Umweltgerechtigkeit als Forschungsparadigma der Soziologie

This paper discusses Environmental Justice to be a probably new area of research for environmental sociology. In order to reveal the complex structure of Environmental Justice related discourses and to promote more research on that topic, an analytical framework is elaborated, based on a distinction between the US-American experiences and recent European debates. Environmental Justice is understood here as a mutual process of negotiating conflicts of interests rather than a fixed state. Several “decision spots” will be carved out, which have to be considered in environmental-political regulations which are challenged by perceptions of social justice. The analytical framework will finally be illustrated by the empirical example of the new airport for Berlin, “Berlin-Brandenburg International”.