Multiple disconnections: environmental justice and Urban water in Canada and South Africa

This paper examines the ways in which environmental justice (EJ)—in its myriad forms—has developed as a concrete and material challenge to the dominant (neo‐liberal) discourse of ecological modernisation. The concept of ‘environmental justice’ is problematised and the fast conceptual transfer beyond the borders of the US, where it originated. The shift in the concept of environmental justice is explored in two urban environments in Toronto, Canada, and Hermanus, South Africa, with a specific emphasis on urban water policies and politics and their relation to concerns of environmental justice. The term ‘environmental justice’ in the context of urban environments must be defined within this context for each site under study; the paper argues against a universalising use of the term. In localising the term ‘environmental justice’, it is not proposed that its use be restricted to a specific site, but that its use is embedded in a multiscalar urban world specific to a particular site. It is argued specifically that what is and is not environmentally just cannot be discussed merely from the point of view of localised differentials in the exposure to environmental costs or benefits. Instead, the articulated scales of justice are explored in and among the case study cities. It is argued that in reality, injustice perceptions and justice demands are constructed through relative, scale‐sensitive political and discursive processes.