Life and Death Matters

Barbara Rose Johnston is Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Political Ecology and winner of the Lourdes Arizpe Award for her outstanding contributions in the application of anthropology to environmental issues and discourse. Some of her many important publications are Who Pays the Price?: The Sociocultural Context of Environmental Crisis (1994); Life and Death Matters: Human Rights and the Environment at the End of the Millennium (1997; 2nd ed forthcoming 2008); Disappearing Peoples: Indigenous Groups and Ethnic Minorities in South and Central Asia (2007); and The Consequential Damages of Nuclear War: The Rongelap Report (forthcoming 2008). Holly M. Barker is the former senior advisor to the Republic of the Marshall Islands Ambassador to the United States, and now teaches in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington. She is author of Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World (Wadsworth 2004).

"Praise for the First Edition: Johnston's aim of moving beyond an examination of how particular human groups become victims to how (and why) such groups successfully and unsuccessfully act in response to environmental crisis is a valuable addition to the theoretical and applied literature... The cases are extremely diverse... By painting with such a broad brush, Johnston makes clear that the relationships between human rights and environmental justice are not bounded locally (e.g., to particular grassroots efforts) or nationally (e.g., to environmental justice movements with particular nations), but must be considered in some broader, international/global context... I look forward to using the book this spring in my upper-division undergraduate course on environmental social movements." --American Anthropologist "This stunning book is the single most compelling, comprehensive resource on human rights and the environment. It is essential reading for social scientists, policymakers, environmentalists, human rights activists, practitioners, and anybody else concerned with this urgent topic."-Gregory Button, University of Tennessee, Knoxville "...Life and Death Matters connects seemingly disparate phenomena--economic development, global tourism, climate change, modern warfare and nuclear militarism--to consider how biodegenerative catastrophes displace people, contaminate ecosystems, harm human health, and compromise cultural integrity. This book dissects the controlling processes that impede efforts to create a more habitable planet. Its long-term depth and cross-cultural breadth demonstrate how anthropological perspectives can lead to a more lucid understanding of the perils that threaten us all. Critical anthropology at its finest!"...- Roberto J. Gonzalez, San Jose State University "...From climate change to China's rise as a global superpower, the human rights, environment and social justice focus in this second edition is critical and timely, demonstrating how human rights and environmental crises emerge and re-emerge and drawing attention to the many pressing issues resulting from the intersect of warfare and environmental change."...- Benedict Colombi, University of Arizona "...Johnston and her authors systematically navigate through the complex landscape of national and international governance and environmental justice constellations to address the essential questions of our times: how do such crises form and ulcerate? who pays the price? and who is reaps its benefits? With its rigorous writing, substantive data, and analyses tempered by passion, scholars, students, and all others concerned with human environmental rights will find this book to be a prime example of scholar advocacy at its best."...- Irene J. Klaver, University of North Texas "...Life and Death Matters represents socially aware, well informed, relevant and humane anthropology at its best. With deep expertise and a readily accessible style authors use case-specific experience to tell the alarming collective story of how neoliberal development and military conflict contributes to the deterioration of the environment and the increasingly precarious situation of its most vulnerable human inhabitants."...- Hugh Gusterson, George Mason University

• Chapter 1 Human Rights, Environmental Quality, and Social Justice, Barbara Rose Johnston; Part I Economic Development; Chapter 2 Distant Processes: The Global Economy and Outer Island Development in Indonesia, Lorraine V. Aragon; Chapter 3 Uncommon Property Rights in Southwest China, Lindsey Swope, Margaret Byrne Swain, Fuquan Yang, Jack D. Ives, Tilt Bryan; Chapter 4 Snapshot: China Ecocitis.doc—Huangbaiyu: Eco-Cities in the Chinese Countryside, Shannon May; Part II Biodiversity: Preserving What, for Whom?; Chapter 4a African Wildlife: Conservation and Conflict, Robert K. Hitchcock; Chapter 5 Nature, Development, and Culture in the Zambezi Valley, Bill Derman, Mike Makina, Mushumbi Pools, Lazarus Zhuwao, Basiyao Zimbabwe; Part III Mineral Wealth versus Biotic Health; Chapter 6 The Master Thief: Gold Mining and Mercury Contamination in the Amazon, Leslie E. Sponsel; Chapter 7 War on Subsistence: Mining Rights at Crandon/Mole Lake, Wisconsin, Al Gedicks; Part IV Agriculture and Agri-Conflict; Chapter 8 Purity and Danger: Regulating Organic Farming, Valerie Wheeler, Peter Esainko; Chapter 9 Resource Access, Environmental Struggles, and Human Rights in Honduras, James Phillips; Chapter 10 Snapshot: The Human Right to Eat: Agro-Profiteering and Predictable Food Scarcity, Joan P. Mencher; Part V Development, Degradation, and Conflict; Chapter 10a Mass Tourism on the Mexican Caribbean: Pervasive Changes, Profound Consequences, Oriol Pi-Sunyer, R. Brooke Thomas; Chapter 11 Mexico's Second Institutionalized Revolution: Origins and Impacts of the Chiapas Declarations, David Stea, Camilo Perez Bustillo, Betse Davies, Silvia Elguea; Part VI Postwar Matters; Chapter 12 Life and Death Matters in Eritrean Repatriation, Lucia Ann McSpadden; Chapter 13 Environmental Justice, Health, and Safety in Urban South Africa: Alexandra Township Revisited, Ben Wisner; Chapter 14 Health, Human Rights, and War: Structural Violence, Armed Conflict, and Human Health in the Andes, Tom Leatherman; Chapter 15 Snapshot: War and Political Violence Are Destructive to Life and Health, Ellen Gruenbaum; Chapter 16 Snapshot: Considering the Human Health Consequences of War in Iraq, Marcia C. Inhorn; Part VII Problems That Push the Parameters of Time and Space; Chapter 15a Radiation Communities: Fighting for Justice for the Marshall Islands, Holly M. Barker; Chapter 16a Complex Problems and No Clear Solutions: Radiation Victimization in Russia, Paula Garb; Chapter 17 Snapshot: Building a Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?, Barbara Rose Johnston; Chapter 17a Climate Change, Culture Change, and Human Rights in Northeastern Siberia, Susan A. Crate; Chapter 18 Snapshot: Climate Change and the Small Island Experience, Holly M. Barker; Chapter 19 Snapshot: Beset by Offsets: Carbon Offset Chains and Human Rights Abuses, Melissa Checker; Chapter 18a Water and Human Rights, Barbara Rose Johnston; Chapter 20 Snapshot: From Ecological Disaster to Constitutional Crisis: Dams on Brazil's Xingu River, Terence Turner; Chapter 21 Snapshot: Dam Legacies: Guatemala's Chixoy Dam-Affected Communities, Barbara Rose Johnston;