Research, part of a special feature on Resilience and Change in Arctic Alaska

INTRODUCTION

The push to transition to more sustainable, low-carbon economies has intensified over the last two decades. However, our dominant economic system continues to exacerbate both environmental decline (Schmid 2019) and social inequity (Heffron and McCauley 2018). To ensure transitions are more just and inclusive, scholars have argued for more plural understandings of transitions and transformations (Lam et al. 2020) and more nuanced approaches to justice (Bennet et al. 2019, Williams and Doyon 2019). These notions of transitions and justice need to be rooted in place. Doyon et al. (2021) call for more transitions research that considers the ethics of transitions and case studies that highlight place-based relationships and connection to land, particularly as it relates to Indigenous communities. We responded to this call by turning our attention to St. George, Alaska.

Between 2018 and 2020, St. George developed an economic development strategy to transition its community from a single sector, resource-based economy to a more sustainable and supportive economy. St. George is located on an extremely remote island and has faced a history of injustice, making it an interesting case to consider with a just transitions lens. This research explores what the St. George Economic Development Strategy and strategy development process can teach us about planning for just transitions. Through a qualitative content analysis and informal interviews, we analyzed how the strategy engaged with different forms of justice and considered how the development process might have facilitated justice responses.

St. George, Alaska

Located in the extreme remoteness of Alaska’s Bering Sea, St. George Island is home to an Indigenous community of approximately 60 Unangan people (see Fig. 1). Residents of St. George are no strangers to shocks and stresses, having endured a complex history of enslavement and internment and now facing a declining population, critical infrastructure and energy needs, and high unemployment. In response, the City Council initiated a values-driven, evidence-based community economic development process with EcoPlan International, a Vancouver-based planning, decision support, and community engagement firm. Extensive research, community and stakeholder engagement, and analysis led to the development of “Rebuilding our Future Kayutuuxtxin Tanagnangin Igayuusalix angagiimchin agnaxtxichin: St. George’s Economic Development Strategy” between 2018 and 2020 (hereafter referred to as “the Strategy”). The Strategy outlined and prioritized a host of economic opportunities across sectors including fisheries, tourism, research and education, small business, and innovation. The aim of the Strategy was to embrace the cultural, spiritual, and emotional strength of its people by acknowledging St. George’s painful history, weaving in the Unangan language, Unangam Tunuu, and building on local traditional knowledge and practices.

St. George was established early in the fur-seal trade where the community was later exploited by the United States (U.S.) government until fur-seals were no longer profitable. The U.S. withdrew from the fur trade in 1983, leaving St. George with little support to transition its economy. In 1992, the Western Alaska Community Development Quota (CDQ) Program was created to allocate a percentage of all Bering Sea and Aleutian Island quotas for ground fish, crab, and halibut to eligible CDQ groups, including the Aleutian Pribilof Island Community Development Association (APICDA), which represents St. George. This program aims to create opportunities for communities with economic disadvantages to generate capital and build their economies on the fishing industry. However, successfully transitioning St. George’s to a fisheries-based economy in the absence of needed infrastructure has proved difficult. With environmental risks such as stock depletion, little support to build key infrastructure, decline in City revenues (including fish taxes, sales tax, fuel transfer tax, State of Alaska revenue sharing [Community Assistance Program] and payments in lieu of taxes), and restrictive federal policies, St. George has struggled to shift toward an economy that supports its community. Playing a key role in early state development only to be abandoned with a dying resource economy, St. George reflects the reality of many remote communities in settler colonial states^[1] and is a useful case to consider within just transitions.

The socio-demographics of St. George Island differ from other regions of Alaska. St. George’s residents are primarily Native Unangan people, and it is one of only 12 Aleut communities in Alaska. The population is in decline, and wages are significantly beneath Alaskan averages. The median age is about six years older than that for Alaska as a whole. In 2017, the St. George school stopped receiving funding after falling below the threshold of 10 students. Employment is heavily weighted toward local government, though there are efforts to further develop commercial fishing and tourism (City of St George 2019a). The employment rate among adults was 39% in 2016; this number included residents who worked full and part time, as well as those who worked at some point during the year (Colt 2018).

