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The Meat Of The Gothic: Animality And Social Justice In United States Fiction And Film Of The Twenty-First Century, Amber Hodge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Meat of the Gothic: Animality and Social Justice in United States Fiction and Film of the Twenty-First Century— situates twenty-first century US gothic narratives in relation to animal studies, even as it illuminates how these narratives interrogate the effects of historic and ongoing global systems of human oppression: slavery, imperialism, and capitalism. Instead of reacting to bias by asserting a claim to a humanity perpetually imbricated in divisions of class, race, and gender, present-day authors and filmmakers create characters who form communities that include nonhuman actors as a means of generating empowerment and critique. My approach to these narratives …

Green Inequities: Examining The Dimensions Of Socioenvironmental Injustice In Marginalized Communities, Akiebia S. Hicks, Zachary Malone, Megan A. Moore, Roslynn Powell, Austin Thompson, Patricia A. Whitener, Rowan Williams

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

In the realm of socioenvironmental justice, much discourse centers on equal access to green areas and on climate injustice in the United States. Marginalized communities, including Indigenous populations, are being excluded from current narratives surrounding the natural spaces that in many cases are historically tied to under-represented groups. This article aims to explore some of the many dimensions of environmental racism, green inequities, climate injustice, and access. The dimensions include but are not limited to racial gatekeeping, nature deprivation in low-income communities, green gentrification, light pollution, and access to clean water. The recommendations section serves as a guide during decisionmaking …

Exposing The Myths Of Household Water Insecurity In The Global North: A Critical Review, Katie Meehan, Wendy Jepson, Leila M. Harris, Amber Wutich, Melissa Beresford, Amanda Fencl, Jonathan London, Gregory Pierce, Lucero Radonic, Christian Wells, Nicole J. Wilson, Ellis Adjei Adams, Rachel Arsenault, Alexandra Brewis, Victoria Harrington, Yanna Lambrinidou, Deborah Mcgregor, Robert Patrick, Benjamin Pauli, Amber L. Pearson, Sameer Shah, Dacotah Splichalova, Cassandra Workman, Sera Young

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Safe and secure water is a cornerstone of modern life in the global North. This article critically examines a set of prevalent myths about household water in high-income countries, with a focus on Canada and the United States. Taking a relational approach, we argue that household water insecurity is a product of institutionalized structures and power, manifests unevenly through space and time, and is reproduced in places we tend to assume are the most water-secure in the world. We first briefly introduce “modern water” and the modern infrastructural ideal, a highly influential set of ideas that have shaped household water …

The Tale Of Two Community Gardens: Green Aesthetics Versus Food Justice In The Big Apple, Sofya Aptekar, Justin S. Myers

Publications and Research

There has been a vibrant community gardening movement in New York City since the 1970s. The movement is predominantly located in working class communities of color and has fought for decades to turn vacant land into beneficial community spaces. However, many of these communities are struggling with gentrification, which has the potential to transform access to and use of community gardens in the city and the politics around them. Drawing on separate multi-year ethnographic projects, this article compares two community gardens in food insecure communities in Queens and Brooklyn: one that is undergoing gentrification and one that is not. We …

Migration As Reparation: Climate Change And The Disruption Of Borders, Carmen G. Gonzalez

Faculty Publications & Other Works

This article examines the legal and moral basis for migration as a form of reparation for the harms inflicted on the states and peoples of the Global South through climate change and through centuries of predatory economic policies. Using Central American migration to the United States as a case study, the article explains that susceptibility to climate change is a function of two variables: exposure and social and economic vulnerability. High-emitting affluent states are disproportionately responsible for Central America’s exposure to climate change due to their historic and current greenhouse gas emissions, their unwillingness to curb these emissions, and their …

