Frontiers of Environmental Justice
CRD 298 (Winter 2014)
Tuesdays/ Thursdays 10:30-12:00
5 Wellman Hall
Professor Jonathan London, Department of Human Ecology
jklondon@ucdavis.edu
Office Hours: Tuesdays 1:00-3:00pm
2335 Hart Hall
EJ Overview
Environmental justice (EJ) refers simultaneously to 1) a diverse range of social movements
confronting the inequitable socio-spatial distribution of environmental hazards and systemic
exclusion of certain populations from environmental decision-making 2) public policies intended
to ameliorate these conditions, and a 3) vibrant academic field drawing from multiple disciplines
that analyze the production, impacts, and attempts to address environmental injustices. Over the
past 30 years, these three dimensions of EJ (movements, policies, scholarship) have developed to
provide unique and powerful ways to understand and act upon fundamental social problems of
racism, classism, sexism, colonialism/ imperialism, and other systems of injustice. EJ social
movements have positioned typically disenfranchised populations to “speak for themselves.” EJ
policies have pushed public agencies to form of new collaborations with diverse stakeholders
and to develop new analytical methods in collaboration with scientists and scholars. EJ
scholarship has drawn from and created vigorous hybrids of multiple disciplines, including
sociology, geography, anthropology, ethnic studies, history, communication, public policy,
public health, planning and community development and others. EJ scholarship has evolved
significantly over time to embrace an ever-widening scope and scale of places, populations and
issues – literally from the local to the global (and back again). EJ scholars have also developed
new models of collaborative research with EJ social movements and EJ policy leaders.
This dynamism and hybridity of EJ movements, policies and scholarship has also drawn a range
of criticisms. EJ social movements and EJ policies have both been critiqued for focusing too
narrowly on: distribution of environmental hazards and not sufficiently on the systemic drivers
of these impacts and participation in state process and not sufficiently on developing alternatives
to these processes. EJ scholarship has been critiqued for being too closely allied with EJ
movements and not sufficiently theorized.
This course is intended to help students to develop both a critical and constructive position from
which to grapple with these debates about the potency, potential, and perils of EJ movements,
policy, and scholarship.
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Learning Objectives
Students in this course will:
1. Develop a critical understanding of the historical development of the field of EJ students
including the key thinkers, theories, and debates in the field;
2. Learn about the value, applications, and limitations of a range of methodologies for
studying EJ issues
3. Apply EJ theories and methods as a framework to explore fundamental social theories on
race, class, gender, culture, and power.
4. Build multiple literacies (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in a critical and
constructive way on complex and controversial topics.
Some notes on pedagogy:
My passion for being an educator derives from the radical alive-ness I feel in the experience of
encountering the world in a curious, creative, collaborative and compassionate way. The purpose
of education is therefore not merely to obtain knowledge, but to cultivate a way of being based
on action and reflection in dialogue with the (human and non-human) world around us.
There are several important implications of this pedagogy that I will bring to my courses. These
are commitments that I make to my students and that I ask my students to commit to me and to
their classmates.
I position all participants in the course as having unique and valuable insights and experiences to
contribute, regardless of age, academic credentials, or other factors. We are all teachers and
learners in this classroom, regardless of age, academic credentials, or background. To encourage
productive dialogue will require respect for different ways of knowing, speaking and writing.
Because learning is a relational process, I highly value dialogue that invites a diversity of
perspectives into conversation with each other. This dialogue will be a critical one, but will
deploy critique as a tool – not to denigrate a person or the ideas they are expressing-- but as a
way to decode the meanings that underlie these ideas, to dig deeper and draw out what is most
valuable, to reshape—or when needed – to cut way ideas that are not well-founded or useful to
the task at hand. Critique can also be understood as a playful process taking a given set of objects
(texts, statements) and animating them in new ways that excite the imagination. It can also be
cast as improvisation taking a story line in ways that the originator could not have imagined and
that open up new ways of thinking and speaking.
