Environmental Justice, Literature, and Service Learning: Putting Theory into Practice

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Environmental Justice, Literature, and Service
Learning Putting Theory into Practice

• Presentation for the biannual conference of the
• Association for Literature and Environment (ASLE)
• June 12-16, 2007
• Wofford College, South Carolina
• Dr. Greta Gaard, Dept. of English, UW-River Falls

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Environmental justice movement responds to
environmental racism, classism, sexism,
anti-naturism/speciesism (anti-toxics)

• Radioactive waste on Native lands
• Landfills and hazardous wastes in African
  American and Latino communities
• Banned pesticides exported to Third World
• Toxic labor conditions for farmworkers,
• maquila workers, sweatshop workers
• Akwesasne Mothers Milk Project
  connects indigenous women,
  water, whales
• 1991 expanded to include public health, worker
  safety, land use, transportation, housing
  resource allocation, community empowerment

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Why teach EJ lit? Personal/Political/Literary
Motivations

• Feminist framework for viewing environmental
  justice
• Val Plumwood (1993), Feminism and the Mastery of
  Nature
• master model self/other
• Expanding students conceptual frameworks, making
  connections btw. social and environmental justice
• Literature illuminates life, offers intellectual
  and emotional connection to real issues

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Outcomes EJ, Literature, Research

• Studying politics alone would not have given me
  any sort of connection to important issues. The
  politics get really boring and it would be easy
  to tune out and just do what I needed to do to
  get through the class.
• The literature gave me people to connect and
  identify with. It made it easy to see how these
  characters that I cared about were being
  affected.
• After reading the literature, we did research to
  see how the things presented in the novels really
  play out in the real world. To find out that
  these things are actually going on and affecting
  real people is very powerful.
• -Katie Austin, Spring 2007

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EJ Literature Service Learning course
contexts at UWRF

• literature fiction, poetry, nonfiction
  essays, speeches, websites, social action writing
• ethical citizenship UWRFs General Education
  criteria
• Identify individual and collective
  responsibilities to the social natural
  environment of community, nation, world
• Focus on the process of decision-making regarding
  values ethics in personal, professional,
  civic life

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SOTL Research QuestionsEJ and Service Learning

• What could students learn by triangulating EJ
  lit, research, their own service learning
  experiences?
• Is service learning an integral component for
  teaching EJ literature?

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ENG 228 Course Groundwork

• Literary texts diverse and international
  literature of many genres, reflective of the
  movement
• Learning Community discussion, reflection,
  goal-setting and assessment
• 3 reflective papers on course themes
• Civic engagement or Service learning
• Portfolio of coursework, introduced by
  self-reflective and self-evaluative letter
• Researching real world correlations for the
  literature
• Service learning practicing ethical citizenship

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EJ Literature Themes

• Ecology Identity Where We Live, Who We Are
• What we Eat
• Where we Work
• Social Power, Ecological Power
• -gt civic engagement
• Economy, Ecology, Globalization
• For a Future to be Possible

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The Literature

• Ecology Identity Readings from Langston
  Hughes, Margo Tamez, Gary Snyder, Gloria
  Andaldúa, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Rachel Carson, Wendell
  Berry, Vandana Shiva, Alice Walker, Sandra
  Steingraber
• Food Ruth Ozeki. My Year of Meats.
• Work Ana Castillo. So Far From God.
• Power Water (Hogan, Solar Storms),
  Nuclear (Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge),
  Oil (Marnie Mueller, Green Fires).
• Globalization Karen Yamashita,
  Tropic of Orange.
• EJ Future Deming Savoy, eds.
  The Colors of Nature Culture,
  Identity, and the Natural World.

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Videos as Narrative Literature

• Rachel Carson
• Diet for a New America
• Zoned for Slavery
• Power, Good Nukes, Oil on Ice
• Black Gold

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EJ Lit Service Learning Phase One

• Group projects linked to the topic of power
  (water, nuclear, oil)
• Service learning as engaged citizenship can
  include
• Internet research engagement w/EJ organization,
  online activism, research or letter-writing
• Collaborative role-play exploring ethical
  perspectives strategies for resolving conflicts
  in a situation related to your topic, performed
  on or off campus
• Service learning of at least 10 hours.