Not Yet America's Best Idea: Law, Inequality, And Grand Canyon National Park, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Even the nation’s most cherished and protected public lands are not spaces apart from the workings of law, politics, and power. This Essay explores that premise in the context of Grand Canyon National Park. On the occasion of the Park’s 100th Anniversary, it examines how law — embedded in a political economy committed to rapid growth and development in the southwestern United States — facilitated the violent displacement of indigenous peoples and entrenched racialized inequalities in the surrounding region. It also explores law’s shortcomings in the context of sexual harassment and discrimination within the Park. The Essay concludes by suggesting …

The Disproportionate Burden Of Asthma By Race, Sex, Income And Education, Lisa Elizabeth Stack

Wayne State University Dissertations

This paper seeks to understand the relationship of county level median air quality with adult asthma risk, and the disproportional adult asthma risk by sex, race, income and education, controlling for individual and county effects. The specific objectives of this work are to answer the following questions: 1) What is the difference exposure of the median AQI by race, controlling for county and individual effects? 2) What is the difference in exposure of the median AQI by sex, controlling for county and individual effects? 3) What is the difference in exposure of the median AQI by education, controlling for county …

Environmental Justice And The Possibilities For Environmental Law, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Climate change and extreme inequality combine to cause disproportionate harms to poor communities throughout the world. Further, unequal resource allocation is shot through with the structures of racism and other forms of discrimination. This Essay explores these phenomena in two different places in the United States, and traces law’s role in constructing environmental and economic vulnerability. The Essay then proposes that solutions, if there are any to be had, lie in expanding our notions of what kinds of laws are relevant to achieving environmental justice, and in seeing law as a possible tactic for instigating broader social change but not …

Policing The Riverfront: Urban Revanchism As Sustainability, Jared J. Austin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An unnoticed shift is underway in the revanchist model of accumulation by dispossession (Harvey, 2005) that is rebranding the neoliberal reorganization of space and economic growth. I call this shift “Urban Revanchism as Sustainability,” following Mike Davis and Daniel Monk (2007). In this study, I describe how Tampa elites, led by Democratic Mayor Bob Buckhorn, use politically popular discourses of ‘sustainability’, ‘walkability’, ‘bike-ability’, among others, to coopt the rhetoric and symbols of social and environmental justice as cover for urban capital accumulation. I describe how in the wake of 2008 which devastated Tampa, and in the context of the subsequent …

"Hear Us, See Us!": How Mothers Of Color Transform Family And Community Relationships Through Grassroots Collective Action, Jennifer Elena Cossyleon

Dissertations

This dissertation illuminates the local grassroots collective action of women of color and the transformative effects their community organizing efforts have on community and family relationships. Prior research highlights the reciprocal relationship between identity formation and collective action (Moore 2008; Gravante and Poma 2016; Polletta 2001; Whittier 2013; White 1999). Analysts have studied how the intersecting identities of participants motivate and contour collective action (Crenshaw 1991; Law 2012; Moraga and Anzaldúa 1981, 2015) and how collective action processes influence participants’ gendered lives and biographies (McAdam 1999; Perry 2013; Warren, Mapp and Kuttner 2015). Less understood however, are how participation in …

"Squeezed Between The Gunshots And The Gentrifiers”: Urban Agriculture In Philadelphia's Kensington Neighborhood, Arianna Hall-Reinhard

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Urban agriculture (UA) is part of the broader alternative food movement and a potential avenue through which to “do” food justice work. UA projects in the urban Global North are frequently motivated by social and food justice goals. Despite these guiding ideals, UA projects in America are rife with internal contradictions, including those related to racial inequalities, complex gentrification dynamics, and funding realities. In this paper, I employ the conceptual frameworks of food justice and urban political ecology to consider how gentrification and UA project funding structures affect five specific UA projects in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood. While the loss of …

Overreach And Innovation In Equality Regulation, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

At a time of heightened concern about agency overreach, this Article highlights a less appreciated development in agency equality regulation. Moving beyond traditional bureaucratic forms of regulation, civil rights agencies in recent years have experimented with new forms of regulation to advance inclusion. This new "inclusive regulation" can be described as more open ended, less coercive, and more reliant on rewards, collaboration, flexibility, and interactive assessment than traditional modes of civil rights regulation. This Article examines the power and limits of this new inclusive regulation and suggests a framework for increasing the efficacy of these new modes of regulation.

