Forum 4: the environmental privilege of borders in the anthropocene

Mobility can indicate a powerful or privileged relationship with one’s environment. The ability to exercise mobility or not (of oneself or others) is an exertion of power that demarcates where particular people belong and under what kind of environmental conditions. This essay focuses on the significance of borders in creating environmental privilege in the Anthropocene. Environmental privilege is accrued through the exercise of economic, political, and cultural power that enables the construction of exclusive environmental amenities such as clean air and water, open space, and safe neighborhoods. For years, environmental justice scholars have revealed the burdens and oppressive conditions associated with environmental inequality, but few studies consider the flipside of that reality. We argue that environmental privileges enjoyed by some rest upon the manipulation of the mobility of others – human and nonhuman. We believe border making will come under greater pressure as the effects of climate change increase, and the volume of resources required to maintain exclusive spaces intensifies. Continued mass migration will bring heightened anxieties about national identity and calls for greater border enforcement, despite the reality that borders – both literal and figurative – consistently fail to alleviate migratory pressures while exacerbating the effects of climate change and environmental injustice. Our research shows that greater ecological instability increases efforts to create privatized places as pristine spaces untouched by global turmoil, thereby reinforcing those social forces that produce environmental injustices in the first place.