Environmental Justice and Regional Political Ecology converge in the other California

Abstract

This article illuminates the value of the concept of the region in political ecology and environmental justice studies by presenting three arguments about the role of regions in environmental justice social movements engaged in climate change mitigation in California's San Joaquin Valley. First, regional planning agencies and environmental justice advocates are engaged in conflicts over not only the content of regional climate change plans, but the very definitions of region and the authority used to put these regional visions into action. Second, regional organizing provides environmental justice movements with new opportunities to address regional economic patterns and to negotiate with regional planning agencies, both of which influence local manifestations of environmental injustice. Third, regional strategies raise significant dilemmas for these movements as they try to sustain engagement across extensive spatial territories and engage with a broad set of policy and economic protagonists. Together, this analysis demonstrates that a dynamic approach to regions, regionalism, and regionalization can assist political ecology and environmental justice scholars in their common aim of understanding the co-production of social and environmental inequity and collective action to change it.

Care Like Kin: Community Based Youth Serving Organizations and the Social Reproduction of Disconnected Youth in Rural America

“…Considered the agricultural heart of California, the region is home to over four million residents and is one of the most diverse rural areas in the nation. Over 50% of the population identifies as Latino, and there are large South and Southeast Asian immigrant populations as well as long‐standing African American communities (London, ). In addition, the region has faced significant economic challenges over the last decade.…”

How regions do work, and the work we do: a constructive critique of regions in political ecology

“…Regions are also experienced, performed and mobilized by various parts of and members of society. Political ecologists may find it useful to understand how knowledge within civil society is developed, assembled and circulated within, and with respect to, regions (Cadieux 2016), or how social activists -such as those associated with the environmental justice movement -leverage regional problems, networks and allegiances to articulate and advance their political goals (London 2016). Moreover, regions present a useful scale and analytic space through which practices and strategies of care, coexistence and reciprocity can be examined and theorized (Larson 2016).…”

Does the region still have relevance? (Re)considering "regional" political ecology

“…The contributions of Cadieux (2016), London (2016), and Larsen (2016), all highlight their commitment to working with informants rather than extracting knowledge from communities. These cases highlight how working within community-defined regions and building upon community-developed…”

“…Moreover, regional political ecology, as re-conceptualized in this Section, is explicitly post-colonial, feminist, and focused on working with both human and non-human actors within region (Larsen 2016;London 2016;Cadieux 2016). Such an approach involves breaking down the binary between "the field" and the researcher's home region and engaging with informants to co-produce knowledge, moral ecologies, and regions of care.…”

“…Most prominently, the articles demonstrate a commitment to working towards normative standards (variously defined) of social and environmental justice. Second, these essays reflect an awareness of the socially constructed nature of regions, leading several of the contributors (Cadieux 2016;Larsen 2016 andLondon 2016) to suggest new ways of understanding the processes that construct regions. These articles suggest pathways through which political ecologists might conduct analyses that extend beyond local studies and engage with policy makers, activists, and community members, deepening understandings of how regions and regionalization impact questions of sustainability and justice.…”