In this understanding of pedagogy, my role will be to share the depth and breadth of my expertise
and experience in the field of environmental justice to help frame the discussions and provide
definitions of key terms and interpretations of key concepts and theories where helpful. I will
also help ensure that the discussions are hitting on the fundamental themes of the course and that
students are achieving the courses learning objectives. I will also maintain a focus on how all
participants are keeping their commitments to the course and to each other.
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Students’ roles will be to share their own insights on the course material and their areas of
expertise and experiences and clear and concise ways, to listen actively and carefully to each
other, to be aware of how they are contributing or detracting from a positive classroom
environment, and to be responsible for the achievement of their learning objectives.
Class Structure
The class sessions will have several components.
There will be weekly readings that must be completed before each class session. These are
designed to anchor classroom discussions but they will not limit possible discussion topics. My
expectation is that everyone will read thoroughly and come to class prepared to discuss the
material. That means reading critically, and having questions, points of disagreement,
connections with other readings, and raising those issues during class discussions.
All students will post a short (no more than 1-page) response paper on the key themes of that
session readings at 5pm the day before each class. These are primarily opportunities for students
to prepare their thoughts in advance of the class and for the class facilitators to refer to, but will
also count as graded assignments (as described in the assignment section below.)
I will begin each class with some framing remarks about the key terms, concepts, and debates on
the broad topics associated with the readings and related issues in the EJ field. However, these
remarks will not cover the specific readings (this will facilitated by student teams, as detailed
below.) Depending on the session, this will range from 10-15 minutes. This is likely to be on the
longer side at the start of the quarter, and be reduced at the class gets more fluent in the course
material. This time can also be used for direct questions from students about the course material
that may not have been sufficiently addressed in previous sessions.
This will be followed by a presentation by a team of two students who will provide a 15 minute
presentation on 1) a brief thematic overview of the readings, 2) the main arguments and most
valuable contributions (not a summary) of the readings, 3) an analyses of these arguments relate
to (expand upon/ reframe/ contradict) other course readings, 4) critiques of the readings (where
are their arguments thin, what do they miss, how could they be strengthened, and 5) several key
questions or debates to frame the class discussion.
Facilitation teams will meet with me one-week prior to their assigned session to discuss and get
assistance in designing their approach.
The student team will facilitate the class discussion, drawing out class participation, lifting up
key themes, ideas, and creative tensions in the dialogue. I will enter the dialogue as appropriate
to bring in new perspective, provide deeper grounding in the concepts and theories in the
readings and the larger field, and assist in facilitation if needed.
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For each session, a third student will be assigned to track the process of the class, reflecting if
there are some students who are dominating the conversation, some that are not entering the
conversation, or other issues that may be detracting from the learning experience. This is not a
“traffic cop” but a resource for the class.
For each session, all students are welcome to bring in 1-2 examples of current EJ issues that
relate to the themes of the readings. These can be multi-media (print, audio, video etc.). All will
be posted to the class smart site.
Assignments
1. Short (1 page max) reading response papers for each class section. (5% of final grade).
All students will post a short (no more than 1-page) response paper on the key themes of that
session readings at 5pm the day before each class. These are primarily opportunities for students
to prepare their thoughts in advance of the class and for the class facilitators to refer to, but will
also count as graded assignments.
2. Leadership of class session (15%)
Grading will be based on preparation for the session, insights and clarity of opening presentation,
skill in posing provocative questions, connecting people’s comments, and synthesizing the
conversation.
3. Term Paper 60% of grade
This paper will be framed as an introduction and a table of contents to an imagined volume
called “Frontiers of Environmental Justice”, which charts the way forward for EJ scholarship.
The paper will present a framework on the cutting edge themes, debates, trends, and tensions in
EJ field.
The introduction essay will draw on the insights derived from the class readings and discussions
but will not simply summarize or even synthesize these and instead will represent your own
vision for EJ studies. Framing questions should include (but are not limited to) the following.
