AES 498A/ANTH 469E, Winter 2004
Cultures and Politics of Environmental Justice

Schedule

Course Schedule

JANUARY

INTRODUCTION

T-6      Introductions. Review course syllabus, requirements, objectives, and procedures. Precursors of the environmental justice movement (EJM).

Th-8      No class. (I will be in Chicago for a meeting).


I. HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

T-13      History of the environmental justice movement – I (1989-1991): Warren County and the conceptualizing of environmental racism. The G-10 (mainstream environmentalists) and EJ.

Readings:
Rechtschaffen and Gauna 2002: 3-26.

Handout # 1 – R. D. Bullard 1993. Anatomy of environmental racism and the environmental justice movement. In: Confronting environmental racism: voices from the grassroots. R. D. Bullard, ed. Boston: South End Press, pp. 15-39.

Handout # 2 – R. Gottlieb 1993. Ethnicity as a factor: the quest for environmental justice. In: Forcing the spring: the transformation of the American environmental movement. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, pp. 235-69.

Handout # 3 – L. Cole and S. Foster 2001. A history of the environmental justice movement. In: From the ground up: environmental racism and the rise of the environmental justice movement. New York: NYU Press, pp. 19-33.

Handout # 4 – L. Pulido and D. Peña 1998. Environmentalism and positionality: the early pesticide campaign of the United Farm Workers’ organizing Committee. Race, Gender, and Class 6:33-50.

Handout # 5 (Word doc. emailed) – D. Peña 2004. Selections from Mexican Americans and the environment: tierra y vida. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.


Th-15      History II (1992-1994): Conceptualizing environmental racism: the problematic of       disproportionate impact. First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit; Principles of Environmental Justice (October 1992). Executive Order 12898 and ‘participative’ models. The National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (1994).

Readings:
Rechtschaffen and Gauna 2002: 27-85; 391-419.


T-20      History III (1995-2002): Building nets that work. The rise of EJ networks, the ‘people of color’ identity, and incipient critiques of capitalism and globalization. Terrains of struggle and social sectors. Summit II (November 2002).

Readings:

Faber 1998: 1-26 (Faber); 159-87 (Moore and Almeida).

Adamson, et al. 2003: 3-14 (Adamson, et al.); 15-26 (Ortiz et al.); 44-57 (Leal and Adamson).

E-Reserve # 1 – D. Peña 2003. The scope of Latina/o environmental studies. Latino Studies 1: 47-89.

Handout # 6 – L. Pulido 1996. The development of the people of color identity in the environmental justice movement of the Southwestern United States. Socialist Review 26: 145-80.

*** Assignment note: Thought piece # 1 due at the beginning of class.

II. SCIENCE, LAW, RACE, AND CLASS IN THE POLITICS OF RISK

Th-22      NEPA and the EPA in the evolution of a federal EJ policy. Targeting disproportionate risk: The concept of environmental equity and the problematization of toxicity and science. The International Association for the Study of Impact Assessment (IAIA):       Market-steered values in risk assessment (cost/benefit and mitigation modeling).

Readings:
Rechtschaffen and Gauna 2002: 87-105; 107-32.


T-27      Legal strategies I: Litigation, enforcement, and planning as responses to environmental racism.

Readings:
Rechtschaffen and Gauna 2002: 245-63; 265-96; 297-329.

Mutz, et al 2002: 187-208 (Cole).


Th-29      Legal strategies II: Equal protection laws and civil rights (Title VI) actions in the politics of environmental risk.

Readings:
Rechtschaffen and Gauna 2002: 331-49; 351-89.


FEBRUARY

T-3      Workers’ struggles and the critique of environmental risks in capitalist production. The rise of popular epidemiology. Special challenges posed by emergent fields in toxicogenomics and mass genotyping.

Readings:
Faber 1998: 27-59 (Faber); 60-80 (Levenstein and Wooding); 81-103 (Field); 137-58 (Novotny).

*** Assignment note: Thought piece # 2 due at the beginning of class.

III. ETHNOGRAPHIES AND CASE STUDIES OF THE MOVEMENT

Th-5      Ethnographies and case studies of the EJM.

