Papers by Dayna Nadine Scott
Social Science Research Network, 2014
This posting outlines the concept of "environmental justice" as I recently described it for an en... more This posting outlines the concept of "environmental justice" as I recently described it for an encyclopedia entry in the field of "Action Research". In this discipline, the term "environmental justice" describes more than a fair outcome. It is a social movement, and a theoretical lens, that is focused on fairness in the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens, and in the processes that determine those distributions. In both cases, an attention to environmental justice means amplifying the voices of poor, racialized and Indigenous communities in environmental and natural resource policy-making venues-places that have typically produced decisions resulting in those communities bearing more than their "fair share" of environmental harms. It also means, increasingly, paying attention to the manner through which disadvantaged and historically oppressed peoples within those communities will often be disproportionately harmed, often along familiar social gradients of gender, class, sexuality, caste, and (dis)ability. Effective research in the environmental justice framework has tended to involve robust partnerships between local communities, organizations and/or groups of activists seeking to achieve environmental justice, and university-based researchers employing participatory-action methodologies. These collaborative efforts have proven to be very fruitful in many cases, but should not be understood as easy or straightforward to implement. New models are emerging that seek to combine and enhance the expertise, capacities and perspectives of the partners in order to meet primarily, the needs of communities, and secondarily, the aims of researchers.
Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Dayna Scott employs the concept of networked infrastructures dr... more Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Dayna Scott employs the concept of networked infrastructures drawn from the literature in critical geography to reveal the environmental justice implications of the coast-to-coast crude oil network that is currently being contemplated in Canada. Her talk was delivered on January 30, 2013 as part of the Osgoode Faculty Research Seminar Series
The infrastructure crises that have plagued Neskantaga First Nation for decades have reached a te... more The infrastructure crises that have plagued Neskantaga First Nation for decades have reached a terrifying breaking point. On Oct. 21, the northern Anishinaabe community’s ailing water systems once again failed completely, and this time in the context of the global coronavirus pandemic
With gripping urgency, Rob Nixon’s book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor seeks ... more With gripping urgency, Rob Nixon’s book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor seeks to reveal the “occluded relationships” between transnational economic actors and the things that tie them to particular places, such as labour, land, resources and commodity dynamics. He brings into view the bodies caught in the middle – those that have been raced and erased, made invisible, and wiped away -- by exposing the violence perpetrated against them across time and space. Nixon’s work is a broad synthesis of a seemingly disparate set of literatures in post-colonial studies, eco-criticism and literary studies. His arresting narrative engages three primary concerns: the phenomenon of “slow violence,” the environmentalism of the poor, and the role of the writer-activist in the work of making the first two ‘visible.’ Slow violence, in Nixon’s conception, is “a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, ...
The Oxford Handbook of the Canadian Constitution
This chapter reviews the key jurisprudential developments in relation to the division of powers i... more This chapter reviews the key jurisprudential developments in relation to the division of powers in Canada, exploring how the shared jurisdiction over the “environment” created by sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution has historically shaped and continues to shape environmental law and policy. In addition to this federal-provincial struggle, the chapter considers the current trend towards local regulation of environmental matters according to the principle of “subsidiarity”, and the growing recognition of the “inherent jurisdiction” of Indigenous peoples. The contemporary dynamics are explored through two critical policy case studies highlighting barriers to environmental justice: safe drinking water on reserves, and climate change mitigation. The review reveals that Canada’s constitutional framework, although not solely responsible, has contributed to our collective failure to achieve a coordinated and effective set of environmental laws and policies, which translates to unequal di...
Chemical substances are found everywhere in our environment. Whether it be at home, outdoors, or ... more Chemical substances are found everywhere in our environment. Whether it be at home, outdoors, or in the workplace, we are continuously coming into contact with various chemicals through our air, water, food, cosmetics, clothes, personal care products and everyday household items (Cooper, Vanderlinden, and Ursitti 2011; Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment 2008). As our detection methods improve, we are increasingly forced to confront the evidence of these exposures: biomonitoring studies now show that nearly everyone has measurable amounts of almost all known toxic chemicals stored somewhere in their bodies (CDC 2013; Environmental Defence 2009; Statistics Canada 2012). At the same time, we are witnessing a rise in incidence of a number of diseases and disorders in men and women. These include mutagenic illnesses, irreversible developmental and neurodevelopmental syndromes, reproductive disorders, and a number of autoimmune diseases. Many scientists, environmental grou...
