ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: POLLUTION, POWER, INEQUALITY, GOVERNANCE FAILURES AND COMMUNITY RESISTANCE PATHWAYS

Abstract

Environmental injustice has emerged as a defining yet under-examined dimension of rapid development in Southeast Asia. This study critically analyses how pollution burdens are unevenly distributed across socio-economic groups, with low-income and marginalised communities experiencing disproportionate exposure to hazardous air, water, and land contamination. Drawing on regional evidence and country-level case studies, the analysis situates environmental harm within historical legacies of colonial urban planning, post-colonial industrialisation, and contemporary governance failures. Pollution exposure is shown to be shaped not merely by proximity to industrial or infrastructural sources, but by entrenched inequalities in land tenure, political representation, regulatory enforcement, and access to public services. Low-income communities are systematically positioned within high-risk environments through informal settlement patterns, weak zoning regulations, and uneven state investment, while simultaneously lacking institutional capacity to contest these arrangements. The findings highlight how environmental injustice in Southeast Asia operates through a multi-vector pollution framework in which air, water, and land contamination intersect with labour precarity, inadequate sanitation, and transboundary environmental flows. Health impacts, including respiratory illness, waterborne disease, and toxic exposure, are concentrated among populations already burdened by poverty, social exclusion, and limited healthcare access. The study further demonstrates that existing policy responses often prioritise technological fixes and economic growth over distributive equity, failing to address cumulative exposure and structural vulnerability. By integrating environmental justice theory with regional political-economic analysis, this study argues that addressing pollution in Southeast Asia requires not only environmental regulation but transformative governance reforms, participatory planning, and rights-based approaches that centre affected communities as key agents of change rather than passive victims of development.