Portraying Ecological Justice

Impacting Our Understandings of Justice

Through our work on portraying ecological justice we interrogate the representation of ecological justice in society and across all disciplines from the arts to the natural sciences. In so doing, our work highlights the way in which the representations of ecological justice impact on understandings of justice and on its delivery. We show how current representations of ecological justice marginalise the interests of some sectors of society and species while prioritising others. We explore the potential for alternative portrayals of ecological justice, for new partnerships and for new methods of creating representations of ecological justice to provide new insights into the delivery of ecological justice.

Within the scope of the portraying ecological justice we investigate two main areas:

• Story telling, including visual story telling in ecological justice
• Research Communication of ecological justice, including outreach and education

Key Projects

The Mobile Arts for Peace - A project led by Professor Ananda Breed which, while focused on using the arts to help transition countries to peace, also draws out the relationship of communities and the ecosystems of which they are part.

The Interactive Storytelling for Ecological Justice - A project led by Dr Conohar Scott examines how photography and AR can be used to bring about greater awareness of ecological justice struggles in communities affected by industrial pollution.

Conservation of cultural heritage - Prevents the loss of culture, identity, community, and spense of place. This work includes vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning which spans  intangibles as well as objects and buildings and landscapes – The loss of culture is a loss of identity, community, sense of place.

Engagement with civil society and the public in climate politics and education - Led by Dr Andrew Kythreotis and Dr Theresa Mercer, this examines whether, and in what form, a new ‘civil politics’ of climate change is emerging from recent populist climate events in the UK and around the world, such as school climate strikes and declarations of a climate emergency and what role education institutions (schools, universities and colleges) can play in augmenting government policy