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Tanya Matthan: environmental justice and epistemic violence

tanyamatthan
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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?

Tanya Matthan: BRT and envt justice

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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?

Tanya Matthan: envtl politics of reproduction

tanyamatthan
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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?

Tanya Matthan: Walsh and Austin's environmental history

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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?

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jaostrander
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Emily Goldmann, PhD, MPH is a current assistant research professor at NYU College of Global Public Health. Goldmann researches environmental and social determinants of mental health conditions. and has focused on surveillance of psychological distress, serious mental illness, and psychiatric hospitalization of New Yorkers following Hurricane Sandy.

Sandro Galea, MD, MPH is a canadian/american board-certified emergency physician. Dr. Galea is currently the Dean of BU School of Public Health and former Chair of the Department of Epidemiology of Columbia University's Mailman School of Global Public Health. He specifically researches social production of health within urban populations, and especially notes psychological and mental health disorder prevalence within vulnerable populations, including mood-anxiety disorders and substance abuse. 

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jaostrander
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United States Marine Master Sergeant Jerry Ensminger lived with his family on Marine Base Lejeune in North Carolina after returning from the Vietnam War in the 1970s. His daughter was diagnosed and died from leukemia.  The film follows Sergeant Ensminger on his journey to find justice for his daughter and others affected by chemicals in the bases potable water from 1959-1985. The United States Marine Corp hid reports of carcinogens and other toxic chemicals that had polluted the bases water. The film also investigates the pollution of water from other military bases.  

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jaostrander
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Information for this article was gathered from field work, including interviews with workers at the chernobyl site during the inial response efforts and in the recovery efforts undertaken in the aftermath, as well as effected citizens.  This tells us that the author did extensive research for this article and looked to others for opinions and information.