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Outcomes Group 1 Water

• Educational Campaign
• Creating a PowerPoint illustrating
• Hydroelectric power generation, impact,
  alternatives
• Presenting PPT and information on campus
• Flyers promoting the event
• November 2, 2006 600 p.m. (18 people)
• Posting the event
• Facebook
• My Space

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Group 2 Nuclear

• PPT on Nuclear Power
• from Los Alamos NV Test Site to Yucca Mountain,
  Chernobyl, Prairie Island
• Strategies of Civic Engagement
• Flyers from ppt.
• Facebook group
• Chalking
• Letters to Xcel Energy

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Group 3 Oil

• PPT on Oil in the Amazon (Ecuador, Venezuela,
  Argentina) Texaco
• Chevron-Texaco.ppt
• Role-play performance on tensions between oil
  executives, govt. officials, SA citizens,
  indigenous coalitions w/intl. activists as
  strategic solution

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Student Reflective Essays

• Through this class I have held an on-campus
  presentation, emailed environmental justice
  groups, signed petitions on the internet, and
  been made aware of several environmental justice
  issues.
• I plan on sharing what Ive learned with
  everybody who ever brings up EJ issues, talks
  about the big name corporations Ive learned
  about, or asks whats going on in the world
  concerning indigenous people. Im glad I got the
  chance to get up and do something and that I was
  challenged to do more than just read whats going
  on in the world.

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Student Reflective Essays (pt. 2)

• I do think the activism was a bit much, I dont
  think you can really demand someone be an
  activist, but you can ask to carry on the issues,
  spread the knowledge to the ignorant, and make an
  attempt to make your life better and the worlds
  life better likewise.
• To demand someone be an activist is sort of
  hypocritical, since an activist is someone who is
  opposing the demands of an oppressor of sorts
  Its like someone making it a law to think for
  yourself, and vehemently enforcing it.

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Phase One Evaluation

• What succeeded?
• Civic engagement via physical, face-to-face, and
  virtual spaces
• One group of students did connect with off-campus
  activists others wrote letters to toxic
  corporations
• Gen. Ed. Goal 1 for ethical citizenship
  Identify individual and collective
  responsibilities to the social natural
  environment of community, nation, world
• identify factors of social natural environment
  that influence ethical decision-making

• What fell short?
• Students physically remained on campus
• Civic engagement misperceived as taking a
  specific viewpoint
• Gen. Ed. Goal 2 Focus on the process of
  decision-making regarding values ethics in
• personal,
• professional,
• civic life
• evaluate
• ethical conflict
• and ways to
• address it to
• serve the world

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EJ Lit Service Learning, Phase Two Service
Learning in the Community

• Service learning guidelines (handout)
• Service learning assessment paper
• Service learning activity log (time, hours,
  tasks, reflections), documents created
• Assessment paper (750-1000 words)
• Service learning placements opportunities
  (handout in syllabus)
• Service learning presentations in class

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Service learning guidelines

• What is service learning?
• Meets community needs, fosters civic
  responsibility, enhances the academic
  curriculum
• Combines advocacy activism with classroom
  learning
• Promotes application of abstract concepts to
  actual situations
• How do you choose a service learning placement?
• What EJ issues are you interested in?
• What do you want to know after completing
• this experience?
• What skills can you offer? Develop?
• How does service learning work?
• Read Do Reflect -- Write

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Placements OpportunitiesIndividuals, Groups

• Al Gores Global Warming Slide Show
• Habitat for Humanity
• Kinnikinick Land Trust
• YMCA Teen Center
• United Way Food Drops
• Community Food Pantry restocking

• Soup Kitchen
• Animal Shelter
• Trout Unlimited Rush River Clean-Up Day
• UWRF Volunteer Day
• Center for Hmong Arts Talent
• Mpls. Food Pantry for HIV families

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Home for Life Animal Shelter
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Kinnikinnick Senior Center
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Service Learning Outcomes food hunger

