Embedded Files
Session Objective: to introduce the class and prepare ourselves for a semester of shared learning in a new environment
The first unit of Climates of Resistance is about (dis)orientation. “Orientation” has several related meanings, many of which we will tap into for our introductory weeks.
Firstly, “familiarisation with something”, as we get to know the class set-up and course themes. During our first session together, we will get to know each other and the course through inter-group introductions and a consensus-building exercise creating community guidelines for discussion. We will also situate our study of racism within London through a trip to the British Museum.
About the Learning Log: Throughout the semester, you will be expected to spend self-paced time exploring and reflecting on a curated set of resources before in-person class discussions. All required materials are freely available online. If you have any trouble accessing anything, please email Becca at any time.
Your Learning Log for each week needs to be completed by the end of the day on Monday. You will review multimedia materials and respond to a variety of prompts. Google Forms will autosave your work as you go, and automatically send a copy to your email once you submit your answers. That email will include a link allowing you to edit your Learning Log – so you can always go back and make additional notes based on group discussion and new insights throughout the course.
Becca will regularly review your entries, and you can ask her for feedback and an indicative grade at any time. You may make changes to any of your entries before Friday, 16 December, when the full Log is due. Your final grade will be based on completeness and the demonstration of critical thinking in comparing and contrasting information about environmental racism from a variety of contexts. You can access each Learning Log from the course calendar.
Course Introduction
Value: the use of art for teaching and learning, by checking out Uman’s “I will sit here and wait for you” and reading about the role of art in this course.
“I will sit here and wait for you” (2019)
In keeping with this course’s anti-racist stance and environmental justice theory’s focus on recognition, all required materials for Climates of Resistance originate from Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, and minority voices. Acknowledging valued heritage and effective tactics for collective action, at least one piece of visual art that relates to the theme will be featured in each session. Today’s piece is titled “I will sit here and wait for you”, reflecting an invitation to enter an anti-racist community of learning (and our Virtual Take-Off, as Becca sits in London waiting for you to join her in person!).
About the Artist: After being born in Somalia, growing up in a Muslim household in Kenya, and living in Denmark, Uman emigrated to the US. The gender fluid, self-taught artist is now based in rural upstate New York. A sense of displacement pervades Uman’s practice, as black and gold silhouettes of camels and water vessels abut collaged and painted self-portraits that are at once glamorous and grotesque. Disused and salvaged pieces of furniture become talismanic sculptures that carry textual poetic interlocutions and fuse with animal bones as homespun ritual objects. The eerie stillness of a bird in the rural night becomes an avatar for the artist, a cipher of a self-crafted identity of a singular strength.
Discover: more about “Climates of Resistance” through the course description and accompanying spoken word piece.
This interdisciplinary course critiques systemic environmental inequalities with particular attention to the experiences – and active resistance – of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour in the 21st century. Students will start by examining the concepts of intersectionality and systemic injustice to position themselves within current structures. The course’s three main units are then structured around key pillars in the environmental justice movement: distribution, recognition, and participation.
Participants will explore a variety of contexts and can choose to focus on particular issues and/or communities through their work. Case studies range from anti-gold mining efforts in Pascua-Lama on the Chilean border with Argentina to fog-harvesting with Amazigh communities in Southwest Morocco; site visits address issues from urban planning hazards in London to Indigenous memorial politics in Gravesend.
This spoken word piece summarises the environmental justice framework and ethos guiding “Climates of Resistance”.
Course Poem
(click to read transcript)
In my country:
Latinx Americans are twice as likely as their white counterparts to face toxic pollution
Black men are overrepresented by a factor of three in our criminal “justice” institution
And colonialism forced Indigenous Nations onto contaminated land as a “solution”
It’s time to dismantle disparate distribution
In this world:
It is assumed that women, queer folx, disabled people, children, and men of Color will take a place of submission
Acknowledging marginalised stakeholders somehow requires someone else’s permission
Concern for non-human animals and the needs of future generations seems a guaranteed omission
It’s time to realise radical recognition
In our communities:
No longer are we willing to wait for change, breath bated in anticipation
Because we know that we have had to fight for every stage of emancipation
And making space for equitable decision-making is an ally’s true occupation
It’s time to promote public participation
Welcome to “Climates of Resistance”
This class is inspired
by America’s March on Washington and Australia’s Aboriginal Tent Embassy
legislative protests that have left us a legacy
by disabled organisers at the 504 Sit-In
demonstrating how good laws are written
by the Black trans womxn of Stonewall
They who planted seeds that have grown, tall
in the face of oppression, knowing the persistence of resistance isn’t in question
by the Freedom Riders, providers of a history
promising us the mystery of justice,
and that it’s not just us
As the Indigenous youth of Standing Rock create a landing block for defiance
We know diversity
doesn’t mean adversity
Struggles are connected,
wrongs must be corrected,
rights can be collected
When we follow in the wake of these giants
And that is what this class means to do
To uncover the patriarchal white supremacy that exists
While acknowledging the power within us that resists
We use art to teach
Because we know art can reach
The parts of us others would have silenced –
Knowing they’re the parts of us able to end this violence
We were born into a world decayed
But from the moment we were born, we remade it
Even as we were conceived, we swayed it
And now the ideas we conceive can aid it
Because this world is ill-conceived
But we believe
We can unweave the mess
We can achieve redress
We can perceive success
And that is what we swear today
Promising we can share a way
To a future where we care to play
By rules that let us dare to say:
“Is this a class or a movement?”
