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Environmental injustice and the social exclusion of Roma communities in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has roots in historical patterns of ethnic exclusion and widening socioeconomic inequalities following the collapse of state socialism and the transition to multi‐party parliamentary governments in 1989. In this article, we discuss some of the methodological considerations in environmental justice research, engage theoretical perspectives on environmental inequalities and social exclusion, discuss the dynamics of discrimination and environmental protection regarding the Roma in CEE, and summarize two case studies on environmental justice in Slovakia and Hungary. We argue that, when some landscapes and social groups are perceived as ‘beyond the pale’ of environmental regulation, public participation and civil rights, it creates local sites for externalizing environmental harms. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

ABSTRACT:How do youth learn through participation in efforts to study and change the school food system? Through our participatory youth action research (YPAR) project, we move beyond the "youth as consumer" frame to a food justice youth development approach. We track how a group of youth learned about food and the public policy process through their efforts to transform their own school food systems by conducting a participatory evaluation of farm-to-school efforts in collaboration with university and community partners. We used the Photovoice research method, placing cameras in the hands of young people so that they themselves could document and discuss their concerns and perspectives. The research was designed to gain insight about youths' knowledge of food, health, and community food systems. Drawing upon the youth group's insights, we build a framework for building critical consciousness through food justice youth development (FJYD).

The development and pollution of two rivers, the Danube and Tisza, have been the site and subject of environmental protests and projects in Hungary since the late 1980s. Protests against the damming of the Danube rallied opposition to the state socialist government, drawing on discourses of national sovereignty and international environmentalism. The Tisza suffered a major environmental disaster in 2000, when a globally financed gold mine in Romania spilled thousands of tons of cyanide and other heavy metals into the river, sending a plume of pollution downriver into neighboring countries. In this article, I examine the symbolic ecologies that emerged in the two moments of environmental protest, as well as Hungarian activists' reflections on the changing political ecology of the region in their discourses of “ecocolonialism” (ökógyarmatosítás) and “wild capitalism” (vadkapitaliszmus).

Kl´ra: Everyone dumps their trash next to our neighborhood. The town government says that we're dumping it ourselves. That might be true in some cases, but if you really look at these piles, there's packaging for brands that people in our neighborhood don't use.