Progressive Perspectives
Can Racial Justice Be Strategically Planned?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Paul Henry Hawkins
It may be said that Critical Race Theory has reached two conflicting conclusions about racism in the postcolonial world. The first is that racism is a permanent feature of our social order—that its power, now ossified, ensures all victories over it are illusory. The second is that racism must be permanently dismantled—that any permitted vestige is an existential threat to our every aspiration of creating sustainable societies, communities, and organizations. Whether this conflict is resolvable may be as much a matter of philosophy as practice. Philosophically, resolving the conflict may require us to discern whether there are sustainable racial justice end points or only transitory racial justice journeys. In practice, this may require us to concomitantly discern whether structural changes can be gained via concerted planning and mobilization, or whether the only achievable ends are occasional respites found during moments of resistance. In furtherance of these discernments, this paper takes a historiographical approach. By analyzing the aftermath of discrete historical events, evidence will be presented to help readers understand which prerequisites, if any exist, are essential to supplanting the permanence of racism with a sustainable racial justice order.
Green Criminology: The Problem of Legal (vs. illegal) Harms to the Environment
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Spencer S Stober
The emerging field of “green criminology” works to seek justice for both crimes and legal harms to the environment. One approach in green criminology is empowered by laws and regulations that protect the environment, thus making it possible to seek justice for crimes against the environment. A second approach is empowered by those who call out human actions that are legal yet harmful to the environment. This second approach can lead to environmental regulation and laws, even at the international level when consensus on harm is achieved, as was the case when the 1987 Montreal Protocol successfully set in motion the banning of chlorofluorocarbons that are harmful to the ozone layer. Today, the ozone layer is in recovery, and ozone-depleting-substances are regulated. In contrast, the 1994 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its many extensions to regulate carbon emissions have proven to be a much more difficult task. Carbon dioxide is an essential part of the natural carbon cycle, but in excess, it can be viewed as serious anthropogenic harm to the environment. Greenhouse gas emissions are just one of many examples where humanity overloads naturals system with substances that should be harmless to the environment. This paper considers several questions. What are “legal harms” to the environment? Why do they often persist without regulation? What are the confounding factors that prevent the regulation of legal harms to the environment? How might leaders seek justice for human actions that are legal, yet harmful to the environment?
Creating the World We Want to Live in: Reconnecting for a Sustainable Future
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Beth Ann Falstad
Human connection is fundamental for a shift toward sustainable societies. Small groups of people working in response to their unique conditions and environment can find joy in the co-creation of a shared existence. A collaborative network of related efforts can contribute to broader understanding of resilience and adaptation. Such an approach ameliorates both pervasive loneliness and extreme inequity that have grown from modern consumerist individualism, through a strong focus on trust, respect, and authenticity. I have created a structure to pursue these goals as an applied sustainability researcher and artist. First, I present a tool that measures and guides community-based work to support the values of equity, justice, transformation, and connection. I follow this with an in-depth process of qualitative inquiry grounded in an applied participatory design project to gain insight on the act of building connection across perceived divides. Finally, I share “The Building Community:” the group and process I established with formerly homeless individuals who are co-designing a tiny home ecovillage of transitional supportive housing for un-housed people in Skid Row, Los Angeles. This research indicates an opportunity for community-based researchers to further incorporate support for the rights of nature, decolonization efforts and preservation of the commons into their projects. Flexible structure, consistency, balanced effort and shared decision making proved to build a strong foundation for group processes centered on trust. Finally, The Building Community showed that intimate local groups can produce abundant and creative sustainability solutions when partnered with academic guidance and resources.