Neighborhood Characteristics Contribute To Urban Alcohol Availability: Accounting For Race/Ethnicity And Social Disorganization, Aleksandra J. Snowden

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

This study examined the role that race/ethnicity and social disorganization play in alcohol availability in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, census block groups. This study estimated negative binomial regression models to examine separately the relationship between neighborhood racial/ethnic composition and social disorganization levels for (1) total, (2) on-premise, and (3) off-premise alcohol outlets. Results of this study suggest that proportion Hispanic was positively associated with total and with off-premise alcohol outlets. Second, proportion African American was negatively associated with on-premise alcohol outlets and positively associated with off-premise alcohol outlets. Proportion Asian was not associated with total, on-premise, or off-premise alcohol outlets. However, the …

Fearless Friday: Laila Mufty, Laila M. Mufty

SURGE

In today’s Fearless Friday, Surge would like to honor the work of Laila Mufty ‘18. Laila is a sophomore from the Bay Area in California and is majoring in Environmental Studies. Currently, she is one of the CPS Program Coordinators with Big Brothers Big Sisters and is the Immersion Project Leader for the New Orleans trip in May focused on the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. In addition to her work with CPS, Laila participates in multiple cultural organizations on campus and has volunteered with El Centro, Painted Turtle Farm and Casa de la Cultura. Laila has also written and …

Matilde Ros Leaves The Jungle, Susana Beatriz Camacho Vivar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

When Matilde defies her mother and abandons her privileged life in a South American capital to fight for environmental justice in the Amazon jungle, she never imagines her journey will bring her right back to where she started. As she insists on freeing herself, four other women around her do the same, defining their freedom when class, gender and race may still get to tell them who they are.

Geographies Of Inequality: Urban Renewal And The Race, Gender, And Class Of Post-Katrina New Orleans, Shiloh L. Deitz, Kristen M. Barber

Articles

In this paper, we address pressing questions on the perpetuation of race, gender, and class inequalities in ongoing restoration practices shaping the "New" New Orleans. We unpack federal and local efforts to rebuild and revitalize the city over the last ten years and map the geography of New Orleans at the neighborhood level both before and after the storm. We discuss how mismanaged resources, corrupt profit-taking, conflicts of interest for the stakeholders, and socially unconscious design conditioned a fiscally irresponsible and non-inclusive recovery. These efforts have pushed out already marginalized populations, resulted in the gentrification of historically African American neighborhoods, …

Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination And Segregation Through Physical Design Of The Built Environment, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals — often poor people and people of color — to access certain places. Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach. Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods. Although the law has addressed the exclusionary impacts …

Healing And Belonging: Community Based Art And Community Formation In West Oakland, Pablo Miguel Cerdera

Honors Papers

Community Based Art is a model of art making which centers community and interpersonal interaction. Through an in depth case study of Brett Cook's West Oakland based project "Reflections of Healing" this thesis attempts to understand how community is both reflected and constructed in Community Based Art, as well as the political, social, and aesthetic consequences of this construction. Of particular interest are the relationships between art, community, race, class, gentrification, and self-determination. Ultimately, this thesis finds that through an ambivalent and sometimes messy process of collaboration, Reflections of Healing constructs a hopeful and positive image of community that prefigures …

Soil Arsenic And Lead Concentrations And Preterm Birth: Investigating Racial Disparities, Sources, Neighborhood Effects, And Spatial Patterns, Pamela Harley Thornton Davis

