ENST 383 - Race, Gender, and Environmental Justice

Credit Hours: 4
Frequency of Offering: Offered in alternate years, usually in the spring semester

Environmental Justice social movements work to combat the inequitable distribution of negative environmental impacts in communities of color and low-income communities and seeks fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, class, national origin, and education level with respect to environmental politics, their implementation, and their enforcement. In this class, we will use feminist perspectives to explore the impacts intersecting axes of difference have on the development, mitigation, and experiences of environmental justice, the processes that cause these injustices, and what activists are doing to combat these injustices. We will focus on a U.S. context (in the interest of time), while acknowledging the interconnected and global context within which these processes occur. We will begin by exploring the theoretical and political roots of the environmental justice movement and the role feminist perspectives have in our understandings of these processes. We will discuss the history of the movement, the relationship to mainstream environmentalism, feminist perspectives on the relationship between gender, sexuality, race, and the environment, the impact of intersecting social processes of race, class, gender, and place, how we come to understand what justice constitutes and the role knowledge production plays in these processes. We will then apply these concepts to specific case studies to further explore the implication and lived experiences of environmental injustices and how environmental justice activists work to bring attention to their struggles and create positive change in their communities.

Prerequisite(s): ENST 100.