Energy and Environmental Justice

This book reconnects energy research with the radical, reflexive, and transformative approaches of Environmental Justice. Global patterns of energy production and use are disrupting the ecosystems that sustain all life, disproportionately affecting marginalized groups. Addressing such injustices, this book examines how energy relates to structural issues of exploitation, racism, colonialism, extractivism, the commodification of work, and the systemic devaluing of diverse ‘others.’ The result is a new agenda for critical energy research that builds on a growing global movement of environmental justice activism and scholarship. Throughout the book the author reframes ‘transitions’ as collaborative projects of justice that demand structural change and societal shifts to more equitable and reciprocal ways of living. This book will be an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and practitioners interested in transforming energy systems and working collectively to build just planetaryfutures.

“Tristan Partridge’s Energy and Environmental Justice is a well-written, essential primer of how energy and environmental justice are linked through systems, movements and power. Organized through theories, concrete examples from throughout the world, and research agendas, Partridge’s synthesis is incredibly important. The book is short and readable, and re-centers energy through work and politics, foregrounds indigenous, racial and gender perspectives, and usefully explains what justice, transition, and degrowth means grounded in everyday struggles. This book should be used in many classrooms and organizing spaces.”
–JULIE SZE, author of Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger. 

“I couldn’t put this book down. Energy and Environmental Justice is a powerful treatise and meditation on the necessity of taking energy justice seriously, linking it to generations of scholarship and activism by researchers and advocates of environmental justice, Indigenous Studies and Indigenous sovereignty (among other fields). One of the most theoretically rich and methodologically challenging books I have come across in a long time, Energy and Environmental Justice has forced me to completely rethink energy justice from the ground up. It also leaves me hopeful because Partridge articulates the importance of pushing beyond modes of mere resistance to enact strategies of redefinition, refusal, and transformation in how we think about and engage with energy, labor, systems of oppression, multispecies relationships, and so much more. Tristan Partridge has produced a highly original volume that will breathe new life into the field and will set the tone for the next generation of scholars.”
–DAVID N. PELLOW, author of What Is Critical Environmental Justice?

“This insightful work takes a comprehensive look at how energy production and consumption intersect with the global movement for environmental justice, illuminating both the socioecological catastrophe of the status quo and the possibilities for more just and sustainable energy relations. This book should be a first stop for readers seeking to understand and create the energy systems of the future.”
–ANNA J. WILLOW, author of Understanding ExtrACTIVISM: Culture and Power in Natural Resource Disputes.

“This book re-politicizes debates about desired energy futures, rooting those debates in the demands of diverse social movements fighting for radical social change.”
–FEDERICO DEMARIA, coeditor of Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary and Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era.

“This accessible and concise handbook should be required reading for every student in environmental studies and related fields. It helpfully reconnects energy research with the radical perspectives, activist roots, Indigenous insights, and key concepts required for building the future we need, clarifying what just transitions require. Its synthesis of ideas, methodologies, and recommendations for a critical energy justice research agenda are valuable for scholars who wish to be accomplices in community struggles that refuse oppression and generate new relationships.”
–CORRIE GROSSE, author of Working across Lines: Resisting Extreme Energy Extraction