What are the crucial elements from the history of EJ scholarship that must be kept in mind as the
field develops? What are some of the weaknesses or limitations from this history that must be
resolved? What are the most problematic current challenges and/or limitations that are detracting
from the field’s development? What are the most important and most innovative methodological,
conceptual, developments in the field?
The “table of contents” will propose 8-10 proposed chapters that will address the above
questions. This will include a chapter title and a 1-paragraph summary of what each chapter
would include.
The total paper must be 5,000-6,000 words in length (word length does not include
bibliography), and be double-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman, with numbered pages and 1”
margins.
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The assignment will include three stages: (1) a detailed outline including section headings and
bibliography due by class on February 12th; (2) a 3,000-4,000 word draft of your paper (word
length does not include bibliography) for peer review, due by class on Feb 26th; and returned the
following week on March 5th; and (3) the final paper, due on Mar 20th.
4. Peer review of colleague’s paper: 10%
Term paper drafts will be exchanged in class on Feb 24th. Each student will be responsible for
reviewing two other student’s paper. These reviews are due in class on March 3rd. Review
using electronic methods (e.g., track changes in Word) or paper (written comments) is
acceptable.
5. Final Presentation 10% of grade
Students will a 15-minute presentation of your paper on March 10th or March 12th. This is a
formal presentation and should include the use of PowerPoint or other presentation software.
Week 1
1/6 Introductions/ Overview/ Expectations of the course
1/8 Where Have we Been?
Cole, L. W., & Foster, S. R. 2001. From the Ground up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of
the Environmental Justice Movement. New York University Press. Pages: 10-33
Forman, Christopher H. 2011. The Promise and Peril of Environmental Justice. Brookings
Institution Press. Pages: 137-147.
Pulido, L. 1996. A Critical Review of the Methodology of Environmental Racism Research.
Antipode 28(2): 142-159.
Szasz, Andrew, and Michael Meuser. "Environmental inequalities: Literature review and
proposals for new directions in research and theory." Current sociology 45.3 (1997): 99-120.
Sze, J., London, J.K. 2008. Environmental Justice at the Crossroads. Sociology Compass. 2(4):
1331-1354.
1/13 The Critics
Swyngedouw, E., & Heyen N. C. 2003. “Urban Political Ecology, Justice and the Politics of
Scale.” Antipode 35(5): 898-918.
Forman, Christopher H. 2011. The Promise and Peril of Environmental Justice. Brookings
Institution Press. Pages: 1-33 & 109-136
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Been, Vicki. 1992. “What’s Fairness Got to Do with It? Environmental Justice and the Siting of
Locally Undesirable Land Uses.” Cornell I,. Rev. 78: 1001.
1/15 Where Are/ Should We Be Going?
Pellow, D. N., & Brulle, R. J. 2005. Power, Justice and the Environment: Toward Critical
Environmental Justice Studies. In Power, justice, and the environment: a critical appraisal of the
environmental justice movement (pp. 1-22). Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Kurtz, H. E. 2009. Acknowledging the Racial State: An Agenda for Environmental Justice
Research. Antipode 41(4): 684-704.
Schlossberg, D. 2013. Theorising Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse.
Environmental Politics 22(1): 37-55.
Walker, G. 2009. Beyond Distribution and Proximity: Exploring the Multiple Spatialities of
Environmental Justice. Antipode 41(4): 614-636.
Anguelovski, I. 2013. New Directions in Urban Environmental Justice Rebuilding Community,
Addressing Trauma, and Remaking Place. Journal of Planning Education and Research 33(2):
160-175.
Week 3 Foundational Cases
1/20
Cerrell Associates. 1984. Cerrell Reports: Siting LULUs. California Waste Management Board.
http://www.ejnet.org/ej/cerrell.pdf
Cole, L. W., & Foster, S. R. 2001. From the Ground up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of
the Environmental Justice Movement. New York University Press. Pages: 80-133
1/22
Pulido, L. 1996a. Environmentalism and Economic Justice: Two Chicano Struggles in the
Southwest. University of Arizona Press. Pages: TBA
Brown Bag Lunch (Optional): Alex Karner, Arizona State University
Week 4 Science and Environmental Justice
1/27
Brown, P., Morello-Frosch, R., & Zavestoski, S. (2011). Embodied Health Movements. In
Contested Illnesses: Citizens, science, and health social movements (pp. 15-32). University of
California.:
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Liévanos, R., London, J., Sze, G., Ottinger, and B. Cohen. 2010. Uneven Transformations and
Environmental Justice: Regulatory Science, Street Science, and Pesticide Regulation in
California. MIT Press: Cambridge, CA, USA.
