Reconstruction 6.3 (Summer 2006)
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Adamson, Mei Mei Evans, & Rachel Stein, Eds. The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics & Pedagogy. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 2002. $22.95
<1> The editors of The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, & Pedagogy (2002) chose to include at least five scholarly essays, comprising one third of the book's content, that directly address the theme of water, thus illuminating the importance of this topic in the realms of environmental and social justice. Contributors to the anthology, ranging from urban activists to literary and anthropological scholars, address a wide variety of national and international environmental disasters from the complex vantage point of the intersection among race, politics, and class, so that the inevitable blurring of the boundaries between traditionally distinct academic disciplines appears seamless. Environmental concerns pertaining to issues like sighting, clear cutting, conservation, and urban renewal are directly linked to the human realms of cultural memory, alternative ways of knowing, local governmental structures, and the savvy use of the media in gaining public support for under-the-radar battles. This dual emphasis of ecological and human concerns serves the editors' expressed purpose of moving the discourse on environmental justice "beyond an exclusive focus on documenting environmental racism" leading to a "politics of negativism" (12-13). The anthology is relevant to scholars and educators who are interested in better understanding the mechanisms whereby race and class collide to deny "equal access to natural resources that sustain life and culture" in disadvantaged populations (4). But the book goes a step further by offering hopeful models both of resistance and reform that can serve to galvanize effective activism.
<2> The Environmental Justice Reader contains nineteen essays that are divided into three sections broadly defined as "Politics," "Poetics" and "Pedagogy." The first section contains an article that typifies the kind of deft, interdisciplinary scholarship that bridges environmental science with social justice to make a case for ecological renewal through local, communal resistance. "Endangered Landscapes and Disappearing Peoples? Identity, Place, and Community in Ecological Politics" by Devon G. Pena, an environmental anthropologist, tackles the effects of rapacious clear cutting and the enclosure of formerly public lands on a long-standing "acequia" or ditch irrigation system that has, for hundreds of years, sustained a local population of Hispanic farmers in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. "The acequia," according to Pena, " is a profound accomplishment because it exemplifies the possibility that local cultures sometimes fulfill 'keystone' functions in ecosystems by providing habitat for numerous species of native flora and fauna" (59). In his article, Pena connects the ecological and cultural sustainability of the acequia to an "hispano conservation ethic" -- once thought lacking among farmers of the region -- and likens it to a, "political and cultural institution" that persists despite violent acts against it including mining, fencing, and clear cutting. The point of Pena's study is to highlight "the emergence of resistance identities in violently disturbed places…and the re-emplacement of local cultures against the odds" (73) -- fitting perfectly with one of the book's primary aims, which is to instill hope and offer models for change in the face of profound ecological violence.
<3> The interdisciplinary flavor of the Environmental Justice Reader, when applied to how the essays themselves are organized, translates as a weakness for the anthology as a whole. For example, the second section, "Poetics," contains an interview with two urban environmental activists who are concerned with the greening and beautifying of poor, inner city urban areas blighted by gang warfare, graffiti, and illegal dumping that municipal governments and police forces tend to ignore, thus continuing the cycle of human and environmental neglect. The interview tracks the miraculous successes of these two activists who use art and environmental education to transform former ghettos into "geographies of possibility" in which communities take over abandoned lots, plant gardens and transform formerly toxic spaces into communal gathering spots (306). Though the phrase "geography of possibility" is a very poetic way of describing the transformations these activists have initiated, I fail to see why this essay/interview is buried at the end of the "Poetics" section rather than being featured front and center in the "Politics" section where it seems to belong.
<4> Having recently used the Environmental Justice Reader as a required text in an undergraduate environmental awareness course, I discovered a weakness within the anthology in regards to definitions. Again, in the essay/interview, "Sustaining the 'Urban Forest' and Creating Landscapes of Hope," Bryant Smith re-defines the term forest to include densely packed urban spaces rather than conventionally defined forests. Bryant explains, "So, I have to say, 'Ok, the forest you're talking about is made up of trees, streams, and wildlife. My forest, which I call the 'urban forest' is made up of some trees, some green space, and the majority of the space is taken up by people and buildings and all the issues we have to deal with'" (290). This argument is fresh, highly relevant to environmental justice, and controversial. It is a politically charged argument that Bryant himself admits to defending repeatedly in roundtables with more traditional environmental activists and heads of governmental agencies. The majority of the students in my class could not accept this definition of "forest" nor its political implications. A follow up essay offering not just a casual reference to this topic, but a defense of it in an interdisciplinary/ scholarly sense would prepare educators for the kinds of resistance that may arise in more conservative settings. In addition, such a complementary text would perhaps encourage readers of this anthology to create the deeper kinds of connections between matters of human and natural renewal that Bryant and the editors hope to engender.
<5> Though it may appear as though I have belabored the point of organization and omission, I do so to underscore the importance of the scholarship contained within the anthology and of the relevance of the topic of environmental justice to the larger environmental movement both nationally and internationally. This anthology defines environmental justice from nearly every possible angle and thus both distinguishes it as a movement (from more traditional, conservation-based activism) and calls for vital changes in the poetics and politics of saving our environment.
Kathleen A. Ahearn
University of Denver