Ambivalent Landscapes: Environmental Justice in the US–Mexico Borderlands

Abstract

How can a single landscape, a shantytown on the US-Mexico border, symbolize environmental devastation for some and progress and 'the good life' for others? Our analysis of this landscape and the people who are a part of it highlights the complexities of the environmental justice movement in the current era of neo-liberal economic policies. Although the colonia that we studied, Derechos Humanos, is located on top of an abandoned landfill near an open sewage canal, living here represents a step forward for many residents. However, to many US environmentalists, this landscape represents a toxic wasteland and the people living here are simply victims of border industrialization. Contributing to critical environmental justice studies, our analysis of Derechos Humanos highlights the injustices of the global political economy, creative responses to these forces by individuals most adversely affected by them, and the potential limitations of conventional framings of environmental justice and mainstream Northern environmentalism.

From Waste to Resource: The Trade in Wastes and Global Recycling Economies

“…First there is a set of work on trans-border environmental justice, in which the US-Mexico border has been the paradigm case [130,131,132,133,134,135]. It focuses on the Mexican maquiladoras and interprets the location of US TNCs as a shift of the environmental burden of production and waste disposal from the US to the Mexican side of the border.…”

1 Archaeologies of Political Ecology – Genealogies, Problems, and Orientations

“…Specifically in political ecology, feminist scholars note researchers often treat class as the most important source of inequality, at the expense of other power dynamics (Buechler and Hanson ; Elmhirst ; Harris ; Rocheleau ; Rocheleau and Roth ). This insight fuels substantial research on the configurations among class, race, ethnicity, pollution, and health within and between developed and developing nations (and their borders) (e.g., Bullard ; Chavis ; Checker ; Heyman ; Johnson and Niemeyer ; Johnston and Jorgensen ; McLauchlan ; Narchi and Canabal Cristiani ; Schroeder, St Martin, and Albert ; Walker ; Walker and Fortmann ). These critical framings contribute to questions about who is affected by environmental changes and who can effect change, producing important new conversations about politics, ecologies, and the relational dimensions of power.…”

Environmental Justice, Environmentalism, and Environmental History in Twentieth‐Century Latin America

“…25 Among recent works, an article by Melissa Johnson and Emily Niemeyer exemplifies the gulf in interpretations of toxic environments. 26 An explicit contribution to environmental justice studies, the article examines a border colonia named Derechos Humanos near Matamoros, Mexico. The authors address the unjust forces at work, responses to them, and limitations with the framework.…”