Series on race, poverty and environmental justice opens Feb. 10

The series will bring a respected group of scholars to campus to speak about their work on such diverse topics as asthma in New York City, the struggles for water rights among Hispano farmers in the Southwest, and the racial and class conflicts in urban park movements.

by Mary Jo Curtis

The Center for Environmental Studies and the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America are joining efforts this semester to present “The Provost’s Lecture Series on Race, Poverty and Environmental Justice,” which kicks off Feb. 10 with a visit from University of Michigan Professor Dorceta Taylor.

Organizer Rachel Morello-Frosch, assistant professor at the CES and in the Department of Community Health, said the series will bring a respected group of scholars to campus to speak about their work on such diverse topics as asthma in New York City, the struggles for water rights among Hispano farmers in the Southwest, and the racial and class conflicts in urban park movements.

Morello-Frosch – who was hired by CES this year in part to respond to student demand for a course on environmental justice – said there’s been an emergence of “vibrant and diverse movements for environmental justice” domestically and internationally in the last two decades, making it an important area of academic inquiry in both environmental studies and ethnic studies. She’s now teaching “The Science and Political Economy of Environmental Health and Social Justice,” which is being offered at Brown for the first time this semester.

“The lectureship series is also meant to build on this new emphasis on this area of scholarship at Brown,” she said.

“Struggles for environmental justice have compelled academics and policy-makers to rethink the relationships between community health, sustainable urban development and social justice in new ways that address the needs and concerns of communities of color and the poor,” she explained. The lecture series will stimulate dialogue among students and scholars conducting research and advocacy on environmental justice issues, she predicted.

“Hopefully these lectures can catalyze further exchanges and even multi-disciplinary collaborations among academics and advocates who are doing important environmental justice work in various regions of the country,” she said.

The proposal for the jointly sponsored speaker series was developed by Morello-Frosch and CSREA Director Evelyn Hu-DeHart, with the assistance of Professor of Sociology Phil Brown and Professor of Environmental Studies Harold Ward. It is being funded by the provost.

The upcoming lectures are:

• Feb. 10
Noon, Urban Environmental Lab, Rm. 106.

Dorceta Taylor, associate professor of sociology and African American studies, University of Michigan. “Understanding Environmental Justice in Historical Context: Race, Space and the Development of Urban Parks – The Case of Central Park.” Taylor will speak about the relationships between several white ethnic groups, as well as blacks and Chinese, and discuss how wealth and poverty affect environmental experiences.

• Feb. 24
5 p.m., Smith-Buonanno Hall

Darren Ranco, assistant professor of Native American and ethnic studies, University of California, Berkeley, and Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellow, University of Vermont Law School. “Environmental Risk and Normative Science: A Penobscot Indian Critique of State-Sanctioned Knowledge.” Ranco will examine how one Indian nation became heavily involved in an EPA upstream clean water act permit, and how the group resisted the supposedly “a-cultural” identities that go along with environmental regulation in the United States.

• March 3
7 p.m., Salomon Center

Winona LaDuke, convocation speaker for Women’s History Month. LaDuke, who teaches native environmentalism at the University of Minnesota, is a spokeswoman for the Chippewa people of Northern Minnesota, as well as an organizer of the Honor the Earth National Tour. She lives on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota and is working on a book concerning Native environmentalism.

• March 10
5 p.m., Smith-Buonanno Hall

Robert Melchior Figueroa, visiting assistant professor of philosophy and religion, Colgate University. “Whose Environment? Which Justice?: Transforming Race, Place and Social Location.” Figueroa will identify and address the transformative implications of environmental justice for ethnic and racial identity, notions of justice and environmental obligations.

• April 7
5 p.m., Smith-Buonanno Hall

Julie Sze, American studies Ph.D. candidate, NYU, and Charles Gaius Bolin Fellow candidate, Williams College. “Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Place, Power and Waste.”

Sze will examine how communities of color negotiate themes of race, place and identity in response to urban change, such as the privatization of garbage collection and energy deregulation.

• April 21
5 p.m., Smith-Buonanno

Devon Peña, professor of anthropology and American ethnic studies, University of Washington, and coordinator of the Ph.D. program in environmental anthropology.

“Autonomy, Equity and Environmental Justice.” Peña will speak of personal experiences working in the acequía communities that have grappled with threats posed by the disparate impacts of ecological degradation.