This is our existence.
This is our insistence.
Welcome, to “Climates of Resistance”.
Understand: what is meant by “environmental racism” and “environmental justice” by watching Becca’s overview video.
Environmental Racism & Justice
(click to read transcript)
This course is about environmental racism, taught through the lens of environmental justice. For starters, then: what do these two terms mean?
Racism is everywhere, in all of our systems. That includes environmental policies and planning.
In the United States, for example, landfills, factories, and toxic areas are likely to be located near predominantly Black, Indigenous, and communities of colour. At the same time, Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Colour are more likely than their white counterparts to live in a food desert – an area with limited access to nutritious and affordable food.
Racism impacts your environmental risk and your environmental access. Simply put, that’s environmental racism.
As a field of study, environmental justice works to understand those patterns. Theories of justice are concerned with both outcomes and processes - what does the world look like, and why? How did it get that way? Why does it stay that way? What could change it?
Because we don’t just want to study things that are unfair. Environmental justice is also a framework for action. It is a movement that addresses environmental racism. Environmental justice is about ensuring that human interaction with nature is equitable. Through environmental justice, communities claim power to change unjust outcomes and demand fairer processes.
When we work on environmental justice, we can think about three main issues:
Distribution. Who is benefitting from the environment? Who is carrying environmental costs? Those are usually different groups – the people emitting the most carbon and contributing most to climate change, for example, are the least vulnerable to its negative impacts like sea level rise, extreme weather, and pollution.
Recognition. Who are we thinking about when we make environmental policies? Corporate elites or those who are marginalised? Citizens of our own country, or all persons? Only those alive today, or also future generations? And what about non-human animals and nature itself?
Participation. Who gets to make decisions about nature and resource use? Who is excluded from decision-making and the corridors of power? How can we create not only outcomes but also processes that recognise the diversity of stakeholders and their contributions?
Racism is everywhere. But it doesn’t have to be. Environmental justice is about changing that reality.
Review: the course syllabus. You can get a more visual overview of the Unit Themes and Learning Objectives on the Course Website frontpage. Add key dates to your calendar to keep yourself on track throughout the semester.
NAT-GEO300 - Climates of Resistance - Spring 2024 Syllabus.pdfGetting to Know Each Other
Learn: more about your professor by exploring her Virtual Office.
Prepare: a fun, memorable introduction about yourself. Your intro should include the following:
a TikTok, film clip, or song excerpt (maximum 60 seconds) that ‘captures your essence’. It can be serious or silly. It could reflect your mood, a core belief, a favourite hobby, etc. Profanity that serves a purpose is fine; racial slurs and biased language are not. Your submission will be screened in class: choose something you’re happy to share!
a 100-word statement about yourself and why you have chosen this media to introduce yourself. (You’ll be asked to read this aloud after your piece is shared.)
A few examples from Becca are below...good luck!
Example 1: Film/TV Clip
“I am and always will be the optimist. The hoper of far-flung hopes; the dreamer of improbable dreams.”
This clip is from “Doctor Who”, an iconic British sci-fi show. It showcases several parts of me:
1. I’m a geek. Like, it’s bad. Nerd to the max.
2. I’m absurdly positive (or, as others might say have said, “obnoxiously cheerful”) for someone who spends her life studying war and injustice.
3. The actor in this clip, Matt Smith, also went to the University of East Anglia in Norwich.
4. Chair spinning in the midst of a serious situation? Classic Becca. Definitely.
Example 2: TikTok
Here’s the thing about academics.
