Risk Avoidance, Cultural Discrimination, and Environmental Justice for Indigenous Peoples
Risk Avoidance, Cultural Discrimination, and Environmental Justice for Indigenous Peoples
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原住民的风险规避、文化歧视和环境正义
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发表时间：
2003
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Catherine O’Neill
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作者：
Catherine O’Neill
本文首先认识到原住民的环境正义需要关注环境问题的相互关联的文化、精神、社会、生态、经济和政治层面。此外，它还指出，“环境正义需要了解每个部落特定的历史环境和当代理解，包括每个群体对其文化繁荣的渴望。”它认为，一些环境决策者和评论员越来越多地接受“风险规避”策略，即呼吁风险承担者改变其做法以避免环境危害风险的策略，而不是减少风险，即要求风险产生者清理或消除产生风险的污染的策略。在从普通民众的角度注意到转向风险规避的危险之后，本文重点讨论了这种转变对环境正义的影响。它探讨了由此产生的分配不平等和文化歧视方面的不公正现象。首先，它认为，必须采取避免措施的负担，例如减少鱼类消费以避免汞污染或呆在室内以避免臭氧污染，可能会不成比例地落在美洲印第安部落成员和其他土著人民以及其他有色人种社区和低收入社区身上。其次，它认为，只有当主流社会的成员不重视或认为要改变的做法或生活方式是不可缺少的时候，规避风险才可能成为选择的策略。然而，主流社会的价值观和文化理解往往与土著人民不同，有时甚至是截然不同。文章认为，不关注这一观察的环境政策将继续延续文化歧视。
This article begins with the recognition that environmental justice for Native peoples requires attention to the interrelated cultural, spiritual, social, ecological, economic, and political dimensions of environmental issues. It observes, moreover, that “environmental justice requires an appreciation of each tribe’s particular historical circumstances and contemporary understandings, including each group’s aspirations for the flourishing of its culture.” It contends that some environmental decision makers and commentators have increasingly come to embrace “risk avoidance” – strategies that call upon risk-bearers to alter their practices in order to avoid the risk of environmental harms – in lieu of risk reduction – strategies that require risk-producers to cleanup or eliminate contamination that gives rise to risks. After noting the perils of a shift to risk avoidance from the perspective of the general population, the article focuses on the environmental justice implications of such a shift. It explores the resulting injustice in terms of distributive inequity and cultural discrimination. It argues, first, that the burden of having to undertake avoidance measures, such as reducing one’s fish consumption to avoid mercury contamination or staying indoors to avoid ozone pollution, is likely to fall disproportionately on American Indian tribal members and other indigenous peoples, as well as on other communities of color and low-income communities. It argues, second, that risk avoidance is only likely to be the strategy of choice when the practice or lifeway to be altered is not valued or thought indispensable by members of the dominant society. Yet the values and cultural understandings of the dominant society will often be different, sometimes profoundly so, from those of indigenous peoples. Environmental policy that is inattentive to this observation, the article contends, will continue to perpetuate cultural discrimination.