Jean Beaman presents some of her research into race and police violence, and the response to such violence, in France. Explicitly putting recent French incidents and patterns in comparative perspective with those involving law enforcement and African Americans in the United States, Beaman finds some similarities and many differences in how social mobilization against police violence is framed and carried out. In particular, she focuses on how French republicanism makes it more difficult to organize around claims based on the status of marginalized social identities (black, Muslim) as compared to the role played by BlackLivesMatter in the United States.
activism
In Service of Anthropology: A Profile of Danilyn Rutherford
Danilyn Rutherford, president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, discusses her research, the future of the field of anthropology, and the impact of her SSRC International Doctoral Research Fellowship.
How Movements Like #MeToo Can Address Marginalization, Isolation, and Alienation Among Activists
Omotayo Jolaosho, 2009 International Dissertation Research Fellowship recipient, recently published an article about South African women’s activism in the journal Signs titled "Awkward Activisms: Gender and Embodied Mobilization in a Postapartheid South…
Pursuing an Integrative Approach to Ending Gender-Based Violence: A Conversation with Ruth Lekakeny
Ruth Nekura Lekakeny, a 2017–18 Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa Doctoral Dissertation Completion fellow, is a feminist human rights lawyer from Kenya. She spoke with SSRC Program Director, Thomas Asher, about…
Toward More Just Environments
by Deborah ChengDeborah Cheng, curator of “Just Environments,” concludes the series with a look back at the diverse set of essays that connect environmental justice to social-structural, political, and cultural inequalities. Cheng reviews the ways in which contributors to the series addressed the nature of environmental (in)justices, touching on a wide range of subjects across various regions. The authors also analyzed how individuals, communities, and social movements strategized and acted to redress injustice, and the ways knowledge and research can be part of both deepening and reversing inequalities at the intersection of environmental change and political and economic forces.
What Standing Rock Teaches Us About Environmental Justice
by Jaskiran DhillonJaskiran Dhillon continues the “Just Environments” series with a reflection on the Standing Rock Sioux’s resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, asking us to consider what this struggle teaches us about the dominant environmental justice movement. Pointing to a longstanding history of settler colonialism, which has heavily relied on environmental destruction and extraction, Dhillon argues that environmental justice must be framed as a struggle for Indigenous sovereignty. She connects Standing Rock to multiple frontlines of resistance around the world, highlighting broader linkages between political strategies advancing decolonization and the environmental justice movement.
What Is Activist Research?
by Items EditorsIn an archival essay from 2001, Charles Hale makes the case for “activist research” that is engaged with and seeks to address key problems faced by research “subjects.” Emerging out of the Council’s Global Security and Cooperation program, Hale argues for how such research—and the participation of organizations and individuals in its conduct, interpretation, and use—can be both of high quality and impactful for social actors. Hale also notes the tensions and contradictions that must be navigated in conducting activist research.
Fighting for Climate Justice in California at the Local Level
by Manuel PastorManuel Pastor’s contribution to the “Just Environments” series interrogates how social movement organizations, often led by communities of color, pushed for progressive reforms in California. Through a set of sophisticated tactics—including mobilizing new constituents, marshalling research, proposing new policies, and working with political figures—these organizations played critical roles in shaping more equitable and sustainable agendas. Pastor suggests the success and lessons associated with California’s story offer one path out of our current national state of racial, environmental, and economic anxiety.
Moving the Battlefields: Foreign Jurisdictions and Environmental Justice in Nigeria
by Ebunoluwa O. PopoolaIn this “Just Environments” essay, Ebunoluwa Popoola examines the transfer of environmental lawsuits from Nigerian courts to European ones as a means of circumventing legal obstacles at the national level. Communities in the Niger Delta face multiple barriers when suing multinational oil companies in Nigerian courts, in part because of high costs, delays, and a restrictive interpretation of legal standing. Moving these cases to foreign jurisdictions, where the multinational companies are based, has been one avenue through which environmental justice has been achieved.
Environmental Humanities and Sustainable Modernity in Asia (and Beyond)
by Prasenjit DuaraPrasenjit Duara makes a strong case for the relevance of the humanities in understanding the human dimensions of environmental and climate change. Multiple aspects of the environmental crisis of the Anthropocene, not least questions of environmental justice in efforts to adapt to and mitigate climate change, can be engaged through humanistic inquiry. With a focus on Asia, Duara argues that questions of identity, representation, religion, ethics, knowledge systems, and more—central concerns of the humanities—are deeply embedded in imagining how to respond to present environmental challenges.