We’re annoying. Of course we are. We spend our entire professional lives exploring one minuscule crumb of one tiny slice of one small pie, on a planet full of bazillions of pies, in a universe full of gazillions of planets.
And we like it.
So as we get rewarded by the Ivory Tower of Academic Capitalism for producing monographs (a fancy word for ‘book’, because we’re so self-centred we made our own phrase for that) only five other people will be interested in...yell at us to spend at least as much time making knowledge accessible.
Practicing Anti-Racist Learning
Review: Course Policy #1, partially reproduced below, as you view this week’s piece of teaching art.
Climates of Resistance involves critical and open discussion and introspection about deeply personal, political, and difficult subjects. When approaching such topics, it is important to acknowledge ‘the wiggle factor’. Discomfort in class may mean that problematic preconceptions or implicit biases are being challenged. These ‘growing pains’ are positive, productive, and to be encouraged. Personal attacks or targeting, on the other hand, will not be tolerated. Respect and empathy are critical for a productive learning environment.
During the first few group meetings, the class will create principles for discussion through consensus-building. These guidelines will inform community interaction for the semester.
Consider: which guidelines for discussion and principles of community are important for you to feel welcome, supported, and challenged in this class. Identify any questions about, objections to, or edits for the Course Policies, especially the Principles for Anti-Racist Learning Becca reviews in the video below. You can also make a note of any additional ideas you would like to raise for community consideration, thinking about:
how dialogue should take place,
how you would like to hold each other accountable, and
how you want the group to handle any disagreements or tensions.
Becca’s Approach to Anti-Racist Learning
(click to read transcript)
As we begin exploring complex issues that can be challenging, I would like to take a few minutes to reflect on what anti-racist learning can look like, and highlight some tools on the course website to aid this process.
This class is designed to help us critically reflect on deeply personal, political subjects. Tackling topics of racism, bias, and inequality isn’t always very fun - especially when we start to realise the ways we benefit from injustice and inadvertently support oppression. You’re probably going to have a few uncomfortable moments. That’s okay. We’re here to learn together and support each other as we figure things out.
One of the first things we’ll do as a class is create guidelines for our conversations. We’ll talk openly and decide together how we want to address concerns about biased language, disagreements between us, and other issues that arise.
A few starting ideas that are important to remember:
We’re all learning. None of us are experts. We come to this class knowing a lot based on our own experience, but missing a lot as well. We’ll learn best if we respectful share our own perspectives while valuing others, and always acknowledging the reality of systemic injustice.
We’re all oppressed. Each one of us has some part of our identity that is disadvantaged in this world. But we’re all also oppressor. We all have aspects that benefit us, relative to others. We need to recognise that duality, and actively empower ourselves to use our privilege without abusing it.
We’re all imperfect. We’re going to mess up. That includes me. We are so surrounded by these issues that we all hold prejudices, even if they’re unintentional and unconscious. We need to work to confront and unlearn them - and we want this class to be a place where we hold each other accountable, without attacking people for mistakes.
We’re all practicing. Anti-racism is a lifelong process of learning and growing, no matter who we are. We’re not going to suddenly arrive at a magical destination at the end of this class, and have sorted ourselves out. But together, we can get in the habit of practicing often, and hopefully, getting really good.
The “Course Policies” page on our class website has more details about anti-racist learning, and resources to help us identify and rectify our own language, which can accidentally enforce everyday ableism and bias.
If at any time in this course you experience or witness bias, are concerned with any language being used, or are trying to figure something out, the website also has a Feedback Form and Concern Card. This can be entirely anonymous. Please use it anytime you aren’t sure, or would like to bring attention to a problem. There is also an Anonymous Ask & Answer Board on the website. Use that page to ask clarifying questions about terms and get clarity on anything you have always wondered about but been a bit hesitant to ask. The Teaching Team will regularly reply, and we’ll sign our names - but you can also answer each others’ questions, anonymously if you like, to share wider perspectives.
I hold open office hours. Times are posted in my Virtual Office, where you can also explore other resources and get to know me a little better. My office hours are open to everyone - you don’t have to be formally enrolled in my Syracuse class to come. And my office hours are for anything you want to talk through; it doesn’t have to be obviously connected to this class. If my usual times don’t work for you, please just email, and we’ll find a time.
Lastly: I know there are things I could be doing better. Please always feel free to tell me, and thank you for your patience and your guidance as I keep exploring anti-racism and how to be a better ally. I feel really honoured to be learning from you, and I’m grateful for your commitment to this course.
Complete: your Learning Log for this session via the form below.
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