• Going into the church, I had my preconceived
  notions of what type of people would be there
  to eat. every vision was gone. There were
  people and families of all walks of life, waiting
  to eat. helping serve the meals has made me see
  that hunger doesnt affect just one type of
  person.
• Heather Hanson

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Outcomes United Way Food Drop

• As I was working, I found the first principle of
  EJ reverberating in my mind it affirms the
  sacredness of Mother Earth, ecological unity, and
  interdependence of all species, and the right to
  be free from ecological destruction. Through
  hands-on experience, it became evident that
  ecological unity and interdependence of species
  is vital in order to secure the right to be free
  from ecological destruction. Emily Syring

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Outcomes soup kitchen

• Upon first hearing about this event, I was under
  the impression that we would be feeding people
  who were in great need of the food. Once the
  event began, though, I discovered this was not
  the case. Families, lonely senior citizens, girl
  scouts, and volunteers all enjoyed the feast.
  After I left, I had no uplifting feelings about
  what I had just partaken in as I did not think it
  made any difference whatsoever.
• Amy Anderson, Spring 2007

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Outcomes Rush River Cleanup

• The area we were in is pretty far out into the
  country, so there wasnt as much trash as I
  expected. Sarah had explained that the main
  thing to look for was scrap metal, and there was
  a list of certain things to avoid, due to
  meth-lab dumpings. If I had been in charge, I
  would have targeted a more urban, polluted river
  that really needed the group effort to clean up.
  I would have organized more of a massive effort
  and networked with other organizations. The
  part I didt agree with was the distance we all
  had to drive to clean up a miniscule amount of
  trash in a river thats use is limited to the
  people who fish it. It almost seems like the
  river is privatized in that way.
• Krystal Hoppe, Spring 2007

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The Rush River Trout Unlimited
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Rush River Cleanup
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Outcomes facing the opposition

• One particular business owner didnt deem the
  brochures announcing the new Free Health Clinic
  for underinsured people appropriate for his
  clientele. I was mad when I left that building.
  Why wouldnt you want to help those who need
  it?
• Lacey Felmlee

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Phase Two Evaluation

• Gen. Ed. Goal 1, identify responsibilities
  identify factors that influence ethical
  decision-making
• Increased self-awareness through service learning

• What succeeded?
• Getting students off-campus with specific
  placements
• Civic engagement via physical spaces
• Individuals and groups
• Deeper insight into EJ issues, applications of
  the readings
• (Re) new interest in civic engagement

• What fell short?
• Delayed placements
• Gen. Ed. Goal 2 evaluate ethical conflict
  ways to address it to serve the world

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Evaluate Ethical Conflict Evaluate Ways to
Address It

• Street rallies protests
• Road blocks blockades
• Coalition-building
• Using the media
• Boycotts
• Using public space (internet, flyers, posters,
  chalk, performance)

• Letter writing
• Addressing schools and churches
• Running for public office
• Instituting or adapting human rights
  proclamations
• Writing / passing EJ legislation

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Student Responses to Service Learning Experiences

• Evaluate ethical conflict Students saw
  environmental justice problems as a result of
  cultural, governmental, and economic forces
  combined -gt little interest in stakeholder
  approach to resolving conflict.
• In SW rural WI, activism is more single-issue
  than EJ activism .
• Nature is defined as wild, rural, or non-urban.
• Most activism is issue-oriented rather than
  systems-oriented.
• Students were very attached to immediate results,
  feel-good experiences.

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Reflections Future Directions

• Guidelines for service learning specific
  placements
• Individual or group, self-selected
• Spaces of civic engagement, virtual and physical
• Reporting findings to the General Education Cmte.

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Future Directions Solutions!

