Read on Twitter
This is a thread about #racism in sustainability academia. I started Saturday thinking that I shouldn't raise this with my research group here in CZ. It felt distant. But I did some reading, and found (at least) 6 angles we need to educate ourselves on 1/8
1. Racism in the education system that prevents people joining us in academic research. For CZ, we could ask why, if Roma comprise 2-3% of the population here, we don't have Roma colleagues. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13613324.2016.1191698 2/8
2. Environmental racism. How environmental problems are race problems. If we don't acknowledge this, how can we find solutions? https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg0453 3/8
3. Issues of diversity in environmental NGOs - how does the formal wing of the environmental movement represent race? See this https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/extinction-rebellion-climate-crisis-race-class-london-arrests-xr-a9156816.html by @kubared and https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/env.2015.0018 4/8
4. The threat of Ecofascism. See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/30/eco-fascists-and-the-ugly-fight-for-our-way-of-life-as-the-environment-disintegrates and https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/environmentalisms-racist-history 5/8
5. The inequalities and power dynamics we perpetuate in our research practice. For example, in the way we formulate, frame and conduct research in the majority world. Many examples of writing on this. See e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706120305036?dgcid=rss_sd_all 6/8
6. The racist, colonialist roots of science and discovery: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-bears-fingerprints-colonialism-180968709/ 7/8
I'm sure I've missed lots, but this is my beginning, posted in case it helps my sustainability colleagues in their own reflections. As a minimum start, lets inform ourselves of the way our own disciplines and practices are founded on, and perpetuate, racial inequality. 8/8
