Environmental Justice and Sustainability Seminar

Hoodoos at Bryce Canyon

Co-sponsored by the Woods Institute for the Environment, the Bill Lane Center's seminar meets several times a quarter on Fridays at noon. The workshop's mission is to promote scholarly works and dialogue on environmental justice and sustainability in disadvantaged communities. It features speakers of various academic disciplines from both within and outside Stanford working on different aspects of environmental justice and inequity such as air and water quality, vulnerability to extreme weather, climate change, mitigation measures, access to affordable energy, and the like.

Join the mailing list or irishui [at] stanford.edu (subject: Interest%20in%20the%20American%20West%20Working%20Group) (email Iris Hui) for more information.

 

Friday, April 23, 12 PM: Environmental and Climate Justice Conflicts in Carceral Spaces
Professor David N. Pellow, Dehlsen and Department Chair of Environmental Studies and Director of the Global Environmental Justice Project, University of California, Santa Barbara

 

Picture of David Pellow

Abstract: This presentation considers the origins and evolution of the movement for environmental justice as a grassroots demand for a bold vision of democracy that emphasizes the links among human health, social justice, and ecological sustainability. Centering my focus on spaces of incarceration as sites of struggles for environmental and climate justice, this talk explores how re-framing these phenomena as contestations over institutional (state and corporate) violence can offer new pathways toward transformative analysis and action.

Bio: Dr. Pellow teaches courses on environmental and social justice, race/class/gender and environmental conflict, human-animal conflicts, sustainability, and social change movements that confront our socioenvironmental crises and social inequality. He has volunteered for and served on the Boards of Directors of several community-based, national, and international organizations that are dedicated to improving the living and working environments for people of color, immigrants, indigenous peoples, and working class communities, including the Global Action Research Center, the Center for Urban Transformation, the Santa Clara Center for Occupational Safety and Health, Global Response, Greenpeace USA, and International Rivers.