Affiliate Spotlight: Laura Tanguay

My work examines whether consent mechanisms can generate more equitable outcomes in contentious land-use decision-making with significant ethical implications. In my doctoral research, I analyzed consent mechanisms used in the siting of nuclear waste facilities in Canada. Through this work, I identified discrepancies in environmental impact assessments; some trigger consent-based processes, while comparable projects do not. Furthermore, I examined how barriers 

within procedural frameworks disproportionately affect Indigenous communities and often infringe upon constitutionally protected rights. This research led me to investigate whether alternative approaches to consent could better support assertions of Indigenous jurisdiction and more equitable participation in land-use decision-making. 

Nuclear waste raises distinctive ethical challenges. For example, it links highly technical, long-lived environmental risk to labour markets that often draw on economically vulnerable populations. The promise of much-needed jobs associated with nuclear waste facilities (and other contentious energy infrastructures) can complicate the meaning of consent, raising important questions about constrained choice, distributive justice, and procedural legitimacy. During my time as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Weatherhead Scholars Program, I have been investigating how consent processes can better account for economic vulnerability, intergenerational responsibilities, and social and familial divisions generated within and between communities. 

The Comparative Inequality and Inclusion Research Cluster’s interdisciplinary commitment to understanding cultural membership, recognition gaps, and pathways toward more inclusive societies has provided an important intellectual foundation for this research, particularly in examining how participation, consent, procedural and distributive justice are experienced by communities navigating the ‘green energy transition’ or other risky land-use proposals. Drawing on scholarship in political theory, environmental justice, socio-legal studies, and public policy, my work examines how recognition, participation, and belonging shape public acceptance or refusal of infrastructure decisions and influence the legitimacy of consent processes in countries that institutionalize them (for example, Canada, Finland, Spain, and the UK).

Through this interdisciplinary and comparative approach, I aim to generate both theoretical and practical insights that support more just and inclusive governance frameworks. Ultimately, my research seeks to inform infrastructure and land-use governance policies and processes that better reflect grassroots and Indigenous principles of free, prior, and informed consent, helping to ensure that communities asked to bear long-term environmental risks are adequately resourced to participate, fairly represented in decision-making, and empowered to exercise meaningful influence over decisions that shape their futures. 

-Laura Tanguay