Settler-colonial North America was built on the natural resources and labor of communities like St. George, but it is these same communities that are being left behind in the push for more sustainable economic development (Whyte 2018). These communities are also often more vulnerable to climate change and other environmental crises, while being the most impacted by environmental policies, such as fishing limits (Herman-Mercer et al. 2016). When advocating for large-scale transitions to a sustainable economy, it is critical to consider how to facilitate this transition in ways that appropriately support communities at smaller scales. Scholars of just economic transitions have argued that just transitions processes must be local, holistic (Heffron and McCauley 2018, Bennett et al. 2019), and appropriately address each community’s unique values and needs (Williams and Doyon 2019, Lam et al. 2020). St. George provides an example of a remote, resource-reliant community with the desire to drive their own just transitions to a sustainable economy.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Transitions and transformations are increasingly used in academic and public discourses to signal the need for a shift toward a more sustainable future through radical/large-scale changes (Hölscher et al. 2018). To ensure these changes are more just and inclusive, scholars have argued for more nuanced approaches that include justice (Bennet et al. 2019, Williams and Doyon 2019). “Just transitions” initially emerged from labor and trade unions’ concerns about jobs and livelihoods during industrial disruptions (Newell and Mulvaney 2013). More recently, the concept has been used to signify a just process for the transitions toward a low-carbon future (Heffron and McCauley 2018), with some authors using “justice in transitions” to emphasize the moral and ethics questions involved in these processes (van Steenbergen and Schipper 2017, Williams and Doyon 2019). Bennet et al. (2019) call for a more inclusive approach and use the concept “just transformations” to include multiple sectors and human activities, not just the energy sector.

In this paper, “just” can be broadly defined as the fair and equitable treatment and involvement of individuals and communities (Heffron and McCauley 2018, Williams and Doyon 2019) and “transitions” can be defined as a long-term process of change, either incremental or radical, that is influenced by economic, social, technological, institutional, and/or ecological developments (Markard et al. 2012).

When considering transitions through a justice lens, it is important to have a local and holistic approach (Heffron and McCauley 2018). Just transitions asks who is and is not (or has and has not been) involved in the process of change, who has power within making change, and who is impacted by change and how (Williams and Doyon 2019). Injustices and the processes of change differ depending on geographic, historical, and social contexts. Each community will enact and respond to change in different ways and have unique goals, values, and justice needs (Williams and Doyon 2019, Lam et al. 2020). Further, transitions efforts can have both positive and negative local consequences, so it is important to involve local voices and carefully consider change at the local level (Bennett et al. 2019). Lam et al. (2020) also emphasizes the importance of agency, arguing that scholarship’s bias toward Western knowledge limits its ability to engage with that concept. Considering transitions at the local level creates space to ask questions about that agency.

To assess just transitions, we employ the three more commonly used forms of justice: distributive, procedural, and recognition. This trivalent approach is used by environmental justice, climate justice, energy justice, just transitions, as well as other fields investigating justice. From our review of the literature, we have defined these terms in Table 1, alongside an additional fourth dimension: epistemic justice.

Distributive justice dominated early environmental justice literature (Schlosberg 2007, 2013, Walker 2012), but was criticized for not adequately addressing the needs of equity-denied communities. In response, conversations shifted to understanding justice as both equitable distribution and “meaningful involvement” (i.e., procedural justice; Agyeman and Evans 2003, Shi et al. 2016). Procedural justice considers who is (and is not) involved in decision making, how they are included, what power they have, and what barriers to participation exist (Walker 2012, Bulkeley et al. 2014), as well as broad governance processes (Bulkeley et al. 2014, Bennett et al. 2019). Recognition justice was introduced to further address gaps related to systemic injustices (e.g., Schlosberg 2007, Bulkeley et al. 2014). As the broadest of the three, recognition justice has the most varied definitions. At its core, recognition involves the non-recognition and misrecognition of oppressed groups (Schlosberg 2007, Walker 2012) where non-recognition ignores a social group and misrecognition relates to cultural and institutional discrimination (Walker 2012, Williams and Doyon 2019). More recently, scholars have argued recognition should also include recognizing how historical contexts have and continue to create inequities (Hughes and Hoffman 2020) as well as acknowledging and respecting pre-existing governance systems and “distinct rights, worldviews, knowledge, needs, livelihoods, histories, and cultures” (Bennett et al. 2019). Recognition justice creates the foundation for just governance processes that lead to just distribution.

The trivalent approach provides a useful framework for examining justice in communities undergoing transitions, but there are still limitations. Williams and Doyon (2019) found that the literature had not adequately addressed recognition justice in neither theory nor practice. This is understandable because it is a more complex concept. Recognition justice encompasses a broad spread of ideas and justice needs that, although related, are more difficult to unpack. We argue that incorporating a fourth dimension, epistemic justice, can better clarify recognition priorities and provide a more holistic way for understanding just transitions.

