Abstract
Environmental justice as a body of scholarship and a platform for activism against environmental racism is now more than thirty years old. Earlier studies documented the unequal impacts of environmental risks on different racial/ethnic groups and social classes. Most studies found that ethnic minorities, indigenous people, and low-income communities bear a higher burden of environmental exposure than other groups (Boone, Geoffrey, Buckley, Grove & Sister. 2009; Mohai, Pellow and Roberts 2009; Pastor et al. 2001). Nonetheless, these studies have not considered the institutional aspects that might implicitly or explicitly produce subtle forms of racism that determine the relations between rich and poor, white and non-white (Bolin, Nelson, Hackett, Pijawka, Smith, Sicotte, Sadalla, Matranga, and O’ Donnell 2002; Boone et al. 2009). It leads to the discussion of citizenship and citizenship rights. Within this context, this chapter analyses housing policies and slum eviction episodes in Dhaka to explore how the urban poor’s right to urban space, particularly their right to shelter, is denied by the government and its agencies, drawing connections between urban citizenship, the right to the city, environmental justice, and the rights to nature perspectives....