IDENTITY POLITICS, DISINTERESTED POLITICS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

The environmental justice movement practices two kinds of politics-an identity politics basing appeals on the experiential, subjective knowl edge of its grassroots members and a disinterested politics basing app eals on the expert, objective knowledge of scientists. Yet each form o f politics currently undermines the other because they draw on very di fferent assumptions about the nature of scientific knowledge. The move ment can increase the likelihood of reaching its goals if it reconcile s its two forms of politics by propagating social constructionist view s of knowledge stressing the inevitable interrelation of facts and val ues.