Epistemic justice acknowledges diverse ways of knowing, the challenges that arise from conflicting understandings, and how ongoing histories of oppression marginalize non-dominant knowledge (Temper 2019). Although similar to procedural and recognition justice, epistemic justice emphasizes actively considering diverse ways of knowing within justice work. Lam et al. (2020) discuss a similar concept, cognitive justice, where knowledge is also seen as “a way of life.” This aligns with Bennett et al.’s (2019) argument for the need to recognize and respect diverse knowledge systems, cultures, and worldviews. In introducing epistemic justice, we can narrow the definition of recognition justice and emphasize the importance of local involvement and agency in just transitions. Epistemic justice is also particularly important in colonial contexts because the dominance of Western knowledge systems contributes to ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples by undermining Indigenous ways of knowing (Temper 2019).

METHODS

We employed a collaborative approach to writing this paper: this paper is co-authored by two academics, one of the consultants, and a community member from St. George. To explore how the Strategy engaged with justice, the two academics conducted a content analysis of the Strategy and all publicly available reports and working papers related to the Strategy (see Table 2 for a complete list of documents. All documents can be found on the St. George Alaska website https://www.stgeorgealaska.org/). Then, the analysis was discussed with the other two co-authors. This process was not to censor the findings of the analysis, rather it enabled a more nuanced understanding of the community, the process, and the Strategy itself. In addition, the discussions offered an opportunity to bridge theory and practice, and support researcher and practitioner reflection. The discussion section of this paper was co-developed with all co-authors.

For the content analysis, the two academic co-authors used NVivo to code content based on a 4-level coding structure for each form of justice (see Table 3). Each code had a unique definition based on our justice definitions, but distributive, recognition, and epistemic coding followed a similar formula. Acknowledging that the Strategy is a plan, action plans were given level 3-coding if they included concrete plans that would address injustice when implemented. Procedural coding diverted from this formula to reflect how basic community engagement is standard practice. Because standard engagement is not always meaningful, P1 codes included basic engagement or acknowledging the importance of engagement, whereas P2 codes included engagement beyond the basic requirement or implementing feedback from basic engagement.

RESULTS

Strategy development process

In 2018, St. George City Council found and allocated resources to support strategic planning and community engagement to develop an economic development strategy. EcoPlan was hired to support the development of “Rebuilding our Future Kayutuuxtxin Tanagnangin Igayuusalix angagiimchin agnaxtxichin: St. George’s Economic Development Strategy.” The Strategy utilized and built on a variety of resources and work already under way, such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers draft feasibility report on St. George’s harbor navigation improvements, a 2018 economic and fiscal profile, and other fisheries and historical documents. Importantly, St. George already had goals included in a Community Development Plan (part of an APICDA’s grant program), which the Strategy was designed to build on. The Strategy was completed in January 2020.

The process used extensive “listening engagement” supported by strategic partnerships. To ground the Strategy in community values, the process began with informal meetings with community members and an in-person gathering of community leaders. After setting the project’s direction, the Strategy continued to engage residents through multiple community surveys, a newsletter, 11 plain language papers that incorporated community voices, and a public website. To accommodate different needs during surveys, interviewers met with community members wherever they felt comfortable (e.g., on the land, at work, in their homes). For residents with unreliable internet, St. George hired a local resident to deliver surveys orally door-to-door. This built local capacity and created culturally appropriate opportunities for residents to engage with people they already knew and trusted. Overall, the process engaged 80% of St. George’s residents. The Strategy also consulted 23 organizations, knowledge-holders, and industry experts both on- and off-island through phone calls and interviews. Outside of engagement, the Strategy was based upon rigorous economic analysis, including multiple reports that analyzed the community’s past and present economics to identify challenges and opportunities.

EcoPlan team members identified engagement challenges related to building relationships as outsiders to the community and working with conflicting groups and opinions, particularly related to the National Marine Sanctuary. The National Marine Sanctuary challenged the commercial fishing industry, a prominent economic power, so Strategy developers had to navigate long-established pre-existing conflicts. To build trust with community members and navigate conflicts related to vested interests, the team demonstrated a commitment to honest analysis and openness to hearing all sides, partnered with respected local leaders; they clearly defined their role as technical support, and maintained open and regular lines of communication with the whole community such as through the newsletter and working papers. This extensive, community-centered “listening engagement” helped the team to respond to these initial challenges.

