Search

In their introduction, Vermeylen's argument for a particularist and decolonial approach to justice through a recognition of plural ontologies and epistemologies that decenters Western liberal discourse and its theory of justice. How does bringing the lens of coloniality into environmental justice literature alter our visions of energy futures? Can we make appeals to environmental justice without recourse to liberal theories of individual rights and property ownership? More specifically, I am wondering how our team can study and address this dynamic plurality of ways of understanding and experiencing in/justice in this site, and how can we engage this plurality in productive ways? What axes of difference and inequality should we be looking for/at (race, gender, class, sexual orientation, citizenship, housing status, etc)? If the Anthropocene is coloniality by another name, how can we foreground this in our approach?

The authors productively place three bodies of theory in conversation, abolitionist theories, urban political ecology, and decolonial theory, to rewrite the intellectual trajectories of EJ as extending the legacy of the Black Radical Tradition. What are our intellectual and political genealogies as students and researchers of the quotidian anthropocene? What genealogies are we pushing against? Drawing from their examples of spaces and historical moments of interracial solidarity, what kinds of coalitions do we see ourselves partnering with and contributing to as (largely?) newcomers to the activism in Austin?

In this fascinating review, the authors show how environmental justice is reproductive justice (following the water protectors at Standing Rock) and how this intersection reshapes understandings of the environment, embodiment, and exposure. I was particularly interested in the concepts of social and cultural re/production, and how we might think about this in light of Austin's rapid gentrification. They discuss an intersectional approach as a multi-scalar approach, from climate change to chemical exposure in the home - and I think this could be extended to a inter/multi-generational approach to justice (esp given our focus on renewables). The authors show how the RJ framework rethinks the individualism of reproductive choice as the right to conceive and bear children in conditions of social justice and human flourishing - then how does the current energy system (and future energy transitions) negate or create these conditions, and for whom? If we think about biological/cultural reproduction, how do we also incorporate the concept of reproductive labor into our analysis? Finally, I think they make an important point about the harms of documentation, and it would be great to hear everyone's thoughts (Esp those who have participated in earlier field campuses) on what the goal and ethics of our knowledge production are?

Walsh's piece gives us a concise history and geography of environmental racism in Austin, by drawing our attention to how ineequality is written into city law and urban planning. The ongoing legacies of segregation have shaped social life from access to public services to access to recreational spaces. Given the foundations of environmental racism in zoning laws and land use regulations, so succinctly highlighted by Walsh, how does/must the process of energy transition address these issues? Can there be zoning for justice, and what would that look like? In what way can our work at the field campus contribute to the existing work being done by orgs like El Pueblo and PODER?

Dr. Ticktin states in her introduction the report came about through both her personal experience with humanitarian efforts & sexual violence treatment and through supplemental studies. Her bibliography reflects this, and includes multiple studies/reports from humanitarian organizations. Additionally, she utilized multiple independent media sources discussing sexual violence in conflicts, the targeting of female populations, and humanitarian efforts within this realm. The bibliography also includes a multitude of research articles from various human rights journals and publications pertaining to female rights during conflicts.

The NPR article appears to be a compilation of interviews (performed by the author and other media sources) with pertinent individuals (public health officials, economics experts) and research from agency reports (US Accountability Office, Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti). 

This article was meant to highlight the gaps in data available for violence against health care/aid workers in unsecured areas. As such, a large portion of the methods segment is dedicated to discussing the difficulties in locating this data and any patterns in data gaps. The primary method of collection, it appears, was through an initial search for peer-reviewed work that transformed into an accumulation of accounts from media, documentary, and editorial reports. It should be noted that some data is available from various organizations, regarding their specific statistics; however, this mainly tends to focus on larger incidents, such as kidnappings and deaths (as mentioned in the paper). There is also some information available through Aid Workers Security Database, but shortcomings in this area are also heavily noted.

Several leaders from various New York State agencies convened to outline plans for this policy. This included Governor Andrew M Cuomo, State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker, State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico, Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye, and representatives from health care centers and agencies around the state.