Analyze

This text builds from earlier conceptions of the term “land dispossession” and “land grab”. As defined by the 2011 International Land Coalition, land grabbing specifically refers to large scale land acquisitions that are “ in violation of human rights, without prior consent of the preexisting land users, and with no consideration of social and environmental impacts”. Characterization of land grabs and their resulting harms most commonly considers the effect of physical displacement and harms within the articulated “grabbed” area (Nyantakyi-Frimpong, 2017;Ogwand, 2018;  huaserman, 2018). Li and Pan seek to expand the frame of analysis for land grabs beyond the site of grabbed land to consider the full extent of harms associated with land grabs both geographically (via pollution spillover to areas outside of “grabbed land”) and temporally (via latent “expulsion by pollution). 

 “While the villagers are not passive victims and have adopted various resistance strategies, the space for them to struggle and achieve success is confined and shaped by the existing power asymmetry in which local villagers, capital and local government are embedded.”  (Li and Pan, 2021, p 418). 

“...this framing of land dispossession is problematic in two aspects. Firstly, it obscures an invisible form of land dispossession in which people still maintain control of their land but its use value is damaged by pollution. This kind of indirect land dispossession could lead to expulsion, not due to the direct loss of control over land but by it being rendered useless by pollution.” Li and Pan, 2021, p 409). 

 This text employs a case study approach to characterize how villagers in a village in China have been displaced “in-place” as a result of new industrial activities within the area  (all specific details have been hidden within the publication, wherein the names of villager groups and the site of study itself is referenced only by coded letters). The scale of analysis primarily centers at the village level, though analysis of the case study itself extends towards the country level specifically when analysis of state actors are involved. 

Authors Hua Li and Lu Pan are scholars from China. Li is  affiliated with the College of Humanities and Law at Taiyuan University of Technology, wherein her research focuses specifically on water politics, environmental justice, and rural development and agrarian change. Pan is affiliated with the College of Humanities and Development at China Agricultural University. Her research interests include marginalized communities, rural development, and agrarian change.

Lee highlights the importance of consolidating an empirical definition for “disproportionate impacts” by situating his argument within current discussions on systemic racism stemming from police brutality and the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, in calling attention to premises of resistance from the EPA to address EJ integration, as well as the agency’s careless disregard for EJ processes generally, Lee articulates the need to further define an analytical framework to EJ application. He additionally calls attention to current developments within the EJ sphere in operationalizing “disproportionate impacts” via new quantitative and geographical analysis tools, stating the necessity of such tools in bringing EJ movements beyond its present stagnation.

“While such microaggressions have been examined in the context of implicit bias, Harrison is the first to look at them in terms of policymaking and program implementation. “We do ecology, not sociology,” a key stan- dard narrative cited by Harrison, is reminiscent of EPA’s response to my seminal Toxic Wastes and Race report.10 In 1987, J. Winston Porter, former assistant administrator for solid waste and emergency response, wrote that “EPA deals with issues of technology, not sociology.” (Lee, 2021, p 10209)

“Without such an analytical framework built on properly identifying, characterizing, and integrating disproportionate impacts, the default response for EJ issues devolves into a perfunctory “box to be checked” exercise. “ (Lee, 2021, 10233)

The author, Charles Lee, is credited as a well-respected leader within the field of environmental justice. His leadership roles in establishing the foundation for environmental justice policy in the U.S., particularly in linking environmental justice issues to systemic racism, gives credibility to his established position as an environmental policy analyst. Institutionally, he is affiliated with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he currently serves as the Senior Policy Advisor for Environmental Justice.