The ‘Environmentalism of the Poor’ revisited: Territory and place in disconnected glocal struggles

In 2002, the year it was published, The Environmentalism of the Poor was one of the first books examining in a multidisciplinary perspective three parallel environmental movements around the world. Eleven years later, we re-examine these movements – the Cult of Wilderness, the Gospel of Eco-Efficiency and the Mantra of Environmental Justice, – focusing on the increased visibility of struggles representing Environmental Justice and The Environmentalism of the Poor. Even if they are often disconnected from an organizational standpoint, glocal manifestations of resistance have emerged since the 1990s. Today, environmental movements assert common values related to place, identity, and culture. Activists' concepts such as ecological debt, environmental justice, environmental liabilities, land grabbing, environmental gentrification, corporate accountability, climate justice, food sovereignty, or economic degrowth are the keywords of the networks of the global Environmental Justice movement. At the same time, such concepts support the rural and urban movements that remake place for marginalized groups, re-assert traditional practices, and protect territory from contamination, land appropriation, and real estate speculation. Some possibilities exist for cooperation between Environmental Justice and the other varieties of environmentalism. Here, comparative research can help unravel the use of valuation languages different from “green” economic growth or sustainable development.