1/29: Cumulative Impacts
Sadd, J., Pastor, M., Morello-Frosch, R., Scoggins, J., Jesdale, B. 2011. Playing it Safe:
Assessing cumulative impact and social vulnerability through an environmental injustice
screening method in the south coast air basin, California. International Journal on
Environmental Research and Public Health 8(5): 1441-1459.
London, J., Huang, G., Zagofsky, T. 2011. Land of Risk/ Land of Opportunity: Cumulative
environmental vulnerability in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Davis, CA: UC Davis Center for
Regional Change.
London, J., Zagofsky, T., Huang, G., Saklar, J. 2011. Collaboration, Participation, and
Technology: The San Joaquin Valley cumulative health impacts projects. Gateways:
International Journal of Community Research and Engagement 4: 12-30.
CalEPA: Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment 2014. California Enviroscreen 2.0
http://oehha.ca.gov/ej/pdf/CES20FinalReportUpdateOct2014.pdf
Week 5 Capital
2/3 and 2/5
Faber, D. 2008. Capitalizing on environmental injustice: The polluter-industrial complex in the
age of globalization. Lanhan, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Pages: 1-54 & 221-270.
Week 6 The State
2/10 and 2/12
Harrison, J. L. 2011. Pesticide drift and the pursuit of environmental justice. MIT press. Pages:
1-24, 85-144; 187-204
Dark side of the Strawberry. https://beta.cironline.org/investigations/strawberries
Week 7 Bodies
2/17: Gender & Sexuality
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Berila, B. 2004. Toxic Bodies?: ACT up’s disruption of the heteronormative landscape of the
nation. In New perspectives on environmental justice: Gender, sexuality, and activism. (Rachel
Stein ed. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Buckingham, S., & Rakibe, K. 2009. Gendered geographies of environmental injustice. Antipode
41(4): 659-683.
Di Chiro, G. 2004. Producing ‘roundup ready®’ communities? In New perspectives on
environmental justice: Gender, sexuality, and activism. (Rachel Stein ed., pp 139-160). Rutgers,
NJ: Rutgers University Press.
2/19: Racialization
Shah, Bindi (2012) Laotian daughters: working toward community, belonging, and
environmental justice, Pennsylvania, US, Temple University Press, Pages: TBA.
Nash, Linda. "The fruits of ill-health: Pesticides and workers' bodies in post-World War II
California." Osiris (2004): 203-219.
Week 8 New Faces of Environmental Justice Research
2/24 &/ or 2/26
Tracy Perkins
Carolina Balazs
Michael Mendez
Lindsey Dillon
Week 9: Globalizing EJ (B)
3/3: Globalizing EJ (A)
Pellow, D. N. 2007. Resisting global toxics: Transnational movements for environmental justice.
MIT Press.
Schlosberg, D. 2004. Reconceiving environmental justice: Global movements and political
theories. Environmental Politics 13(3): 517-540.
CRD 298: Frontiers of Environmental Justice: Winter 2015
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3/5 Globalizing EJ (B)
Ikeme, J. 2003. Environmental justice and sustainability: Incomplete approaches in climate
change politics. Global Environmental Change 13(3): 195-206.
Bulkeley, H., Carmin, J., Broto, V. C., Edwards, G. A. S., Fuller, S. 2013. Climate justice and
global cities: Mapping the emerging discourses. Global Environmental Change 23(5): 914-925.
Week 10: Final Presentations
3/10 & 3/12
Week 11: Final Papers due 3/20
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