Nature and Society Relations Commons^™

Acid Mine Drainage In The Shamokin Creek Watershed: A Spatial Analysis Of Economic And Environmental Consequences Of Coal Mining, Ben Shimer

Student Project Reports

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Climate Change And Planned Retreat, Idowu Jola Ajibade, A. R. Siders

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Chapter 1.

This edited volume advances our understanding of climate relocation (or planned retreat), an emerging topic in the fields of climate adaptation and hazard risk, and provides a platform for alternative voices and views on the subject. As the effects of climate change become more severe and widespread, there is a growing conversation about when, where and how people will move. Climate relocation is a controversial adaptation strategy, yet the process can also offer opportunity and hope. This collection grapples with the environmental and social justice dimensions from multiple perspectives, with cases drawn from Africa, Asia, Australia, Oceania, South …

Minerva Cuevas: Disidencia, Alaina Claire Feldman, Clayton Press, Solange Farkas, Gabriel Bogossian

Publications and Research

Bilingual catalogue for the exhibition "Minerva Cuevas: Disidencia" presented at Baruch College's Mishkin Gallery.

Evaluating Urban Parks Accessibility And Equity: A Case Study Of Hartford, Ct And New Haven, Ct, Natalie Roach, Mara Tu

Honors Scholar Theses

Public parks provide cities with environmental benefits, positive health effects, recreational opportunities, community building, educational spaces, and public amenities. However, certain populations have been systematically denied their fair share of these benefits because of unjust practices in the creation and maintenance of urban parks. With a lens of environmental justice, the goal of this research was to assess park quality and accessibility of two Connecticut cities, Hartford and New Haven, by gathering publicly available information as well as using GIS tools.

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) has an existing ParkScore rating system that evaluates the quality of a city’s …

When Nature Invades: Resident Perceptions Of The Austerity-Driven "Rewilding" Of An Urban Park In Rock Island, Illinois, Christian S. B. Elliott

Anthropology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

In an era of rapid urbanization, changing climate, and increasing political division, parks represent increasingly important places for urban residents to interact with and feel connected to the natural environment and receive a number of mental and physical health benefits. Unfortunately, in an age of austerity politics, parks and recreation departments in Midwest Rust Belt cities often lack adequate funding to maintain such public spaces. Recently, the business-minded Rock Island, Illinois Department of Parks and Recreation has implemented a creative cost-saving management solution: “naturalizing” sections of its city parks. This interdisciplinary study uses a mixed methods approach to discover how …

Quiet River, Heavy Waters: Un-Silencing Narratives Of Social-Environmental Inequalities In The Cradle Of Soviet Plutonium, Rosibel Roman

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In December 1948, the Soviet Union’s first plutonium production facility, Mayak Production Association (PO Mayak), began operation in the Southern Urals region of Russia, at the western edges of Siberia, near the restricted city of Chelyabinsk-40, known in the present day as Ozyorsk. Since then, rural communities located downstream from PO Mayak have experienced health, economic, ecological and social impacts of contamination from high-level radioactive wastes released by the facility into the Techa River and its surrounding ecosystem. My research, drawing from archival research conducted in Russia and the United States, as well as secondary sources in English and Russian, …

Seizing Opportunities To Diversify Conservation, Rachelle K. Gould, Indira Phukan, Mary E. Mendoza, Nicole M. Ardoin, Bindu Panikkar

Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Conservation Letters published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. This article identifies, and offers several ways to address, a serious, persistent issue in conservation: low levels of diversity in thought and action. We first describe the lack of diversity and highlight the continued separation of the environmental conservation and environmental justice movements. We then offer—based on previous research and our collective experience—two suggestions for how to increase inclusivity (a step farther than increasing diversity) in holistic ways. We suggest that embracing narrative, including historical narrative that can be profound and painful, may be essential to addressing this deeply rooted issue. We also …

Justice And Immigrant Latino Recreation Geography In Cache Valley, Utah, Jodie Madsen, Claudia Radel, Joanna Endter-Wada

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Latinos are the largest U.S. non-mainstreamed ethnic group, and social and environmental justice considerations dictate recreation professionals and researchers meet their recreation needs. This study reconceptualizes this diverse group’s recreation patterns, looking at where immigrant Latino individuals in Cache Valley, Utah do recreate rather than where they do not. Through qualitative interviews and interactive mapping, thirty participants discussed what recreation means to them and explained their recreation site choices. Findings suggest that recreation as an activity done outside the home, for fun with others, leads participants to seek spaces with certain characteristics. Reconceiving recreation more broadly and framing it from …

Visual Interventions And The “Crises In Representation” In Environmental Anthropology: Researching Environmental Justice In A Hungarian Romani Neighborhood, Krista Harper

Anthropology Department Faculty Publication Series

Participatory visual research, or "visual interventions" (Pink 2007) allow environmental anthropologists to respond to three different “crises of representation”: 1) the critique of ethnographic representation presented by postmodern, postcolonial, and feminist anthropologists, 2) the constructivist critique of nature and the environment, and 3) the “environmental justice” critique demanding representation for the environmental concerns of communities of color. Participatory visual research integrates community members in the process of staking out a research agenda, conducting fieldwork and interpreting data, and communicating and applying research findings. Our project used the Photovoice methodology to generate knowledge and documentation related to environment injustices faced by …

Across The Bridge: Using Photovoice To Study Environment And Health In A Romani Community., Krista Harper, The Sajó River Association For Environment And Community Development, Hungary

Anthropology Department Faculty Publication Series

This photo essay is the product of a partnership between Prof. Krista Harper, the Sajó River Association for Environment and Community Development, and community organizer Judit Bari. The project took place in a small city in northeastern Hungary hit hard by factory closings since the collapse of state socialism in 1989. The Roma community, about 20% of the town’s population, has been especially vulnerable. A team of six young people participated as photographers and discussion participants, working closely with Harper and Bari. Other community members joined discussions of the images. The team held a photo exhibition in the neighborhood where …

From Democratization To Globalization To Justice: Political Generations In Hungarian Environmentalism From The 1980s To The 2000s, Krista Harper

Anthropology Department Faculty Publication Series

This presentation applies sociologist Nancy Whittier's concept of "political generations" to explore political identities and strategies appearing over time in the Hungarian environmental movement. I discuss the rise of democratic environmentalism in the 1980s, the shift to a more professionalized and globally oriented activist stance in the 1990s, and the emergence of social justice frames associated with the newest cohort of environmental activists of the 2000s.

International Environmental Justice: Building The Natural Assets Of The World’S Poor, Krista Harper, S. Ravi Rajan

Anthropology Department Faculty Publication Series

In recent years, vibrant social movements have emerged across the world to fight for environmental justice –- for more equitable access to natural resources and environmental quality, including clean air and water. In seeking to build community rights to natural assets, these initiatives seek to advance simultaneously the goals of environmental protection and poverty reduction. This paper sketches the contours of struggles for environmental justice within and among countries, and illustrates with examples primarily drawn from countries of the global South and the former Soviet bloc.

This working paper is also accessible at the folllowing URL:

http://www.peri.umass.edu/236/hash/28d064d65f/publication/107/

A newer, revised …