Engagement with distributive justice

The Strategy touched on several social priorities for the community such as food and energy security, income, and access to services, but these struggles were shared across the community (personal communication) and were not related to distributive justice at the local level. There was also mention of inequities between St. George and the neighboring island St. Paul, such as St. Paul’s higher financial support from the federal government (City of St George 2019b). The plan acknowledged these issues and worked to respond to them, such as exploring renewable energy and a community garden, but these issues were outside the scope of the Strategy because they are distributive injustices within the context of Alaska and the U.S.

The primary local distributive issue addressed was the lack of employment and training opportunities for youth (City of St George 2019c). Throughout the documents, this issue was identified as being both indirectly and directly addressed. For example, the Strategy identified specific grants for youth employment and programming to pursue in years 2 and 3+ of the plan (City of St George 2020). More indirect responses highlighted how already proposed actions can potentially benefit youth. However, despite youth opportunities being specifically identified as a challenge, employment was among the top community concerns within surveys for all residents. Another local distributive issue could be the use of fishing permits. The Strategy noted that only approximately six residents fish for halibut despite there being 14 permits within the community (City of St George 2020). Although this does not necessarily point to distributive injustice, it may be related to access of processing plants (Lyons et al. 2016). Other reasons included a decline in CDQ for halibut (due to lower biomass), lower earnings than in the past, politics within the community and local control, or conflict with international conservation groups (Lyons et al. 2016, City of St George 2020).

Engagement with procedural justice

The procedural content showed the capacity for a rural community to incorporate meaningful participation into planning and just transitions. The Strategy consistently included explicit and symbolic assertions that the community voice was a key part of the plan. This was done through direct calls for feedback at the beginning and end of every working paper, asserting throughout that the success of the plan relied on community voice, and regularly including quotes from the feedback survey. In addition, the working papers emphasized various topics and issues that were raised during engagement, including jobs, internet and telecommunications, quality of life and cost of living, the harbor, building a stable fisheries economy, and partnerships. All these topics were included in the final Strategy with an emphasis on jobs, partnerships, and building a stable economy. Notably, the Strategy also included community concerns. Respondents expressed concerns over establishing a marine sanctuary, worried about a lack of reliable information and that it would impact the fisheries economy. Although the sanctuary was included within the final Strategy, the plan acknowledged the community concerns by dedicating a page to community questions and emphasizing how it would not impact fishing or the harbor in multiple places.

In the context of just transitions, a valuable aspect of procedural justice is creating opportunities for the community to have agency over driving its own transition. The Strategy did this in two ways. First, it created opportunities for community members to participate in the workforce. There were several examples of this including exploring opportunities to support entrepreneurship and emphasizing the need to make positions “match the needs and interests of potential applicants” (City of St George 2020:14). Second, the Strategy included a plan to hire a community coordinator to oversee the Strategy implementation. The community coordinator’s job description does not require applicants to be from the community, but a key responsibility of the role is centering the community voice during Strategy implementation. Specifically, key qualifications include “credibility within the community” and “awareness that the community is the driver of the Strategy” (City of St George 2020:23).

We identified partnerships as an opportunity for procedural justice, rather than an example. During the engagement processes, residents expressed interest in partnering with other political entities and organizations such as the Tribal Council, the St. George Tanaq Corporation, and St. Paul. However, within the Strategy, partnerships were more discussed in the context of how they could benefit St. George, rather than as relationship-based, collaborative endeavors. The survey results also seem to indicate tensions within the community: seven comments either expressed desires for “everyone to work together” in general, for political entities to work together, or both. One of these comments cited refusal to cooperate among some political entities. Partnerships could have been a good opportunity for St. George to address tensions within the community and across organizations, and to strategize meaningful ways to move the community forward through collaborative governance versus simply asset-sharing and resource-pooling.

Engagement with recognition justice

In other contexts, recognizing diverse identities plays a larger role in recognition justice. In the case of St. George, the community is relatively homogeneous so recognition justice content was primarily related to historical and systemic injustice as well as acknowledging the strength of Unangan people and the community as a whole. After preliminary engagement, the Strategy process began with a working paper detailing the community’s history. This working paper did a thorough job of acknowledging the historical and systemic injustice St. George has faced. Later documents linked these injustices to ongoing injustice including relating St. George’s economic decline to the U.S. government encouraging a shift to a commercial fishing economy without giving adequate support (City of St George 2019a).

