Leveraging shadow networks for procedural justice

• Published in: Current opinion in environmental sustainability 2022-08, Vol.57, p.101190, Article 101190
• Main Authors: York, Abigail, Yazar, Mahir
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1877-3435; 1877-3443
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2022.101190

Increasingly, environmental sustainability-governance research investigates procedural justice, which is focused on fairness, discrimination, and inclusion in decision-making. To understand the (re)production of inequity and environmental injustice, we must examine who is included and excluded, what types of knowledge and information are incorporated, and how more inclusive processes may (not) facilitate transformation of environmental governance. A growing empirical literature explores the potential of shadow networks to expand inclusion in governance arenas. Shadow networks work inside and outside the dominant system, facilitate information flows, create nodes of expertize, identify knowledge gaps, engage in social learning, and explore alternatives to the status quo, yet some shadow networks reinforce historic legacies of injustice exacerbating exclusion and centering particular actors or communities. •Inclusion of diverse communities in shadow networks advances procedural justice.•Social learning within shadow networks may enable new governance structures to emerge.•Emergent governance may not necessarily advancesocioecological justice.•Socioecological justice may be partially realized via more inclusive shadow networks.•Activism coupled with shadow-network engagement may further socioecological justice.