Theses and Dissertations

Preterm birth, generally defined as birth at <37 weeks of gestation, is an important public health issue that has multiple risk factors related to characteristics of both the mother and her environment. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine potential sources of spatially interpolated (kriged) environmental concentrations of arsenic (As) and lead (Pb) in residential soils and preterm birth in a Medicaid population of mothers giving birth in South Carolina (SC) from 1996-2001. The first objective was to investigate if a racial disparity existed for estimated soil As and Pb concentrations, after adjusting for proximal and distal sources of these metals (including distance and direction to industrial facilities) in a subset of SC Medicaid mothers living in areas of SC where soil samples were collected and analyzed for these metals. The second objective was to test the hypothesis that estimated soil As and Pb concentrations were associated with increased odds of early (<34 weeks) and late (34-36 weeks) preterm births in the same subset of SC Medicaid mothers, after adjusting for individual and neighborhood level risk factors, and examine if measure of neighborhood deprivation and racial residential segregation modified these associations. The third objective was to examine if early and all preterm births, aggregated at the county level, varied spatially and/or temporally in SC for all Medicaid mothers giving birth from 1996-2001 in Bayesian models.

For the first objective, black mothers had significantly higher estimated As and Pb soil concentrations than white mothers in the study population (adjusted betas were 0.12 and 0.22 for As and Pb, respectively; all p<0.006), and proximal sources of metals (e.g., percent of Census block group are covered by roads) were more strongly associated with estimated soil As and Pb concentrations than composite As and Pb releases from industrial facilities categorized by distance from and direction to Census block groups in which maternal residences were located.

For the second objective, estimated soil concentration of neither As nor Pb were associated with increased odds of early or late preterm birth after adjusting for maternal and neighborhood level risk factors. Only individual level covariates were associated with these birth outcomes, and associations were stronger for early as compared to late preterm births. Neighborhood deprivation and racial …

Alternative Ways To Enumerate Data On Race In Puerto Rico: Are Racial Segregation And Spatial Clustering More Evident When Using A Culturally Grounded Methodology?, Reuben Allen

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nationalist discourse concerning race in Puerto Rico generally states that residents are of the same racially mixed heritage—a combination of Spanish, West African, and indigenous ancestry of various degrees. However, literature and casual observations suggest that the population is characterized by greater variation in physical appearances than what is posited by “admixture” discourse. Moreover, and further complicating the understanding of race, 2010 U.S. Census data show that over 75 percent of Puerto Ricans self-identified as “White, alone”, and that only 3.3 percent of respondents indicated “Two or More Races.” Researchers, employers, and governmental agencies attempting to address or further analyze …

We Work, We Eat Together: Anti-Authoritarian Mutual Aid Politics In New York City, 2004-2013, David Spataro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

New York City's neoliberal restructuring has fundamentally transformed the city's labor market and privatized many important aspects of a once robust municipal welfare system. In this research I examine one radical response to these changes: anti-authoritarian mutual aid groups that blend Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture with direct action politics. These are projects where activists attempt to build strong communities of resistance by organizing collective forms of social reproduction. I find that these projects are a threat to neoliberal urbanization because they reorganize reproduction beyond the household scale while simultaneously criticizing the social relations of capitalism as the root of household insecurity. …

Big Building: The Political Economy Of Place And Displacement In Coconut Grove Florida, Daniel Ducassi

Theses & ETDs

The physical construction of urban space has a concrete impact on the lives of those who inhabit it. However, the development and redevelopment of some neighborhoods has differed from that of others, and the disparity in the qualities and environment of constructed urban space is closely intertwined with the social relations of a particular community. This thesis explores the processes of redevelopment in the historically segregated neighborhood of Coconut Grove in Miami, Florida. It reviews the development history of the neighborhood, as well as recent development issues that serve as focal points of interaction between residents, developers and municipal government. …

Symbolic Politics For Disempowered Communities: State Environmental Justice Policies, Tonya Lewis, Jessica Owley

Articles

No abstract provided.

Socioeconomic And Cultural County-Level Factors Associated With Race/Ethnic Differences In Body Mass Index In 4th Grade Students In Texas, Jennifer J. Salinas, Manasi S. Shah, Jennifer L. Gay, Ken Sexton, Eileen Nehme, Dorothy Mandell, Deanna M. Hoelscher

Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk

Purpose: To evaluate the relationship between county-level socioeconomic environment and the propensity to be overweight or obese by race/ethnic group in a sample of fourth grade children the Texas public school system.

