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Published in: Social Justice Research 4/2020

14-10-2020

Lay Victims’ Conceptions of Environmental Crime and Environmental Injustice: The Case of the Chem-Dyne Superfund Site

Authors: Emmanuel A. Ogundipe, Ryan Gunderson

Published in: Social Justice Research | Issue 4/2020

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Abstract

This project explores lay victims’ conceptions of environmental crime and environmental injustice through in-depth interviews with a snowball sample of people affected by, and former employees of, the Chem-Dyne Superfund site in Hamilton, Ohio, USA. Qualitative content analysis revealed that participants used the following criteria to define both environmental crime and environmental injustice: illegality, intentionality, harm and safety, and unfairness. These findings have important implications for studies of environmental crime and environmental injustice: (1) Lay victims’ conceptions of environmental crime and environmental injustice are multidimensional concepts; (2) lay victims’ conceptions of environmental crime and environmental injustice are mostly anthropocentric; (3) there is significant conceptual overlap between environmental crime and environmental injustice in lay victim accounts; and (4) lay victims’ conceptions of environmental crime and environmental injustice are similar to, yet distinct from, formal and academic definitions.
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Footnotes
1
Participants were asked if they identified as Appalachian because Hamilton was one of the major Midwestern urban destinations of Appalachian migrants, an often marginalized and exploited population, from the 1950s through the 1970s (McCoy & Brown, 1981).
 
2
Hamilton was 94.2 percent white in 1970 (Bureau of the Census, 1973) and 92.7 percent non-Hispanic white in 1980 (Bureau of the Census, 1983). Although most participants were white, note that two are Native American.
 
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Metadata
Title
Lay Victims’ Conceptions of Environmental Crime and Environmental Injustice: The Case of the Chem-Dyne Superfund Site
Authors
Emmanuel A. Ogundipe
Ryan Gunderson
Publication date
14-10-2020
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Social Justice Research / Issue 4/2020
Print ISSN: 0885-7466
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6725
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-020-00359-4

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