The presentation analyzes the mobilization of residents on the front lines of environmental injustice in three working-class neighborhoods in the Netherlands and Russia. It shows how the processes of degradation of the everyday environment led residents to attempt to counter the dynamics of physical and social devaluation by renaturing and redeveloping public spaces, in a self-organized process. The stigmatization of a red-light district in Arnhem, the lack of maintenance of buildings and outdoor spaces, as well as industrial pollution in Tver and Nizhny Novgorod have nourished a feeling of injustice, pushing residents to take control of their daily environment. We will analyze both the material and social transformation of the urban environment, as well as the empowerment processes at work through the mirror effect between environmental requalification and acquisition of action capacities. Finally, these mobilizations show a way to fight environmental inequalities from below, and further, to open new paths for socio-ecological transformation.

The presentation analyzes the mobilization of residents on the front lines of environmental injustice in three working-class neighborhoods in the Netherlands and Russia. It shows how the processes of degradation of the everyday environment led residents to attempt to counter the dynamics of physical and social devaluation by renaturing and redeveloping public spaces, in a self-organized process. The stigmatization of a red-light district in Arnhem, the lack of maintenance of buildings and outdoor spaces, as well as industrial pollution in Tver and Nizhny Novgorod have nourished a feeling of injustice, pushing residents to take control of their daily environment. We will analyze both the material and social transformation of the urban environment, as well as the empowerment processes at work through the mirror effect between environmental requalification and acquisition of action capacities. Finally, these mobilizations show a way to fight environmental inequalities from below, and further, to open new paths for socio-ecological transformation.