Readings:
Adamson, et al. 2003: 39-43 (Evans); 58-81 (Peña); 82-104 (Simpson); 105-24 (Edwards).

Faber 1998: 272-92 (Geddicks); 293-311 (Pulido); 312-48 (Peña and Valdéz).

T-10      Environmental justice and natural resources management I: New theoretical frameworks and fields of EJ. Issues posed by legal pluralism and environmental anthropology.

Readings:
Mutz, et al. 2002: 3-30 (Getches & Pellow); 31-56 (Bryner); 57-86 (Wescoat et al.).

E-Reserve # 2 – G. Hicks and D. Peña 2003. Community acequias in Colorado’s Rio Culebra watershed: A customary commons in the domain of prior appropriation. University of Colorado Law Review 74: 387-486.


Th-12      Environmental justice and natural resources management II: Strategies and applications related to forest management, native Americans, and federal projects (public lands).

Readings:
Mutz et al. 2002: 209-224 (Carey); 225-52 (Suagee); 253-84 (Buhrmann); 285-206 Hill and Targ); 307-36 (Mutz).


T-17      Natural assets and environmental justice I: Natural assets, environmental sinks, public welfare, and environmental justice.

Readings:
Boyce 2003: 7-28 (Boyce); 55-56; 57-76 (Dixon); 77-98 (Pastor); 99-134 (Templet).

*** Assignment note: Thought piece # 3 due at the beginning of class.

Th-19       Natural assets and environmental justice II: Reconceptualizing the relationship between anthropogenesis, ecosystem services, and environmental justice. Building natural capital: lessons from traditional agriculture and community forestry.

Readings:
Boyce 2003: 151-52; 153-68 (LaDuke); 169-86 (Peña); 187-206 (Brush); 207-08; 209-226 (Best); 227-42 (Brighton); 243-60 (Danks).


IV. SHIFTING TERRAINS OF THEORY AND STRUGGLE

T-24      From the critique of environmental racism to the search for just sustainabilities. The EJ paradigm, injustice framing, and social movement theory.

Readings:
Agyeman, et al. 2003: 1-18; 19-37 (McLaren); 38-63; 83-995 (Dobson).

E-Reserve # 3 – D. Taylor 2000. The Rise of the Environmental Justice Paradigm: Injustice Framing and the Social Construction of Environmental Discourses. American Behavioral Scientist 43:508-580.


MARCH

T-2      Emerging issues in comparative studies of movement organization and struggle. The politics of consumption and EJ. Identity, place, and EJ struggles. Restoration of urban communities. Local food security, urban horticulture, and sustainable agriculture.

Readings:
Agyeman, et al. 2003: 99-124 (Rees and Westra); 125-45 (Wright); 146-67 (Peña).

Boyce 2003: 263-76 (Watson); 277-98 (Hynes); 299-312 (Pinderhughes).

Handout # 7 (Word doc. emailed) – D. Peña 2002. Environmental justice and sustainable agriculture: linking ecological and social sides of sustainability. Policy paper prepared for the 2nd National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit.
URL at http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/summit2/SustainableAg.pdf.

*** Assignment note: Thought piece # 4 due at the beginning of class.

Th-4      Environmental justice in global perspectives.

Readings:
Agyeman, et al. 2003: 187-200 (Roberts); 229-51 (Wickramasinghe); 252-68 (Rixecker and Tipene-Matua); 269-310 (Agbola and Alabi).

Adamson, et al. 2002: 125-44 (Kuletz); 229-46 (Comfort).


T-9      Globalization, neoliberalism, and environmental justice.

Readings:
Faber 1998: 218-47 (Dreiling).

Agyeman et al 2003: 38-63 (Faber and McCarthy).     


Th-11      From equity to autonomy? Future trends in EJ theory and practice.

Readings:
Handout # 8 (Word doc. emailed) – D. Peña 2003. Autonomy, equity, and environmental justice. Lecture presented to the Provost’s Lecture Series on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, Brown University.