The Justice and Institutional Interplay: Bringing the Local into the Theoretical Fold of Communicative Action

• In Event: 2251 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 19. Public Participation in Science

Abstract

How does communicative action work in communities that distrust the state due to existing environmental injustices? Communicative action takes a systematic approach to pragmatic knowledge by tying interaction and reflection to the institutionalization of what is learned. Habermas’s acclaimed theory, though inspired by concerns of justice, does not take into account the different situations in which the deliberative endeavor takes place, particularly places that are predisposed to distrust institutions due to existing injustices. This paper combines research on deliberative democracy with that of participatory research to analyze a community-based research project on cancer in a conservative Alabama community. I find that ample interaction and reflection prompts valid ideas, which eventually leads to the identification of well water contamination. Local action as pertains to access to clean water and cleanup of dump sites results, while regulatory institutional intervention fails to materialize, further cementing distrust in the state. I argue that an institutional optimism prevails in the current understanding of communicative action and democratic deliberation, that can be in part be remedied by more attention existing injustices and local social action.

Author

• Loka Ashwood, Auburn University