Analyze

Afrofuturism

Misria
In response to

Sylvia Wynter (2003) suggests that our current struggles in Western colonized society regarding racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, ethnicism, climate change, environmental destruction, and the unequal distribution of resources are rooted in what she argues is the overrepresentation of the descriptive statement of Man as human, which only recognizes white, wealthy, able-bodied, heterosexual men as "human." As such, just as I argue Black feminist writers and scholars have drawn on speculative methods and Afrofuturism, the use of twentieth-century technology and speculative imagination to address issues within Black and African diasporic communities (see Dery & Dery, 1994), to insist on and explore the full humanity of Black girls, women, and femmes, so too have Black and African diasporic scholars called on Afrofuturism to imagine new ways technology and traditional knowledge practices can address environmental injustice. Suékama (2018) argues that as a form of resistant knowledge building and theorizing, an Afrofuturist approach to environmentalism “integrates speculation with the ecological and scientific, and the spiritual or metaphysical'' to make our environmental justice less European, male, human, (and I would add capitalist) centered. Thus, an Afrofuturist approach to environmental injustice asks us to think about our collective struggle for environmental justice as a part of and connected to other forms of systemic oppression rooted in the rejection of African diasporic and Indigenous people and their knowledge practices through the overrepresentation of Man as human in Western society. In this way, a speculative and Afrofuturist approach to environmental injustice draws on African diasporic knowledge practices in conjunction with modern and traditional technologies to imagine new solutions to environmental injustice that center the needs, values, and traditional practices of African diasporic people.

Peterson-Salahuddin, Chelsea. 2023. "An Afrofuturist Approach to Unsettling Environmental injustice." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

Essential Elements of High Road Training Partnerships

Yvonne
Annotation of
In response to

1) Industry Led Problem Solving. This element stresses the importance of rethinking industry analyses in order to create quality jobs. Thinking as industry as a whole enables just transition planners to set industry boundries and lift as much of the industry onto the high road as possible. 

2) The Partnership Itself is a Priority. This category streeses the importance of leadership committment as well as problem-solving structure and culture building. 

3) Incorporate Worker Wisdom throughout Partnership Efforts. This component stresses the importance of valuing the industry workers' opinions and evaluations, and including them into the training process and partnerships. 

4) Industry-Driven Education and Training Solutions. This key element stresses the importance of coming up with appropriate an doable education methods. 

The 8 Parternships

Yvonne
Annotation of
In response to

The California Workforce Development Board is cooperating with 8 other organizations as partnerships to implement just transition. 

The Shirley Ware Education Center (SWEC)

The West Oakland Job Resource Center (WOJRC)

Building Skills Partnership (BSP)

The Hospitality Training Academy (HTA)

Joint Workforce Investment (JWI)

The Port of Los Angeles (POLA)

Jewish Vocational Service (JVS)

Worker Education and Resource Center (WERC). 

Each organization is partnering with other different cooperations, institutes to implement the plan of just transitions according to the ECJ approach.