Untitled Notes

Title: The clock is ticking: contexts, tensions and opportunities for addressing environmental justice in sport management
Authors: Chen Chen (University of Connecticut) and Timothy Kellison (Georgia State University)
Publication: SBJM, Volume 13, Issue 3, 2023, Pages 376-396
Licensing: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0)

Purpose: Explore what environmental justice (EJ) contributes to sport management research. Emphasizes the urgency for scholars to engage with EJ as a critical research agenda.
Methodology: This position and conceptual paper draws from multidisciplinary literature, including critical human geography, environmental sociology, Indigenous studies, and postcolonial studies.
Findings:
- EJ allows for deeper analysis of racial, socio-economic, and gender-related inequities in sport.
- Incorporating EJ can enhance sport ecology research, suggesting stronger analyses regarding existing inequalities in the sport industry.
Value: Represents a novel and critical intervention in sport management literature, focusing on the confluence of social movements, public policy, and academic scholarship targeted at practitioners and scholars.

EJ movements, particularly from Indigenous activists, challenge claims of positive impacts of large events like the Olympics on local communities.
Sport is paradoxically viewed as both a promoter of health/environment and an industry causing significant environmental damage.
The significant environmental impacts of sports encompass:
- Resource depletion in production (e.g., golf courses).
- Habitat destruction for venues.
Environmental Justice (EJ) concerns arise from uneven distributions of environmental costs and benefits, particularly affecting marginalized communities.

Definitions: EJ is characterized by the fight for equitable access to a clean and safe environment, often highlighting the social inequities in environmental decision-making and policies.
Historical Context:
- Emerged in the U.S. in the 1980s amid protests against environmental racism.
- Crosses sectors like land use, transportation, and housing.
Modern Challenges: Its scope has expanded to include multi-dimensional issues such as race, gender, and colonial legacies which solidify patterns of environmental injustice.

Three elementary paradigms illustrate the conceptualizations of EJ:
- Distributive Paradigm: Focuses on equitable distribution of environmental burdens and benefits; highlights intra- and inter-generational justice.
- Procedural Paradigm: Advocates for equitable participation in decision-making related to environmental management.
- Recognition Paradigm: Centers on acknowledging and respecting the diversity of human experiences and relationships to the environment, especially regarding Indigenous rights and knowledge.

Proposed incorporation of EJ into sport management research seeks to address:
- The impact of sport on marginalized communities.
- Conflicts arising from inequitable benefit distribution from sport-related developments.
Contextual Analysis: Understanding the historical and geographical context is crucial to address EJ in sport effectively.
Stakeholder Mapping: A nuanced analysis of stakeholders (corporate, governmental, local communities) involved in EJ implications within sport is vital.

Power Dynamics: EJ highlights the need to address historical and current power imbalances within decision-making processes in sport.
Challenges: Navigating complexities of engaging in EJ amidst competing institutional interests.
Strategic Alliances: Encourage coalitions among marginalized groups and the momentum to reshape narratives in sport management through EJ frameworks.

Questions posed to explore intersections of EJ with various sub-disciplines in sport management include:
- How can stakeholders effectively collaborate for EJ initiatives?
- What role do sport organizations have in mitigating ecological debt?
- How to equip communities with tools to resist environmental injustices related to sport?

Incorporating EJ within sport management research will lay a foundation for responsible scholarship that embraces its social justice agenda.
Engaging with the stakes of EJ allows for a transformative role for sport in advocating for equity, inclusion, and environmental sustainability across communities.