Session 9: Issues in Citizenship

Kersty Hobson - Environmental Citizenship and Public ‘Environmental' Concerns
Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia

Over the past few decades, some countries have witnessed growing public, political and academic interests in questions of both ecological sustainability and democratic inclusion and processes. These dual ideals - of how to make the future more sustainable and how to make liberal democracy more 'democratic' - have merged in concepts such as 'environmental citizenship', which calls for individuals to take responsibility for their own environments through inclusive local action, mutual respect and civic morality. This paper examines the epistemological foundations of concepts such as environmental citizenship, contrasting it with individual's actual 'environmental' concerns, arguing that ultimately it ignores the complex and important relationships that exist between lay perceptions and ideals of community, justice and environmental quality.
It begins by exploring how prevailing environmental discourses are often part of an efficiency-focussed rationalisation epistemology, representing distinct theories of the environment, the state, the individual, and the relationships between them. These theories, though lying at the heart of ecological modernisation, are argued to have little public resonance. Qualitative empirical material gathered in the UK, from participants of the sustainable lifestyle programme called Action at Home, is discussed. It is argued that there are strong links between these individual's ideals of environmental quality and those of social justice, in that the natural environment itself is not the focus of individual's concern but rather a conduit or signal of degrading sense of community and inter-personal respect. Individuals feel that only when there is a regeneration of general citizenship, centred around increased social learning and spaces of positive interaction, will their environments, both social and ecological, begin to improve. As a result, there is a tension at the heart of prevailing political environmental discourses. That is, public disinterest in ecological problems, which can be read as apathy, could also be read as a signal of the distance that exists between actual individual 'environmental' concerns, and their public framings.

Stuart Shulman - Digital Citizenship: A Pathway to Environmental Justice
Environmental Science and Policy Program, Drake University, 2507 University -- Olin Hall, Des Moines, IA 50311

Citizenship is increasingly mediated by digital communication. Political parties interact with members on-line; interest groups use Web sites and electronic mail to woo the public; media organizations perpetually update the news on their information-rich sites; government makes vital information and documents available via the World Wide Web. These and other communicative functions are all aspects of the emerging digital citizenship. On-line information can provide the basis for environmental or personal health protection. The expressive power of information technology offers one possible pathway for individuals and groups working on questions of environmental justice. Digitally literate citizens can mobilize data, policy makers, and fellow citizens on behalf of environmental equity. Effective electronic communication can reorient the public policy and planning processes to reduce or alleviate the externality dumping that adversely impacts low-income communities. This paper will set out the theoretical and empirical basis for promoting digital citizenship as a pathway to environmental justice.