Overview

From the First National People of Color Congress on Environmental Leadership to WTO street protests of the new millennium, environmental justice activists have challenged the mainstream movement by linking social inequalities to the uneven distribution of environmental dangers. Grassroots movements in poor communities and communities of color strive to protect neighborhoods and worksites from environmental degradation and struggle to gain equal access to the natural resources that sustain their cultures. This book examines environmental justice in its social, economic, political, and cultural dimensions in both local and global contexts, with special attention paid to intersections of race, gender, and class inequality. The first book to link political studies, literary analysis, and teaching strategies, it offers a multivocal approach that combines perspectives from organizations such as the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice and the International Indigenous Treaty Council with the insights of such notable scholars as Devon Peña, Giovanna Di Chiro, and Valerie Kuletz, and also includes a range of newer voices in the field. This collection approaches environmental justice concerns from diverse geographical, ethnic, and disciplinary perspectives, always viewing environmental issues as integral to problems of social inequality and oppression. It offers new case studies of native Alaskans' protests over radiation poisoning; Hispanos' struggles to protect their land and water rights; Pacific Islanders' resistance to nuclear weapons testing and nuclear waste storage; and the efforts of women employees of maquiladoras to obtain safer living and working environments along the U.S.-Mexican border. The selections also include cultural analyses of environmental justice arts, such as community art and greening projects in inner-city Baltimore, and literary analyses of writers such as Jimmy Santiago Baca, Linda Hogan, Barbara Neely, Nez Perce orators, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Karen Yamashita—artists who address issues such as toxicity and cancer, lead poisoning of urban African American communities, and Native American struggles to remove dams and save salmon. The book closes with a section of essays that offer models to teachers hoping to incorporate these issues and texts into their classrooms. By combining this array of perspectives, this book makes the field of environmental justice more accessible to scholars, students, and concerned readers.

Full Product Details

Author:   Joni Adamson ,  Mei Mei Evans ,  Rachel Stein
Publisher:   University of Arizona Press
Imprint:   University of Arizona Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 23.10cm
Weight:   0.645kg
ISBN:  

9780816522071

ISBN 10:   0816522073
Pages:   395
Publication Date:   30 November 2002
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

"Introduction: Environmental Justice Politics, Poetics, and Pedagogy / Joni Adamson, Mei Mei Evans, and Rachel Stein Environmental Justice: A Roundtable Discussion with Simon Ortiz, Teresa Leal, Devon Peña, and Terrell Dixon / Joni Adamson and Rachel Stein Politics 1. Testimonies from Doris Bradshaw, Sterling Gologergen, Edgar Mouton, Alberto Saldamando, and Paul Smith / Mei Mei Evans 2. Throwing Rocks at the Sun: An Interview with Teresa Leal / Joni Adamson 3. Endangered Landscapes and Disappearing Peoples? Identity, Place, and Community in Ecological Politics / Devon G. Peña 4. Who Hears Their Cry? African American Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice in Memphis, Tennessee / Andrea Simpson 5. Radiation, Tobacco, and Illness in Point Hope, Alaska: Approaches to the ""Facts"" in Contaminated Communities / Nelta Edwards 6. The Movement for Environmental Justice in the Pacific Islands / Valerie Kuletz Poetics 7. Toward an Environmental Justice Ecocriticism / T. V. Reed 8. From Environmental Justice Literature to the Literature of Environmental Justice / Julie Sze 9. ""Nature"" and Environmental Justice / Mei Mei Evans 10. Activism as Affirmation: Gender and Environmental Justice in Linda Hogan's Solar Storms and Barbara Neely's Blanche Cleans Up / Rachel Stein 11. Some Live More Downstream than Others: Cancer, Gender, and Environmental Justice/ Jim Tarter 12. Struggle in Ogoniland: Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Cultural Politics of Environmental Justice/ Susan Comfort 13. Toward a Symbiosis of Ecology and Justice: Water and Land Conflicts in Frank Waters, John Nichols, and Jimmy Santiago Baca/ Tom Lynch 14. Saving the Salmon, Saving the People: Environmental Justice and Columbia River Tribal Literatures/ Janis Johnson 15.Sustaining the ""Urban Forest"" and Creating Landscapes of Hope: An Interview with Cinder Hypki and Bryant ""Spoon"" Smith/ Giovanna Di Chiro Pedagogy 16. Teaching for Transformation: Lessons from Environmental Justice/ Robert Figueroa 17. Notes on Cross-Border Environmental Justice Education/ Soenke Zehle 18. Changing the Nature of Environmental Studies: Teaching Environmental Justice to ""Maintstream"" Students/ Steve Chase 19. Teaching Literature of Environmnetal Justice in an Advanced Gender Studies Course/ Jia-Yi Cheng-Levine"

Reviews

Brings environmental issues home and expands on ideas about justice with hope and possibilities for change. Voices from the Earth This diverse collection of interdisciplinary readings offers a sense of the breadth of the evolving environmental justice movement. . . . The editors weave a disparity of personal voices into a narrative that builds on previous works on environmental inequity and speaks of the realities of the political aspects of environmental versus corporate issues, analyzes literature for environmental justice concerns, and shares stories of the difficulties involved in teaching, informing, and advocating for this multidimensional cause. Recommended for all levels. Choice Offers a realistic and fresh look at the interlocked problems and problem-solving approaches to exploitation of land and of disenfranchised people. Although introducing the global scope of the problem, it also shows that communities working to solve environmental problems develop new skills, creativity, and powerful voices. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society A valuable contribution . . . The closing chapters . . . will also be helpful for the next generation of environmental justice humanities scholars as they look to achieve the delicate balance of authenticity of voice and the artistic expression of that voice. Environment This reader is, more than anything else, an effort to counter fear and uncertainty. It portrays activists winning battles, artists inspiring children, teachers begetting new activists. In the process, it takes the edges of the issue of environmental racism and stretches them. . . . This reader's nineteen essays are not restricted to any one group or to the United States only, and include many fresh and diverse voices. That is its strength. Electronic Green Journal

Brings environmental issues home and expands on ideas about justice with hope and possibilities for change. -- Voices from the Earth This diverse collection of interdisciplinary readings offers a sense of the breadth of the evolving environmental justice movement. . . . The editors weave a disparity of personal voices into a narrative that builds on previous works on environmental inequity and speaks of the realities of the political aspects of environmental versus corporate issues, analyzes literature for environmental justice concerns, and shares stories of the difficulties involved in teaching, informing, and advocating for this multidimensional cause. Recommended for all levels. -- Choice Offers a realistic and fresh look at the interlocked problems and problem-solving approaches to exploitation of land and of disenfranchised people. Although introducing the global scope of the problem, it also shows that communities working to solve environmental problems develop new skill

Author Information

Joni Adamson is Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Department of English and Director of The Environmental Humanities Initiative (EHI) at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University. Her books have helped to establish and expand the environmental humanities and environmental studies, including most recently, Humanities for the Environment (Routledge 2017); Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies—Conversations from Earth to Cosmos (Routledge 2016); Keywords for Environmental Studies (New York University Press, 2016), and American Indian Literature, Environmental Justice, and Ecocriticism (University of Arizona Press, 2001). In 2012, she served as President of the Association for the Study Literature and Environment (ASLE).

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