Democratic pursuit of environmental justice through activism: Rural landowners, civil disobedience, and the perception of influence
Creators: name: Robin, Melanie J
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2009
Subjects: subject: Geography.
subject: Sociology, Environmental Justice.

description: The rural revolution, as coined by the Ontario Landowners' Association (OLA), has gained considerable momentum in the past five years. Its activism in the pursuit of environmental justice, initiated by the perception of a government too intrusive into rural affairs, has evolved both externally and internally of governmental decision making structures. The association has moved from primarily using purposeful illegality, such as demonstrations, to active involvement in provincial politics. In this context, the qualitative research presented in this thesis is guided by three research objectives: (1) to develop a conceptual framework of environmental justice; (2) to examine the utility of the components of this conceptual framework within the rural revolution context; and, (3) to explore the perceptions of key stakeholders regarding the Ontario Landowner Associations' influence on rural public policy efforts to attain environmental justice. These three research objectives seek ultimately to address the central research purpose: To explore the concept of activism as a tenet of environmental justice by examining the case study of the OLA. The primary focus of the central research purpose, therefore, is on the traits of the OLA, or associated research themes, that have the potential to influence public policy content, its implementation, and its acceptance in rural Ontario. These associated research themes are: the OLA's targeted issues, the OLA's mission, leadership, activism forms, barriers and facilitators to activism, membership, and any additional insights. Four stakeholder groups sensitive to environmental public policy directed at rural communities have been consulted. They are provincial and municipal elected politicians (architects of policy), managers and planners of provincial ministries (implementers of policy), rural and agricultural commodity and interest groups (recipients of policy), and the Ontario Landowners' Association (challengers of policy). A conceptual framework of environmental justice has been proposed and is presented here. Moreover, the perceptions revealed by the respondents allow for an examination of the utility of the environmental justice 'instruments' and 'barriers and facilitators' sections of the conceptual framework. Research results show that the OLA's influence on rural public policy is perceived to be based on the organization's credibility, which is in turn perceived as dependent upon a combination of the associated research themes. It is hypothesized that these findings not only pertain to the OLA, but have determined the variables responsible for the perception of an effective activism group in general. Furthermore, this research has reiterated the importance of perception studies. These reflections may well transcend the OLA case study and may prove meaningful for all stakeholder groups in the understanding of activism seeking to sustain or reclaim environmental justice. These reflections may also facilitate mutual respect for different points of view and differing contributions to environmental management.