My box of books arrived a few days ago. I acquired so many books from visiting independent bookstores (most of which had many used books) that I actually had to ship them via Media Mail back to myself in New York. Over the course of the summer, I amassed 25 lbs of books. When the…
Right to the Environment
“Urbanization, we may conclude, has played a crucial role in the absorption of capital surpluses, at ever-increasing geographical scales, but at the price of burgeoning processes of creative destruction that have dispossessed the masses of any right to the city whatsoever…. The urban and peri-urban social movements of opposition, of which there are many around…
Mapping: Walking the Bay
When thinking about mapping, I tried to figure out the best way to convey my actual lived experience in Oakland. I feel that maps often don’t reflect the way the earth and spaces are actually felt on the ground as you move through them. Since I spent a lot of time walking in the Bay…
Futures and Mentors in Environmental Justice: Interview with Phoenix Armenta
I interviewed Phoenix Armenta, my supervisor and the coordinator of the Resilient Communities Initiative, about her experience in the field of environmental justice, community organizing, and what inspires her. I felt that this was a really important interview to conduct because Phoenix’s unique blend of experiences always emerged in our work together and I…
Sea Level Rise is Our Reality
“What would YOU do if your home was flooded?” I’ve spent a lot of time during my fellowship working with the Resilient Communities Initiative (RCI) on issues relating to sea level rise and the Bay Area, specifically Oakland. Last week, I accompanied my supervisor to talk to some people who have been displaced from their…
Trying to Understand the Bay’s Historical Context: Part 2
Natural history. It sounds as though it only applies to the environment, but when thinking about history, it is so important to think about the natural history of the place and how that has influenced the past and present narratives, people, and cultures. This feels especially necessary in the Bay Area where there is such…
Trying to Understand Oakland’s Historical Context: Part 1
I’ve been really struggling to write this post because writing about the historical context of a place and a movement is such a huge and complicated task. History can mean so many different things depending on which narratives you hear and listen to, and especially in a place like Oakland, which is one of the…
My “Field”: Bay Area Environmental Justice Movements
Sociologists who study organizations sometimes use the term ‘field’ to describe a set of organizations linked together as competitors and collaborators within a social space devoted to a particular type of action — such as a market for certain products, the pursuit of urban development, or the realm of electoral politics. Agreements struck among the…
“Many Worlds in the Same Place”: Rebecca Solnit’s Infinite City
For last week’s post, I wrote about how Garrett Broad’s book is helping me to think through the work that I’m doing. But I’ve also been thinking a lot about the role an ethnographer plays in the city, and the ways in which we see and map the city. My view of New York is…
Communication Ecology: Garrett Broad’s More than Just Food
I’ve always been fascinated with connections and how they manifest both in human society and in the natural world. Nothing could happen without communication and the signals that organisms and humans send to one another. However, this approach is not often thought of as having larger societal significance, but when considering nature and society together,…
