Speaking for Ourselves

Speaking for Ourselves is one of the most important books I have read in a long time. It has profoundly shaped my thinking about the scholarly and political work being done on environmental justice issues and about the world we live in and share with other beings ... This book will extend the fields of environmental justice studies and indigenous studies in new and productive ways. -- David Pellow, University of California, San Diego, author of Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice and co-editor of Power, Justice, and the Environment: A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement

This book showcases the work of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal scholars who uphold environmental justice as the path to a more just, equitable, and sustainable Canada.

The concept of environmental justice has evolved over the past two decades to offer a new direction for social movements, public policy, and public planning. Researchers worldwide now position social equity as a building block for sustainability. Yet the relationship between social equity and the environmental aspects of sustainability has been little studied in Canada.

Speaking for Ourselves draws together scholars and activists — Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, established and new — who bring equity issues to the forefront by considering environmental justice in specifically Canadian cases and contexts and from a variety of perspectives and concerns, including those of women and First Nations.