• While I explored the current problems and my
  theories as to why they are occurring, I rarely
  addressed how to fix these problems or how these
  problems could create even greater conflicts in
  the future. If I were to rewrite my papers, I
  would focus more on proposing solutions to the
  problems I addressed and I would discuss possible
  outcomes if changes do not occur.
• Emily Syring, Spring 2007

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Resources

• Institute for Service Learning at UW-Milwaukee
  www.uwm.edu/Dept/ISL
• Campus Compact www.compact.org
• Big Dummys Guide to Service Learning
  http//www.fiu.edu/time4chg/Library/bigdummy.html
  
• Rutgers Citizenship and Service Education program
  http//case.rutgers.edu/
• National Service-Learning Clearinghouse(NSLC)
    http//www.servicelearning.org/resources_tools/l
  inks/index.html
• Service-Learning Advocacy Action Brief
  http//www.service-learningpartnership.org/aab

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Events leading to the environmental justice
movement

• 1982 Warren County, NC - predominantly black
  and poor residents oppose a polychlorinated
  biphenyl (PCB) disposal landfill in their
  community.
• 1987 Toxic Wastes and Race, a study
  commissioned by the United Church of Christ
  Commission for Racial Justice
• Correlating waste facility sites and
  demographics, the study found race was the most
  powerful variable predicting location.
• Other variables were poverty, land values,
• and home ownership.
• 1991 First National People of Color
• Environmental Leadership Summit 4 days
• in Washington D.C.

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1991 First National People of Color Environmental
Leadership Summit

• Broadened the EJ movement beyond the anti-toxics
  focus to include
• Public health
• Worker safety
• Land use
• Transportation
• Housing
• Resource allocation
• Community empowerment
• Built a multi-racial grassroots movement around
  environmental economic justice
• Created a 17-point Principles of Environmental
  Justice http//www.ejrc.cau.edu/princej.html

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17 Principles of Environmental Justice

• 1. affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth,
  ecological unity and the interdependence of all
  species, and the right to be free from ecological
  destruction.
• 2. demands that public policy be based on mutual
  respect and justice for all peoples, free from
  any form of discrimination or bias.
• 3. mandates the right to ethical, balanced and
  responsible uses of land and renewable resources
  in the interest of a sustainable planet for
  humans and other living things.
• 4. calls for universal protection from nuclear
  testing, extraction, production and disposal of
  toxic/hazardous wastes and poisons and nuclear
  testing that threaten the fundamental right to
  clean air, land, water, and food.
• 5. affirms the fundamental right to political,
  economic, cultural and environmental
  self-determination of all peoples.
• 6. demands the cessation of the production of all
  toxins, hazardous wastes, and radioactive
  materials, and that all past and current
  producers be held strictly accountable to the
  people for detoxification and the containment at
  the point of production.

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17 Principles (contd)

• 7. demands the right to participate as equal
  partners at every level of decision-making
• 8. affirms the right of all workers to a safe and
  healthy work environment, without being forced to
  choose between an unsafe livelihood and
  unemployment. It also affirms the right of those
  who work at home to be free from environmental
  hazards.
• 9. protects the right of victims of environmental
  injustice to receive full compensation and
  reparations for damages as well as quality health
  care.
• 10. considers governmental acts of environmental
  injustice a violation of international law, the
  Universal Declaration On Human Rights, and the
  United Nations Convention on Genocide.
• 11. must recognize a special legal and natural
  relationship of Native Peoples to the U.S.
  government through treaties, agreements,
  compacts, and covenants affirming sovereignty and
  self-determination.

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17 Principles (contd)

• 12. affirms the need for urban and rural
  ecological policies to clean up and rebuild our
  cities and rural areas in balance with nature,
  honoring the cultural integrity of all our
  communities, and providing fair access for all to
  the full range of resources.
• 13. calls for the strict enforcement of
  principles of informed consent, and a halt to the
  testing of experimental reproductive and medical
  procedures and vaccinations on people of color.
• 14. opposes the destructive operations of
  multi-national corporations.
• 15. opposes military occupation, repression and
  exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and
  other life forms.
• 16. calls for the education of present and future
  generations which emphasizes social and
  environmental issues, based on our experience and
  an appreciation of our diverse cultural
  perspectives.
• 17. requires that we, as individuals, make
  personal and consumer choices to consume as
  little of Mother Earth's resources and to produce
  as little waste as possible.