Environmental and Social Justice in Sustainable Materialist Movements

Many of the movements we examine define themselves, in part and in name, as movements for social and environmental justice. We explore what activists and organizations actually mean by justice. Unlike other movements for environmental justice, equity is rarely an explicit concern. We find three key areas of justice articulated by movement activists: the crucial nature of political and material participation, the importance of responding to power, and, in particular, the necessity to address basic capabilities and everyday needs. All of these are articulated at both individual and community levels, with the functioning of communities, and social attachments to that community, central to conceptions of justice.