The community has little power or responsibility to respond to the historical and systemic injustices impacting them, but the Strategy still does so by acknowledging community resilience and seeking to build a financially independent and thriving community in the face of that injustice. Throughout the documents, the Strategy makes efforts to acknowledge, emphasize, and celebrate the community’s resilience and to identify the goal of self-determination. The Strategy is a meaningful act of recognition justice because it recognizes the community’s agency despite the injustice it faces and the Strategy itself acts as an activator for moving the community away from the restrictive economic systems it has been forced into.

Engagement with epistemic justice

The epistemic justice content demonstrated how meaningful community-centered processes can be valuable in incorporating community values and different ways of knowing and being. In the context of the Strategy, this means incorporating Unangan ways of knowing and being. The Strategy both acknowledged and incorporated different ways of knowing in general by consulting with various parties and “knowledge-holders” and emphasizing that “educational attainment ... does not reflect the full swath of knowledge and skills possessed by [residents]” (City of St George 2019a:2). The Strategy also meaningfully incorporated Unangan language and values throughout. With community input, the plan was named “Rebuilding our Future Kayutuuxtxin Tanagnangin Igayuusalix angagiimchin agnaxtxichin,” which means “Be strong; live with and respect the land, sea, and all nature” in Unangam Tunuu.

This value of living with and respecting the land and sea, as well as non-Western values of holistic well-being are integrated throughout the plan. For example, the Strategy’s vision reads:

Our community thrives with cultural, spiritual, and emotional strength; healthy relationships and reliable leadership; sustainable and resilient connections to our natural surroundings and resources; and a strong economy with educational and job opportunities (p. 5).

Instead of focusing solely on economic development, the Strategy focused on building an economy that is braided with holistic well-being in the community and respectful relationships with the land. Recommendations were framed around how they can support community resilience, “cultural survival,” well-being, and fulfil “everyone[’s] responsibil[ity] for treating and respecting the lands and waters” (City of St George 2019c:3). In some cases, the value of respecting the land was discussed using “resource” and “asset” language mirroring Western, extractivist values. However, the overall content of the Strategy did not reflect an extractivist approach and this language was more a product of the medium. The Strategy identified unique ways St. George can generate revenue, including eco-tourism, which relies on the “assets” of natural beauty and cultural heritage. In these cases, although Unangan culture and “natural resources” are discussed as assets, it is within the context of the community prioritizing self-determination and leveraging its own assets to move forward from an unjust history.

A possible epistemic issue could relate to current fisheries infrastructure disrupting the community’s ways of being. One challenge highlighted in the Harbor and Related Industries working paper identified industrial fishing opportunities that residents typically do not apply to, citing that they require 30–60 days of being at sea. It also emphasized that although 42% of residents were interested in jobs related to fishing, “jobs should align with [their] Unangan culture and traditions” (p. 8). These details made us question whether current fishing work aligns with the community’s values and ways of being. This was confirmed after reading a report by Earth Economics on the proposed national marine sanctuary. This report highlights that “the lifeway” of residents centers on day fishing, which is a type of fishing that allows crews to return home at night. Residents feel it is becoming “increasingly challenging” because of fish stocks declining and moving further out to sea (Kocian et al. 2016: 9). In this case, the proposed National Marine Sanctuary would directly respond to epistemic issues because it would protect local stocks and allow for subsidence fishing in the community that is more aligned with its “lifeway.”

DISCUSSION

During the coding process, we found that the general definitions of each form of justice were limited when considering justice in St. George’s context. Many justice issues we identified, particularly for distributive and recognition justice, were injustices on regional scales. Because St. George is a small, remote, and largely homogenous community, most of the distributive issues, such as energy security, involve inequities in the regional Alaska and U.S. context and not within St. George’s local context. Similarly, the primary recognition injustice was the exploitation of the St. George community by Alaska and the U.S. and subsequent abandonment after the fur-seal trade, an injustice that is not St. George’s responsibility to recognize or repair. Because St. George has limited capacity and responsibility to respond to many of these regional-scale injustices, the Strategy has less focus on distributive justice than would usually be expected. Instead, the Strategy more thoroughly responds to procedural and epistemic justices as these are more within the community’s power. However, it is important to note that, despite less capacity and responsibility, the Strategy still responds to regional injustices, such as inequitable distribution of economic support, by working to recover from previous harm and build the community’s social supports and economic autonomy.

