– Environmental + Climate Justice Syllabus
Our Goal: Cite and engage these people!
The goal of the Environmental and Climate Justice Syllabus is to assemble readings, articles, case studies, and biographies from key writers, scholars, and activists working for environmental freedom (to borrow Malini Ranganathan’s phrase!). Our emphasis, here, is to generate a searchable and citable list of Black, Indigenous, and/or Latinx individuals, organizations, and movements which are indispensably foundational in the continued fight for environmental and climate justice. We are also expanding the syllabus to represent more non-US/non-Global North scholars. We also provide a few (not too many!) resources from allies whose work is deeply engaged throughout the syllabus.
We also have an affectation for planning, urban studies, and/or ecological perspectives on these topics given the emphases of our work. Lastly, we freely mix resources on environmental justice, climate justice, and (increasingly) disaster, energy, and food justice to emphasize the interconnections between these movements in the wake of climate change.
Contributors and Contributing to the Syllabus
The Environmental and Climate Justice Syllabus was initiated through an unexpected crowd-sourcing of information on Twitter. The interdisciplinary outpouring of resources was formative and generated the base of the syllabus here. As such, the database remains an open resource for all.
If you would like to suggest resources for the syllabus (especially your own recent publications!), please follow the “Contact” link at the top of the Just Environments Lab website to send us your suggestions. This is a dynamic and ever-changing syllabus!
Use the syllabus as you’d like, but CITE THESE PEOPLE!
– Article Spotlight
“More than just dying: Black life and futurity in the face of state-sanctioned environmental racism”
By Tianna Bruno (2023)
ABSTRACT: Environmental justice (EJ) scholarship has long done work in and on Black communities. Yet, the field’s engagement with critical race studies has been rather recent and limited. This paper questions what we learn about Black living from EJ scholarship. I argue that there are two main registers of Black living in EJ scholarship: dying and activism. I draw on Black feminist geographies to think and imagine EJ work that incorporates nuance to the modalities of Black life and futurity in the face of state-sanctioned environmental injustice. The goal of this is not to deter EJ scholars from exposing instantiations of environmental injustice in the world, nor to undermine the deadly realities of EJ communities. Rather, this paper pushes EJ scholars to be wary of essentializing Black communities to death and decay and urges these scholars to behold Black life and futurity experienced in close proximity to death in these spaces. I provide examples of Black living and making way for Black futurity that occurs beyond the registers of dying and activism in EJ communities, such as care, Black intellectual life, and refusal, registers made apparent through a Black geographies lens.
– Databases + Training
Below is a spreadsheet containing other key databases and EJ training resources!
– The Full Database
Below is a spreadsheet containing all of the entries in the Environmental + Climate Justice Syllabus. You can search for specific keywords and authors using “Filter” or reconfigure the table entries using “Sort.”