No description available.

No

As the environmental justice movement has spread and become more mainstream since its start in the 1980s, its framework and body of knowledge has expanded, and environmental justice activists, organizers, and scholars have developed and critiqued different methods through which environmental justice can be pursued. Among its relatively new concepts is the idea of slow violence, or the long-term and continuous impacts of environmental injustices on an afflicted community; and among the methods examined by scholars is environmental justice litigation, where legal action is taken, often with members of an affected community as plaintiffs, to remedy environmental injustices within that area. This thesis aims to analyze the efficacy of environmental justice litigation in its ability to address slow violence through two case studies, Hinkley Groundwater Contamination and Kettleman Hills Waste Facility, which both took place in the 1990s in California, a state now known for its progressive legislation and consideration of environmental justice. It concludes that, while the short-term nature of litigation is not necessarily compatible with the long-term nature of slow violence, successful litigation coupled with the empowerment and engagement of the local community increase the likelihood of litigation partially addressing and mitigating the effects of slow violence in the present and future.

abstract: Environmental Justice Witnessing in the Modernist Poetry of Lola Ridge, Muriel Rukeyser, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Elizabeth Bishop analyzes the poetic forms used by four modernist American women poets to trace depictions of social oppression that are tied to specific landscapes. My focus is on what I term "environmental justice witnessing," which I define as accounts that testify to experiences of injustices that affect humans and the environments they inhabit. Integrating theories of witnessing, which to date have focused exclusively on humans, with environmental justice criticism, I fashion a lens that highlights the interconnectedness of social and environmental problems. In this way, I theorize the study of texts of witness and how they document the decay, disease, and exploitation of urban and rural landscapes in the twentieth century. In this dissertation, I focus on Lola Ridge's "The Ghetto" (1918), Muriel Rukeyser's "The Book of the Dead" (1938), Gwendolyn Brooks' "In the Mecca" (1968), and poems about Brazil from Elizabeth Bishop's Questions of Travel (1965) and New Poems (1979). I argue that these women poets depict environmental injustices as an inherent facet of social injustice and do so by poetically connecting human bodies to environmental bodies through sound, diction, figurative language, and imagery. In Environmental Justice Witnessing, I expand arguments made by environmental scholars about the exchange of environmental elements among humans, animals, and landscapes to include the way poets reflect this transfer poetically. The poetry of Ridge, Rukeyser, Brooks, and Bishop allows me to investigate the ways the categories of race, gender, and class, typically thought of as human qualities, are integrally tied to the geographic, national, and cultural bounds in which those categories are formulated. This argument has clear implications on the study of poetry and its environmental contexts as it invites discussions of the transnational conceptions of global citizenship, examinations of the relationships among communities, the environment, and overarching power structures, and arguments surrounding the ways that poetry as art can bring about long-term social and environmental awareness. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2015

No description available.

No description available.

This paper investigates how bike advocates in Boston understand and express concerns about bike justice. The study analyzes the distribution of bike infrastructure and resources across Boston neighborhoods with varying socioeconomic conditions and racial/ethnic representation. Additionally, the study examines how procedural justice practices are integrated into the decision-making process for bike infrastructure expansions, and how community engagement is involved in bike policies and programs. Using a mixed methods approach, the study analyzes the distribution of bike infrastructure in relation to demographic data and conducts semi-structured interviews with city officials, nonprofit organizations, and grassroots organizers. The results of the study reveal that bike justice goes beyond the mere expansion of bike lanes and other bike resources; bike justice extends to education and training programs as well as community building and engagement. These programs aim to create a sense of belonging for marginalized cyclists and promote procedural justice through incorporating marginalized voices in decision-making processes. These insights have important implications for the development of just and sustainable transportation systems that can meet the needs of diverse communities.

<p> This research examines how clean air advocates and authorities at the regional air pollution control district conceptualize and communicate about air pollution and environmental injustice in California&rsquo;s San Joaquin Valley. Philosophies of justice, framing, and social movement building strategies were analyzed through two case studies of campaigns that produced changes at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District aimed at advancing public health and environmental justice. Research methods included archival analysis, semi-structured interviews, and auto-ethnographic accounting of the researcher&rsquo;s involvement in the campaigns.</p><p> Findings demonstrate that despite varying social constructions of the San Joaquin Valley&rsquo;s air pollution problems by advocates and authorities in terms of philosophies of justice, framing, and some of the strategies promoted to create clean air, these two groups cited several examples of how these case studies have resulted in emissions reductions for impacted communities and advanced environmental justice. Both groups also critiqued the political economy of the Valley, demonstrating how deeply rooted and pervasive air pollution and environmental injustice are in the region. These shared critiques and successes reveal that although these groups and individuals have notably divergent approaches on many issues, common ground can still be found through creatively harnessed conflict and negotiation.</p>

acase@tulane.edu / There are an estimated 48 million cases of foodborne illness per annum in the United States, with a majority of the illnesses associated with eating in a restaurant. Previous research into the causes of foodborne illness have primarily focused on factors that are internal to the restaurant. This research examines both internal components as well as external factors from the surrounding community that could influence how a food establishment operates. Inspection data, providing the basis for this analysis, came from routine inspection reports from Maricopa County, Arizona and the State of Florida. Additional evaluations are from randomly sampled restaurants, containing information on the occurrence of specific risk factors for foodborne illness, captured from States A and B. External community demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey was also used. The routine inspection data was analyzed using a general estimating equations approach, and the risk factor study data was analyzed via a tobit regression. This approach allowed for the identification of the specific variables and their relative effect on the food safety performance of the establishment The only external factor to have an influence on restaurant food safety performance was the level of market competition, both near the restaurant and at a further distance from the restaurant. Other socio-demographic variables of the area were not found to have a significant effect. Internal factors, such as the level of food-handling and the food-safety related training held by employees were found to have an effect on the restaurants food safety performance. This study has shown the utility in assessing the compliance status of each risk factor, and the limitations of only using a count of violations. Additionally, concordant with most facilities operating in a sanitary manner, large sample sizes are required to identify an effect from a covariate. / 1 / Adam Kramer

Thesis (M.A.) - Simon Fraser University, 2006. / Theses (School of Criminology) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.