RACE, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND ENVIRONMENTAL

This course explores environmental justice (EJ) through an anti-colonial lens that centers the perspectives of dispossessed communities in different places around the world. Our primary focus site is New Orleans communities working toward food sovereignty, but we will also learn from initiatives in Palestine, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Readings and discussions will cover themes that include interdisciplinarity, the history of science(s) and knowledge production, decolonizing the geosciences, and relations based in mutuality (as opposed to extractivism). Students will be trained in community-based research methods in part by developing an anthropological lens – first through a self-ethnography workshop that focuses on positionality and then through their own mini-ethnography projects.

The weekly three-hour seminars will be divided in two. The first half will be lectures, guest lectures, and workshops. After a short break, the second portion of the seminar will be reserved for discussions.