Bridging social and environmental risks: the potential for an emerging environmental justice framework in South Africa

ABSTRACT

Whereas anti-apartheid social movements engaged collectively against a repressive regime, especially in actions against social injustices, post-apartheid civil society has witnessed fragmentation when it comes to engaging jointly against neoliberal risks such as poor/no service delivery, privatisation, and environmental pollution. Civil society has not linked struggles into a coherent ideology to comprehensively challenge neoliberalism and associated risks. Research has not explored the underlying elements that contribute to reinforcing fragmentation. This article reviews the literature on key social and environmental struggles in order to draw out common elements and differences that reinforce fragmentation. The paper highlights the need for social and environmental activists to engage collectively both within their respective arenas, as well as across the social and environmental divide, if an environmental justice framework is to emerge. Social movements advocating social justice could serve as a platform to incorporate environmental discourses into their struggle to assist in formulating an environmental justice framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental justice
• civil society
• social movements
• neoliberalism
• social risks
• environmental risks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Llewellyn Leonard is an environmental sociologist and currently Vice Dean: Research at the College of Business and Economics, University of Johannesburg. His main research interests include environmental justice, industrial risks, political ecology/economy, democracy and governance, civil society-state-industry relations, and social movements. He can be contacted at [email protected]

Notes

1 Risks are interpreted in a broad sense. Due to the state engaging in neoliberalism, this leads to the development of a risk society where social, environmental and political risks are distributed (unequally) to citizens excluded from decision-making (Ren 2010).

2 For a detailed and contemporary discussion on EIA's in South Africa, refer to a paper by the author (Leonard 2017).

3 The APF emerged in 2000 to connect groups of emerging social movements, community-based organisations, activists and organisations across Johannesburg.

4 The SECC is a social movement that emerged in Soweto in response to electricity disconnections by the state-owned utility, Eskom, in the late 1990s.

5 The CAWP was established by the APF in September 2003 to refocus activism against prepaid water metres under a newly configured affiliation (Dugard 2010).