This talk was scheduled to be led by Justin Williams, however, due to an unforeseen obligation he was not able to attend. Ron Stockdreher led the discussion in his place.
I took this dialogue in an entirely different direction than Justin would have. I decided to focus the conversation on what our responsibility to include Environmental Justice issue is in the context of higher education. If we have a responsibility to include material on environmental justice, what should that look like, should it be coordinated across disciplines, is there any negative pressure on including this topic found within the educational institution or the societal infrastructure that the higher education is situated, and how is it manifested. Following is the text from the handout given at the dialogue.
Environmental Justice as Fairness – Breaking Through the Veil of Indifference:
What are the responsibilities in higher education towards environmental justice?
There are serious issues that environmental justice attempts to address, such as unequal exposure to environmental hazards, lack of political power and representation in affected communities, access to scarce resources, vulnerability to clime change based environmental events such as hurricane Helene, environmental racism and exploitation of indigenous rights and land, corporate accountability and issues with proper regulation, as well as the broader issues of global environmental inequity. Taking these and other issues not mentioned as foundational creates a critical need to directly address environmental justice in higher education – and here at Texas State University.
Questions to consider:
- How should lecturers/professors teach to define, frame, question, measure, and prioritize environmental justice as it pertains to sustainability, and other environmental topics?
- How should lecturers/professors teach to define, frame, question, measure, and prioritize environmental justice as it pertains to societal development? Who/what is impacted by the issues of environmental justice and how can they be incorporated in any proposed actions? Who and what benefits?
“Teaching ‘development’ without critically problematizing who benefits, who suffers, and what are the larger planetary effects [would be] without regard for sustainability and justice. Environmental violent acts occur as some population(s) benefit more from the acts, as others (human and non-human) suffer more from the resulting environmental issues. For example, people light, heat, and cool their homes, among other things, with energy coming from environmentally devastating mining practices. Mining resources would not occur if there were no conceptualized benefits. There is a continuum of environmentally violent actions, including turning on a light switch.” (Misiaszek, pg. 214) - In what ways do internal and external politics influence how environmental justice is taught in higher education and at Texas State University?
“There are endless ways in which politics play out both consciously and unconsciously from perceptions of benefiting more than being negatively impacted by unsustainable environmental violence. … The word of ‘perceptions’ emphasizes that most frequently the actual outcomes are overall negative. Deconstructing the politics [can help] critically determine the systematic influences on higher education teaching that helps to counter, continue, or intensify such false narratives touting nonexistent benefits from environmentally violent actions.” (Misiaszek, pg. 215)
- What should be the responsibilities of teaching for environmental justice objectives in higher education? Should environmental justice objectives be taught in multiple programs and at both the undergraduate and graduate levels?
“…[T] here needs to be paradigm shifts in higher education to much more directly focus on teaching to achieve [environmental justice] globally as our world is unfortunately stepping (or running, in many cases) towards various environmental tipping points. … [T]horough and meaningful transdisciplinary incorporation of [environmental justice studies] throughout all higher education curricula is essential. Such shifts include drastically transforming long-held structures of higher education such as siloed disciplinary structures, faculty teaching loads, and funding allocations between university divisions, among numerous other [institutional] aspects. Successful whole-curricula/university approaches for environmental justice would also likely require epistemological paradigm-shift for most [institutions], including reinventions of disciplines and their epistemological foundations.” (Misiaszek, pg. 215)
- What are the dominant epistemological groundings of higher education teaching that align with or oppose environmental justice?
“… [H]ow are knowledges and ways of knowing prioritized and legitimized in higher education teaching that affects students’ (non)anthropocentric reflexivity on environmental sustainability.” (Misiaszek, pg. 216) - What are the anthropocentric influences on higher education teaching environmental justice?
“Critically problematizing anthropocentricism is unpacking how the rest of Nature is prioritized, de-prioritized, or simply ignored in higher education teaching. In other words, do we teach … to conceptualize development outside of anthropocentric framings in addition to our (i.e. humans’) needs and wants? Put simply, we’re back to ‘What is in it for nature?’” (Misiaszek, pg. 217)
Misiaszek, G. W., & Rodrigues, C. (2023). Six critical questions for teaching justice-based environmental sustainability (JBES) in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 28(1), 211–219. https://doi-org.libproxy.txstate.edu/10.1080/13562517.2022.2114338
Abramovich, N., & Vasiliu, A. (2023). Sustainability as fairness: A Rawlsian framework linking intergenerational equity and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) with business practices. Sustainable Development, 31(3), 1328–1342. https://doi-org.libproxy.txstate.edu/10.1002/sd.2451