Making “a racket” but does anybody care? A study of environmental justice access and recognition through the political ecology of voice

There is now growing support for the United Nations to explicitly recognise the human right to a healthy environment, and to strengthen the fight for environmental justice. One key consideration is to explore how accessible environmental justice is for citizens in low- and middle-income countries, who are adversely affected by pollution problems. This article will evaluate citizen access to environmental justice through the state via a case-study of Peru. To do so, the article utilises the political ecology of voice (PEV) theoretical framework. PEV can be defined as the study of several economic, political, social, and geographical factors over a specific temporal period, and their impact upon the use of voice by different stakeholders. The research was centred on two communities affected by oil pollution events within Peru’s Loreto Region. It will show that Loreto’s rural population are subjected to “shadow environmental citizenship,” in which they have only peripheral access to environmental justice through the state, which also does not adequately recognise or support their right to seek redress. This in turn, forces people to seek access and recognition of environmental justice through more unorthodox or radical forms of action, or via the support of non-state actors.