Choice Reviews Online, 2016
Everyday exposures to chemicals found in homes, schools, and workplaces are having devastating co... more Everyday exposures to chemicals found in homes, schools, and workplaces are having devastating consequences on human health. These toxic exposures derive from common personal care products and cosmetics, household cleaners, pharmaceuticals, furniture, the food we eat, the water we drink, and even the air we breathe. Our Chemical Selves examines the impact of toxics on the long-term health of Canadians. Written by leading researchers in science, law, and public policy, the chapters in this collection reveal that while exposures to chemicals are pervasive and widespread, people from low-income, racialized, and Indigenous communities face a far greater risk of exposure. At the same time, the risks associated with these exposures (and the burdens of managing them) rest disproportionately on the shoulders of women. Rather than focusing on the chemical enemy, this collection hones in on the political economy of pollution by critically examining the system that manufactures the chemicals and the social, political, and gender relations that enable harmful chemicals to continue being produced and consumed. Enlivened by contributions from law, science, and policy scholars,Our Chemical Selves establishes the connections between profit incentives, the unsustainable production of waste, exploitative labour practices, and differential exposure to pollutants. Ultimately, this collection calls for revisions to the way we approach the regulation of toxics.https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/faculty_books/1273/thumbnail.jp
Locating Nature
Harvesting the Sun is a profitable cash crop, with no labour and no maintenance. *1 [L]andscape i... more Harvesting the Sun is a profitable cash crop, with no labour and no maintenance. *1 [L]andscape is both a work and an erasure of work. It is therefore a social relation of labour, even as it is something that is laboured over. 2 * Excellent research assistance provided by Osgoode Hall Law School juris doctorate students Christian Laidlaw, Rachel Zaurov and Davis Tessema. 1 Public testimony provided by R. and L. Cuthill on the Strathcona Energy Group solar development project in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario. (Hardcopy on file with authors). 2 D. Mitchell, The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the California Landscape
The struggle over the mineral deposits in Ontario’s Ring of Fire has taken a surprising turn. Wit... more The struggle over the mineral deposits in Ontario’s Ring of Fire has taken a surprising turn. With all eyes on British Columbia as events unfold in Unist\u27ot\u27en, the federal minister of environment and climate change has said the agency will establish a major regional assessment process for the Ring of Fire
Environmental Politics, 2016
Ecological citizens are increasingly encouraged to adopt 'precautionary consumption'a set of prac... more Ecological citizens are increasingly encouraged to adopt 'precautionary consumption'a set of practices aimed at shielding them from the potential health harms of exposures to everyday toxics. The utility and the effects of precautionary consumption in relation to common chemical exposures are investigated. Precautionary consumption is not only of questionable utility, but is fundamentally misguided as an approach for inspiring antitoxics organizing. The failure of this approach is in part due to its assumption of a naturally bounded, autonomous individual who is able to maintain an impermeable boundary between herself and the environment. Drawing on the work of material feminist theorists, it is argued that Gabrielson and Parady's notion of corporeal citizenship, an approach that places bodies into a complex web of material, ecological relations entangled with the social, offers several strategic advantages for framing resistance strategies.
Journal of Law & Equality, 2022
Inspired by the analysis developed in the article “Coming of Age in a Warming World: The Charter’... more Inspired by the analysis developed in the article “Coming of Age in a Warming World: The Charter’s Section 15 Equality Guarantee and Youth-Led Climate Litigation,” by Nathalie Chalifour, Jessica Earle, and Laura Macintyre, this commentary explores the concept of intergenerational environmental justice in the climate crisis. Our central contribution is to advance a relational conception of intergenerational environmental justice, which we argue can overcome some common objections to thinking about justice and rights in “generational” terms. This analysis supports climate litigation efforts on Charter grounds, best conceived in our view as discrimination against young and future generations. Yet it also highlights the need to advance intergenerational environmental justice outside of a narrow constitutional focus and, hence, puts forward various institutional, legislative, and deliberative mechanisms designed to uphold long-term interests in environmental governance processes.
Journal of Human Rights and the Environment
The structure of the mechanisms in the Kyoto Protocol with respect to "carbon sinks, " ... more The structure of the mechanisms in the Kyoto Protocol with respect to "carbon sinks, " may be interpreted so as to place incentives on national governments that counter recent progress made towards the preservation of old-growth forests. A focus on the element carbon fails to recognize values other than sequestration that standing forests can provide. For example, an approach that strictly seeks to increase the rate of fixation of atmospheric carbon will favour replacing old-growth forests with mono-cultural plantations of trees. The international community, in implementing these mechanisms, may frustrate other environmental initiatives such as the conservation of endangered species habitat and the protection of biodiversity. Further,focussing on the rate of sequestration is misguided. The recent empirical evidence suggests that the best way to use forests for climate change mitigation is to allow them to grow old, and to protect them from ever being logged.
Routledge Handbook of Law and Society
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Papers by Dayna Nadine Scott