330.1996.tb00519.x
Subject(s) - racism , ideology , rationality , sociology , race (biology) , environmental justice , politics , critical race theory , anti racism , economic justice , epistemology , environmental ethics , criminology , gender studies , law , political science , philosophy
Research on environmental racism has emphasized positive rationality. While useful for policy and legal interventions, this is problematic from a radical political and theoretical viewpoint. By examining two key research questions–is “race” or class responsible for discriminatory patterns? which came first, the people or the hazard?–I explore the implicit assumptions concerning racism within this framework. This reveals a large, pervasive set of misconceptions, including a tendency to reduce racism to overt actions, denying racism as ideology, and insisting on a fixed, unitary idea of racism. Both scholars committed to antiracism and those who challenge environmental justice activists' claims reproduce these conceptualizations.