2024 EJ Conference Reflections: Recognizing One Another as Belonging to an EJ Community
by Sibyl Diver
The Mar 18 & 19 the Duality of Environmental Justice conference organized by Rodolfo Dirzo with support from the EJ Working Group, and co-sponsored by the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) and Doerr School of Sustainability, showcased important EJ Scholarship happening at Stanford and beyond. Thank you to organizers, sponsors, presenters, and EJ scholars and practitioners in attendance.
Key insights from presenters illustrated EJ research questions and methodologies prioritizing:
1) meaningful inclusion of local & Indigenous knowledge systems,
2) support for interdisciplinary research-to-action initiatives for impact,
3) research codesign for social relevancy — working directly with communities to research the questions they want answers to, questions that are relevant to their lives, and
4) active engagement with problems of systemic racism, equity, and justice intertwined with problems of environmental degradation, and uneven access to environmental benefits.
Here, I share research highlights that I noted as a conference discussant:
Conservation biologist Kyle Artelle (SUNY-ESF) Environmental Biology and Center for Native Peoples and the Environment), who works in close partnership with the Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) First Nation considered, “how can scholarship support Indigenous resurgence and sovereignty?” He shared the M̓ṇúxvʔit Model approach, with insights from Yím̓ás Q̓íx̌itasu (Elroy White), that centers Indigenous knowledge systems in scholarship and collaboration, with the tools of Western science and collaborators — who are invited in strategically to complement knowledge already held in place.
Economist Roz Naylor commented on the “importance of integrating EJ into the scientific community.” She related her experience of educating her peers about mixed methods for analyzing food policy characteristics that support more just outcomes — for communities, not just individuals. Her advice to attendees: “we really need to learn from one another.”
Legal Scholar Michelle Anderson outlined her approach to researching issues of extreme poverty as a legal scholar, stating “As a lawyer, low-income communities are my clients. We need to reconcile methodological tensions so that we can have an EJ space at Stanford.”
Political scientist Dena Montague analyzed the scholarship of Chukwumerije Okereke, who “seeks fairness in international climate governance” by engaging with political dimensions of the climate crisis. She further discussed theories of justice and reparations strategies that engage with colonial legacies underpinning Global North/Global South inequities in climate governance.
Biologist Rodolfo Dirzo shared his experience working in a long-term partnership with Indigenous communities in Oaxaca. This includes codesigning research with community members on agroforestry questions they want addressed, then working with students to answer community questions.
Environmental engineer Khalid Osman discussed his sanitation justice research in collaboration with renowned EJ leader Catherine Flowers. He stated, “We need to shift our process.” The trend he sees is local communities “not being listened to, not being heard.” Following EJ principles of self-determination, he noted that underserved communities “should be involved in issues that affect their lives.”
Climate change and oceans policy researcher Cat Lee-Hing introduced herself as a daughter of a Chinese fisherman from Jamaica, one of the places where she conducts her research. Her work examines conservation impacts on community livelihoods. This includes asking questions about how to ensure a just transition such that “No community is left behind.”
Interdisciplinary social scientist Gabrielle Wong-Parodi described her collaborations with local community leaders coming from lower income backgrounds, in areas where people are disproportionately affected by pollution. Her team is, “Developing tools that help provide information about wildfire events or heat in their community” for people to reduce their exposure. Her publications describe how “community-engaged research is stronger and more impactful” and help avoid unintended consequences from research that can cause harm to communities.
Coastal ecologist Elliott White, Jr. described his work studying the inequities of climate change impacts in marginalized coastal communities with his lab, where “community engagement is a value, not a theme.” His research team works with frontline communities to provide the support they are asking for, addressing the most pressing issues that they face.
Legal scholar and EJ leader Abby Reyes (UC Irvine Community Resilience Projects) supports researchers who wish to engage with communities as allied collaborators. Her work at CAPECA supports “community-driven climate adaptation,” and communicates what to do differently with a community-driven approach, with one example being democratic grant writing.
Hydrologist Iris Stewart-Frey and environmental social scientist Chris Bacon (Santa Clara University) discussed how their Environmental Justice and the Common Good Initiative works to support academic and community partners co-creating knowledge and power for an environmentally just world. This work includes long-term allied research with small holder farmers cooperatives in Nicaragua that supports food security, EJ, and sustainability for local communities.
Environmental behavior researcher Stephanie Fischer asked questions about how critical humanities can be used to advance community engaged research in EJ. Her work includes learning from education scholars about the identity measures they use in research — research that “empowers young black and brown students to buffer the daily discrimination they face.”
Presenters also discussed research and practice connections in EJ. To share a few examples:
Operations experts Dr. Shirley Everett, Eric Montell, and Debbie Andres, Senior Associate Vice Provost, Assistant Vice Provost, and Assistant Director of R&DE at Stanford, respectively, discussed their work providing wholesale market access to Black farmers through in partnership with innovative leaders like Farms to Grow, Inc. Describing the Equitable Harvest and the Black Farmers Initiative, Montell reflected, “How do we do good beyond the walls of just Stanford? How do we change the food system for the better, when systemic racism denies Black farmers access to resources?”
Archaeologist Michael Wilcox (Yuman/Quechan descent), who also serves as Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, spoke to the importance of Indigenous EJ. He stated, “EJ is about recognizing the destruction of Native homeland, and finding pathways for reparation and repair. EJ is about returning land to Native people. For Muwekma, it is also about creating affordable housing for their people, which can operate as a sovereign self-governing entity. It is not an abstract issue.”
Biologist, writer and science communicator Tanvi Dutta Gupta discussed the importance of expanding space in the academy to include EJ and the arts. Speaking to those recovering from or undergoing the lived experience of oppression, she asked, “What does it mean to be a person experiencing these things in a way that dominant modes of objectivity do not allow for? [This is] where art is making the deep harms visible in ways that cannot be expressed in speech.”
Writer, humanist, and environmental justice scholar Emily Polk shared insights into core EJ principles and practicesleveraged in her EJ publications, teaching, and institution building with the EJ Working Group, stating, “There is no EJ work that happens in a silo or a vacuum. Environmental Justice is the intergenerational home where we give each other the courage to make visible the painful consequences of systemic and historical injustice and collaborate . . . It is the home where we build the culture that nurtures trust and care, before speed and scale.”
Attendees left with a more holistic understanding of the rich tapestry of EJ work already occurring at Stanford, and possibilities for building mutually beneficial collaborations into the future.