Differentiating justice issues between local and regional scales provided insights on St. George’s unique approach to responding to the injustices that were outside its capacity and responsibility. Recognition justice most often serves as a way to acknowledge the systems of historical injustice, misrecognition, and nonrecognition at the root of other injustices. In this vein, recognition justice requires a response from the institutions reinforcing those systems. Schlosberg (2007) argues that “social, cultural, and symbolic” recognition is as important as institutional recognition carried out by the state. In this instance, Schlosberg discusses institutional and social recognition in the context of heterogeneous communities (e.g., the state can recognize queer identities by passing marriage laws, but these identities still need to be recognized and validated in the social realm). In reflecting on St. George, we argue that this kind of social, cultural, and symbolic recognition is as valuable in homogenous communities, especially in the context of planning for localized just transitions. Not being able to directly address systemic or historical injustices, the Strategy instead responds to recognition issues by acknowledging the injustice and focusing on the community’s strength and resilience in the face of that injustice. This helps meet the community’s recognition needs by validating their experience and building a sense of empowerment to move forward and promotes the community-driven action that a just transition should have.

St. George’s extreme remoteness highlights many of the common issues facing rural communities, including attracting and retaining high capacity and skilled workers, access to markets, and associated high costs of living, which can exacerbate poverty, and unique worldviews in this case guided by Unanagan culture and history of living on St. George. Recognizing these challenges, local leaders set in motion a process of increasing protection and access to the resource wealth that surrounds the island by finding skilled allies off island capable of assisting with their economic and social development. The locally focused economic development strategy forms one pillar of a community-based and asset-based approach to achieving equity and sustainable prosperity on St. George.

The success of the Strategy and its implementation emphasize the value of community-led efforts in planning for a just transition. Citing research on energy justice, McCauley and Heffron (2018) argue that effective and community-focused engagement processes can often support long-term acceptability for projects. The Strategy’s focus on community leadership and involvement during and after development through “listening engagement” helped gain the community’s acceptance of the plan and build momentum for implementation. Not only was community involvement key for acceptance of the Strategy, it has also supported quick implementation of large projects such as the harbor and wind turbine repairs. Strong leadership within the community played a key role in this. Although EcoPlan supported the technical development of the Strategy, strong community leaders were necessary to support trust building, and to continue advocating for and implementing the plan. Since the Strategy’s creation, the community has regularly used the reports to access grant funding and keep projects ongoing.

CONCLUSION

Since the Strategy’s publication, St. George has experienced some successes in transitioning their community to a more sustainable and just future. Unfortunately, they have also experienced some setbacks and challenges. The Strategy is believed to have been a catalyst for action and recognition. A year after the final Strategy, St. George hired a community coordinator to help implement the Strategy, contracted a professional grant writer, was approved for $164 million for harbor developments, and began repairing the community’s wind turbine that will reduce annual energy costs by ~$250,000–$300,000. The Strategy was recognized in both the U.S. and Canada; it was awarded the 2021 Western Planner (USA) Rural Innovation Award and the 2021 Canadian Institute of Planners Award for Planning Excellence: Small Town and Rural. Unfortunately, the Mayor of St. George, who was a key instigator and champion of the Strategy, passed away in 2021. This left a “vacuum” in the community. “He was always thinking one step ahead” and cared deeply about ensuring economic stability for current and future generations. Since his passing, there have been changes in leadership (two mayors) and disagreements between leadership and the community over the future of the marine sanctuary. Despite this, there are still individuals within the community and St. Paul who believe in the former mayor’s vision and working toward a better future for St. George.

The aim of this research was to explore St. George’s Economic Development Strategy and strategy development process through a just transitions lens. Using four forms of justice (distribution, procedural, recognition, and epistemic), we analyzed whether the content of the Strategy engaged with justice and whether the strategy development process facilitated justice. One important finding was determining what injustices are within St. George’s capacity to respond to and what injustices are an external (i.e., state or federal government) responsibility. Analyses like the one presented in this paper can support small remote communities to develop their own strategies but can also be used to advocate for recognition and response from outside agencies with the power and resources to support planning for a just transition. For the community member co-author, engagement with epistemic justice was the most important element; engaging with work that responded to epistemic justice made them feel seen as it acknowledged their own belief systems that are centered on culture, faith, and protecting the environment. A community-focused approach to engagement, strategy development, and the strategy itself is essential to understanding a community’s capacity and culture and to support a place-based just transition.

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^[1] Settler colonialism is understood as system and process, not a historical event (Wolfe 2006). It normalizes continuous settler occupation on Indigenous land. CANZUS countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand (Aotearoa), and the United States, are referred to as settler colonial states (Doyon et al. 2021).

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