Living beyond the Pale: Environmental Justice and the Roma Minority

Chapter Seven: Patterns of Environmental (In)justice

CHAPTER SEVEN Patterns of Environmental (In)justice Preceding chapters provided illustration of the situation in particular settlements , evidence of differentiated exposure to the environmental risks, and unequal access to environmental goods. This chapter attempts to conceptualize outcomes of the research about environmental justice in Slovakia . The cases of local disparities and unequal treatment identified and analyzed confirme my initial hypotheses formulated in the beginning of this endeavor: If we look at social and ethnic characteristics of the people impacted by the unequal exposure to environmental harm (or possessing limited access to environmental benefits) in more detail, we find that there are significant differences between the non-Roma majority and the Roma population. Poverty and ethnicity play a significant role, and Roma in the eastern regions of Slovakia are the group where social and economic inequalities transformed into the inequalities in distribution of environmental benefits and harm. Four main patterns of the inequalities were identified. Patterns of environmental injustice are defined here as specific, representative types of interactions between humans and the environment, where environmental benefits and harm are unequally distributed. They are used for the description of the interactions leading to environmental injustice and for analyses of the dynamics behind them. Construction of the patterns helps to understand the dynamics of the social processes contributing to their origin and serves for better analyses of opportunities offered by development policies (focusing especially on environmental management) to reduce vulnerability of the affected people to environmental injustice and improve their well-being. The four patterns of the unequal distribution of environmental benefits and harm are: exposure to hazardous waste and chemicals (settlements at contaminated sites); vulnerability to floods; differentiated access to pota- 152 Living Beyond the Pale ble water; and discriminatory waste management practices. Although the four patterns I describe might not represent all potential forms of environmental injustice, they (to my best understanding) well summarize patterns identified in my field research. The results confirm that the conditions identified in the case studies do not represent an extreme case of atypical local conditions, but rather they represent patterns of environmental injustice that can also be found in other places. The scope and impact of the unequal distribution of environmental benefits and harm differ from settlement to settlement. It is a different impact if 400 people from Bystre do not have potable water compared to Jarovnice , where more than 4,000 people have unequal access to it. It is difficult to compare, without detailed long-term measurement and monitoring, if there is a bigger threat to human health in Zabíjanec or in Pätoracké. Nevertheless, the patterns help us to understand the forms and potential impacts of environmental injustice. Their presence in the case studies research and regional survey was as follows:  Exposure to hazardous waste and chemicals: The case of Rudňany is very similar to that in the settlement of Krompachy, and confirms links among poverty, ethnic origin, and the location of settlements on derelict industrial sites.  Vulnerability to floods: The three villages, Jarovnice, Hermanovce, and Svinia (case study Upper Svinka Watershed) exposed to floods in the past are not the only case of environmental injustice; Petrova, Cminianske Jakubovany, and Markovce support the hypothesis that Roma settlements are often located in vulnerable environmental situations.  Limited access to potable water: The most widespread form of discrimination against people in shantytowns. The situation in Svinia (the Upper Svinka Watershed case study) is very typical for many Roma settlements in Eastern Slovakia. Out of the random sample of thirty settlements, I found unequal access in nineteen Roma shantytowns .  Discriminatory waste management practices: Trebišov and Svinia provide examples of unequal treatment of the Roma communities in waste management. The first two patterns relate to environmental conditions in places designated or chosen for Roma shantytowns prior to the settlement itself. The latter two relate to practices in municipalities with already settled Roma Patterns of Environmental (In)justice 153 communities. As already mentioned, the most widespread pattern of unequal treatment is access to water and sanitation, with pipelines ending before they reach a Roma shantytown. One or several insufficient wells with low-quality drinking water for several hundred people in these places is rather common picture. Areas regularly flooded in the past were often designated by local municipalities as land for the construction of shantytowns and the increasing occurrence of floods (due to mismanagement of the landscape and/or climate change) expose these people...