The Exclusivity of Outdoor Spaces
How an organized story collective can facilitate healing and community building to invite hope and protection in togetherness for women of color.
New Jersey is known as the “Garden State,” but who gets excluded from the benefits of green space due to the built environment, transportation, environmental racism, or personal safety concerns? Women and persons of color. In New Jersey, there are approximately 80 public trails, 44 beaches, 28 state parks, and 4 national parks. Which ones offer true respite for women to recreate comfortably and safely? There is a whiteness problem in the outdoors, as National Parks data revealed that 77 percent of visitors to the 419 national parks are white, meanwhile people of color make up 42 percent of the population and only 23 percent of park visitors (Hamilton). Economically, this is attributed to unaffordability of gear and transportation costs and entry fees, and is often inaccessible due to how time consuming visiting national parks can be, given how many people do not get paid time off from employers. Other important factors that impact people’s relationship to the outdoors include early childhood experiences in nature (confidence in nature is something that can be grown or stunted in childhood), cultural factors that influence comfort levels in leisurely activities, a history of discrimination and segregation at national and public parks, and concerns over personal safety due to historical traumas (Askew and Walls). These complex issues, as historical legacies and pressing realities, are all barriers to entry in outdoor recreation.
Environmental justice is inextricably linked to colonial, racist, and patriarchal history in the United States. The effects of climate change are unequally felt, as communities of color are disproportionately impacted by the climate crises and its harmful effects. In a Vice article about the climate grief and intergenerational trauma felt by communities of color, author Nylah Burton states,
“environmental racism forces people of color, especially Black and Indigenous peoples, to bear the brunt of global disaster. We are not only disproportionately affected by the climate crisis — breathing in more pollution, living in communities with higher temperatures, suffering from more medical conditions, experiencing more natural disasters, and being displaced at much higher rates — but we carry the pain of the climate crisis deep inside us” (Burton).
Not only are people of color impacted by the climate crisis first, they are impacted the hardest.
In this project, my intention is to provide a space that nurtures emotional, spiritual, social, and physical well-being. I propose creating an on-site anonymous story collective to facilitate healing and community organization. Young women of color will have the opportunity to share their stories and experiences with the outdoors. I intend to facilitate healing and offline community organizing to invite hope and protection in togetherness. This community space would be a cathartic, healing, experience to express opinions on environmental injustice, which includes racial, economic, health, and gender justice issues. As individuals pass by the site, they will have an opportunity to read the hand-written stories of individuals who have participated and learn more about others’ experiences. The final intervention will utilize the shared narratives to create a more permanent display of the inequity of spaces faced by young women of color in New Brunswick.
Young women of color are impacted the first and the hardest by climate change and simultaneously take risks in daily life by participating in leisure activities outside of the private sphere. Experiences of patriarchal and racialized threats on the streetscape disconnect women from the outdoors and from each other. Such isolation prevents the benefits of the outdoors or leisure experiences. In the scholarly article, “Racial Justice Activist Burnout of Women of Color in the United States: Practical Tools for Counselor Intervention” written by Rudney Danquah, Cristal Lopez, Laurel Wade & Linda G. Castillo, the authors write, “selflessness is often associated with the gender role expectation that women must be nurturers (Lips, 2020). For Women of Color, this expectation also overlaps with a collectivistic culture’s norm that members give back to the community (Akkus et al., 2017). Research suggests these gender and cultural expectations are associated with distress (Abrams et al., 2019).” In addition, young women are taught insecurity and vulnerability in many scenarios that involve public recreation, like in Physical Education classes, when getting catcalled while on the street, and especially in life-threatening circumstances. As a result, I will focus the anonymous story collective and final intervention on young women of color in New Brunswick.
Through this intervention, I will allow for young women of color to share their stories and experiences in public with other members of the community. The writing will serve as a form of self-care, journaling, processing trauma, healing, and building a community for individuals with similar experiences. Additionally, the narratives will inform individuals who are unaware of these existing inequities. These stories can inform city planning, educational planning, budget allocations, etc. These personal stories will be treated as works of art in the community, reduce mental health stigmas, and create a forum for conversation around generally undiscussed topics. In a New York Times article, Devi Lockwood, writes about the impact of the Strangers Project; an initiative which collects handwritten stories across the country. The project’s founder asks individuals “What’s Your Story?” and allows individuals to anonymously write on paper attached to clipboards and hang them up across a string of fairy lights. The Strangers Project has demonstrated the impact of allowing individuals to share their stories and the revolutionary aspect of allowing voices to be heard in public spaces.
Community spaces that are relevant to this creative intervention include public spaces, most notably areas that lack green space. This creative intervention is crucial to open up the conversation about the inequities of experiences in the outdoors and eco-anxiety and increased threats to health that women of color in New Brunswick face. The initiative will allow people to share their stories, reflect, and heal. In addition, it will be a critical method to amplifying voices and share the stories about lived experiences that rarely get told.
