Abstract
This paper evaluates community-level responses to air pollution. Air pollution is widespread and quite lethal. Moreover, state efforts to reduce it remain uneven and slow. This presents an agency problem for those affected by air pollution: how to respond to this sort of slow violence, deadly but widely-distributed? I argue that, in part because of its physical characteristics, air pollution exposes the limits of civil disobedience as moral communication. I evaluate one nonviolent and one unarmed but violent strategy for collective self-defense against air pollution and make at least two concrete recommendations for engaging in such a defense.
Presenters
J. MohorčichAssistant Professor, Political Science, Lehman College, New York, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2023 Special Focus: Agency in an Era of Displacement and Social Change
KEYWORDS
Environment, Harm Reduction, Autonomy, Resistance, Self-defense, Air Pollution