Methods: The data used come from the School Physical Activity and Nutrition (SPAN) surveillance study – a surveillance study of school-aged children in Texas. The outcome variable used was Body Mass Index (BMI) categorized as underweight/normal/healthy, overweight, and obese. Exposure variables were derived from county-level Hispanic and Black concentration and socioeconomic data using the Human Security Index (HSI) as a framework. We made comparisons between Non-Hispanic White, Black …

Landscape Fairness: Removing Discrimination From The Built Environment, Stephen Clowney

Utah Law Review

At its core, this Article argues that the everyday landscape is one of the most overlooked instruments of modern race-making. Drawing on evidence from geography and sociology, the paper begins by demonstrating that the built environment inscribes selective and misleading versions of the past in solid, material forms. These narratives — told through street renamings, parks, monuments, and buildings — ultimately marginalize African-American communities and transmit ideas about racial power across generations.

After demonstrating that the landscape remains the agar upon which racial hierarchies replicate themselves, the Article then pivots and examines current efforts to rid the built environment of …

Ecopsychology And Race : An Exploratory Study, Luke B. Woodward

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

While ecopsychology has brought critical attention to the relationship between the natural environment and the human psyche, very little has been written about how race and racism shape our experience of the natural world. This qualitative study asked the following central question: How are race and racism relevant to ecopsychology in theory and practice? Twelve semistructured interviews were conducted with a racially diverse group of ecopsychologists, environmental justice activists and spiritual leaders. Interview data emphasized the importance of employing a broad definition of ecopsychology that encompasses not only the relationship between psyche and nature, but the relationship between psyche, nature …

Health Worker Experiences With Environmental Pollution : Health In Urban Targeted Community : A Study Of Pollution And Clinicians' Experiences And Attitudes Towards It In Urban Low-Income Communities And Communities Of Color, Leslie B. Bosworth

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Research suggests that exposure to pollution can impact people's health, and that there are more chances for exposure in some urban low-income communities or communities of color. The purpose of the study is to explore whether social service oriented clinicians consider whether their clients are exposed to pollution, how large of a problem the believe pollution is for their clients, and what actions they and their clients have taken to protect against pollution. A second purpose is to assess whether clinicians view pollution as product of discrimination. A third purpose is to see if pollution is indeed higher in lower-income …

Access To Green Space In Boston, Jillian Howell

Atlas of Maine

The purpose of this project was to use GIS and statistical analyses to explore the relationship between access to green space and race in Boston. Using census data, the city was divided by race and block groups. Block groups were categorized based on whether or not they were adjacent to green space. Findings concluded that races are not equally distributed across adjacent and non adjacent block groups, indicating unequal access to green space.

Park Access And Distributional Inequities In Pinellas County, Florida, Kyle Ray Hirvela

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although environmental justice research has traditionally focused on environmental disamenities and health hazards, recent studies have begun to examine social inequities in the distribution of urban amenities such as street trees and parks that provide several direct and indirect health benefits to local residents. This thesis adds to this knowledge by evaluating distributional inequities in both distribution and access to parks in Pinellas County, the most densely populated and one of the most racially segregated counties in Florida. An important objective was to determine if neighborhoods with lower levels of park access are more likely to contain a significantly higher …

Race Audits, Robin A. Lenhardt

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Supreme Court’s race jurisprudence suffers from a stunning lack of imagination where possibilities for meaningful local government involvement in combating structural racial inequality are concerned. Cases such as Parents. and Ricci limit dramatically the freedom that localities have to address racial inequity within their borders. Instead of constraints on local efforts in the race context, Professor Lenhardt argues that what we need, if persistent racial inequalities are ever to be eliminated, is greater innovation and experimentation. In this article, Professor Lenhardt thus introduces an extra-judicial tool called the race audit, which would permit individual cities or a regional …