Special Issue: Centering Justice in Partnerships with Environmental and Climate Justice Centers in Higher Education: Implications of Historic Federal Funding for Environmental and Climate Justice
Guest Editors:
Ana Isabel Baptista, PhD
Associate Professor, The New School, NY, NY
Yukyan Lam, PhD
Research Director & Senior Scientist, Tishman Environment and Design Center, The New School, NY, NY
Mathy Stanislaus
Vice Provost & Executive Director, The Environmental Collaboratory, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
Dr. P. Qasimah Boston
Founder, Board of Directors of the Tallahassee Food Network, Tallahassee, FL
Michelle Martinez
Director, Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
A growing number of university centers and institutes have an explicit focus on environmental and climate justice (EJ). At the same time, private philanthropy and the public sector are providing significant investments targeted at funding climate and environmental justice work. Multiple sectors are increasingly forming partnerships in response to these historic levels of funding and interest in environmental justice issues. In response, in January 2024, the Tishman Environment & Design Center at The New School, held the Centering Justice Symposium to explore the opportunities and challenges for centers situated in higher education institutions, forming collaborative, justice-centered partnerships with environmental and climate justice movement organizations.
The symposium hosted approximately 120 attendees nationwide, with participants from more than twenty-five environmental justice (EJ) organizations, thirty academic institutions, and a dozen representatives from philanthropy and the federal government. The discussion explored how to codify and institutionalize approaches in support of the EJ movement and advance just partnerships. Topics included contextualizing historical harms, understanding current social and political contexts for partnerships, co-optation and exploitation of community knowledge and how to counter this within higher education, models for justice-centered partnerships, best practices and guidelines for codes of conduct among partners, and funding opportunities for justice-centered partnerships with environmental justice communities.
A significant part of this Special Issue will be dedicated to topics raised during the Centering Justice Symposium. The Special Issue is intended to share and extend the work undertaken during the symposium. Submissions are encouraged from, but not limited to, those in attendance at the Center Justice Symposium. Community activists, advocates, scholars, and community-engaged researchers are encouraged to submit papers, including commentaries, community voice papers, and policy briefs.
Suggested topic areas include, among others:
- How have significant federal investments such as those in the IRA, targeted for environmental and climate justice, influenced/shaped partnerships between intermediaries, universities, and community-based, environmental justice organizations?
- What are best practices, guidelines, rules of conduct, and models for university researchers and centers engaging in partnerships or research with community-based organizations or environmental justice movement groups?
- How are innovative community-led research models being employed in partnerships with universities and community partners?
- How are universities and community-based organizations navigating complex institutional arrangements, funding types, and political contexts to forge justice-centered partnerships?
- How can universities be more accountable to environmental justice partners in research and project implementation focused on climate and environmental justice?
- Critical perspectives on the history, as well as present-day context of community and university partnerships?
Submissions being solicited
The editors encourage submissions of original research articles, reviews, policy briefs, practice briefs, case studies (national and international), and perspectives. Manuscripts written by academics, community representatives, joint community and academic collaborators, and those that center action research, community science, and other participatory research approaches are particularly desired. Student perspectives as well as international perspectives are also welcomed and encouraged.
Upload your paper using the manuscript category:
Special Issue: Centering Justice
Manuscript Submission Deadline: August 31, 2024
Visit the journal website to view more information for authors including manuscript guidelines, information on available author services, and publication costs.