Description

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Citizenship and the environment are hotly debated, as climate change places more responsibility on individuals and institutions in shaping policy. Using new evidence and cases from across the globe, Environment and Citizenship explores the new vocabulary of ecological citizenship and examines how successful environmental policy-making depends on the responsible actions of citizens and civil society organizations as much as on governments and international treaties. This accessible and thought-provoking book: - provides a comprehensive and timely guide to the debates on environmental and ecological citizenship, expertly combining examples of practice with theory; - examines how environmental movements have become increasingly involved in governance processes at the local, national, regional and intergovernmental levels; - explores the increasing importance of corporations and transnational networks through examples of stakeholding processes and participatory research in environmental decision-making; - calls on researchers, policy-makers and activists to face a new challenge: how to effectively link environmental justice with social justice. Breaking new ground, Smith and Pangsapa address how environmental responsibility operates through politics, ethics, culture and the everyday experiences of ctivists, as well as how awareness of environmental and social injustice only leads to responsible actions and strategic change through civic engagement.

About the Author

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Mark J. Smith, Politics & International Studies, Open University, researches environmental responsibility, transnational corporations, civic engagement and the role of ethics in politics and the environment. Piya Pangsapa, Women's Studies, University at Buffalo, researches gender, work and civic engagement in Southeast Asia.

Praise For…

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“In the last two decades, citizenship studies have moved away from conventional debates about social welfare and income inequality to consider a range of broader and more complex issues about the nature of inclusion, entitlement and identity producing as a consequence a range of new concepts - intimate citizenship, sexual citizenship, consumer citizenship and now ecological citizenship. Environment and Citizenship is definitely part of a new wave of exciting research that challenges our assumptions about state and citizen, public and private, and identity and membership. Citizenship is not simply a language of rights. Smith and Pangsapa critically examine the absence of a theory of duty and obligation in much current debate, demonstrating the importance of our obligations towards animals, environment and nature.  Responsibility towards the environment brings into the foreground our duties towards vulnerable groups (the sick, disabled, frail and elderly) but crucially our responsibility towards future generations. In the crisis over global warming, the question of intergenerational justice is the most salient moral and political issue of our times. Clearly written, cleverly argued and comprehensively supported by evidence, Environment and Citizenship should be on everybody's reading list. A major contribution to the study of responsibility, justice and the environment.”--Professor Bryan S. Turner (Co-editor of Citizenship Studies)

“Truly essential reading.  Written at a time when citizenship, justice and virtue ethics have made their way--at last--on to the top table of environmental and social thinking, Smith and Pangsapa have woven them all into a magisterial manifesto for sustainability, justice and civic engagement.  Buttressed by case studies from around the world, leavened with recommendations for institutional reform, and with its sights set on the urban as much as the rural context, the book in your hands is an agenda-setting contribution to environmental and social thought and action.”--Professor Andrew Dobson (Keele University)

 

Book Reviews of Environmental Responsibility

 

“This collection brings together in one place key texts of leading thinkers in environmental ethics. No one who takes environmental responsibility seriously will want to be without this book.”--Ruth Chadwick, Director, ESRC Centre for Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (Cesagen) Cardiff University

“In these tumultuous times, I shall keep this rich mix of classic texts close at hand. They combine inspiration, ethics and pragmatic reflection on why we have reached the crisis we face today and tomorrow. This kind of deep thinking will be key to whether we can shift to become global citizens with an eye to the future.”--Dr Camilla Toulmin, Director, International Institute for Environment and Development

“A welcome and timely reminder that we need to take up our environmental responsibilities now following the inspiring guidance provided by this excellent collection.”--Wendy Harcourt, Editor of “Development” and the forthcoming Zed Book Series on “Gender and Environment”

“The environmental challenges of the twenty-first century are the most complex, difficult, and dangerous that humanity has ever faced. Perplexity is a common human response to complexity. Inaction is what follows from perplexity. The readings brought together into this volume provide hugely valuable insights into how best we could navigate this landscape of environmental risks and opportunities more successfully.”--Tom Burke, founding director of E3G

“Smith and Pangsapa … open up new, provocative, and valuable directions for future scholarship with a text that is both theoretically compelling and richly textured with empirical examples….this volume is a “must read” for scholars interested in questions of environmental citizenship, sustainability, and environmental justice.”--Organization and Environment

“This book does provide an important and well-argued contribution to our growing intellectual and practical interest in environmental citizenship as a means of empowering individuals and communities for the future.”--Progress in Human Geography