scholarly journals “La justicia ambiental es para ti y para mí”: Translating Collective Struggles for Environmental and Energy Justice in Puerto Rico’s Jobos Bay Communities

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catalina M. de Onís

Rural, coastal communities in the Jobos Bay region of southeastern Puerto Rico confront disproportionate harms as an energy sacrifice zone. This space is constituted by imported fossil fuel dependency, economic and climate injustices, environmental racism, ecocide, US colonialism and imperialism, neoliberalism, and racial capitalism. In response, many grassroots actors mobilize against the toxic assault on their communities to push for alternatives beyond the suffocating status quo via apoyo mutuo [mutual support]. This survival work and movement building occur literally in “the outdoors” and in other intertwined multispecies environments, challenging narrow, oppressive colonial, and consumerist constructs that reduce “the outdoors” to recreation and thus erase the numerous ways that people labor in, honor, and defend places and spaces to lead good lives. Thus, critical examinations of communication and race/racism/racialization in and about this colonial US territory must grapple with the brutalities and pain caused by systemic and structural cruelties and translate how, where, and with whom self-determined and potentially liberatory environmental and energy justice advocacy takes shape to refuse a trauma-only narrative. Studying these embodied and emplaced efforts positions energy and power broadly construed, including in the form of collective action. This article centers on the collaborative energies of local grassroots actors and scholars who ideologically and politically align and who value working together toward anti-colonial praxis. To provide one example of how these collaborations can yield public-facing projects that contribute to struggles tied to the survival and well-being of the most impacted communities, this essay focuses on the creation of an environmental justice children’s book. This bilingual text documents and translates the pollution caused by a US-owned, coal-fired power plant and mobilizations to topple this corporate invader. The article concludes by reflecting on some of the difficulties and possibilities that emerged during multi-year coalitional relationships that inform and exceed the children’s book. To reject racist and colonial dominant assumptions and discourses about outdoor spaces as only privileged recreational areas or as a “blank slate” devoid of people and culture, this project narrates how grassroots organizers and scholars persist in continued study and struggle for power(ful) transformations in Jobos Bay and beyond.

Author(s):  
John MacDonald ◽  
Charles Branas ◽  
Robert Stokes

The design of every aspect of the urban landscape—from streets and sidewalks to green spaces, mass transit, and housing—fundamentally influences the health and safety of the communities who live there. It can affect people's stress levels and determine whether they walk or drive, the quality of the air they breathe, and how free they are from crime. This book provides a compelling look at the new science and art of urban planning, showing how scientists, planners, and citizens can work together to reshape city life in measurably positive ways. It demonstrates how well-designed changes to place can significantly improve the well-being of large groups of people. The book argues that there is a disconnect between those who implement place-based changes, such as planners and developers, and the urban scientists who are now able to rigorously evaluate these changes through testing and experimentation. It covers a broad range of structural interventions, such as building and housing, land and open space, transportation and street environments, and entertainment and recreation centers. Science shows we can enhance people's health and safety by changing neighborhoods block-by-block. The book explains why planners and developers need to recognize the value of scientific testing, and why scientists need to embrace the indispensable know-how of planners and developers. It reveals how these professionals, working together and with urban residents, can create place-based interventions that are simple, affordable, and scalable to entire cities.


Author(s):  
Alexandra Délano Alonso

This chapter demonstrates how Latin American governments with large populations of migrants with precarious legal status in the United States are working together to promote policies focusing on their well-being and integration. It identifies the context in which these processes of policy diffusion and collaboration have taken place as well as their limitations. Notwithstanding the differences in capacities and motivations based on the domestic political and economic contexts, there is a convergence of practices and policies of diaspora engagement among Latin American countries driven by the common challenges faced by their migrant populations in the United States and by the Latino population more generally. These policies, framed as an issue of rights protection and the promotion of migrants’ well-being, are presented as a form of regional solidarity and unity, and are also mobilized by the Mexican government as a political instrument serving its foreign policy goals.


2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110634
Author(s):  
Alex R Colucci ◽  
Daniel J Vecellio ◽  
Michael J Allen

Despite overall societal progress in reducing adverse impacts of heat and cold, incarcerated populations remain highly vulnerable to environmental stressors. Incarcerated populations experience a combination of risk factors related to their physical health and well-being that increase their thermal vulnerability: social isolation, disproportionate mental health issues, comorbidities, limited mobility, and a reliance on external factors to provide a safe, healthy environment. In carceral spaces, thermal exposure agitates these already complex situations, shaping a confluence of various economic, political, and ecological intersectionalities. This synthesis contextualizes the ongoing scholarship on climate change, thermal exposure, the built environment, and public policy, to examine thermal inequities experienced by incarcerated populations. In examining this context, we connect our work to carceral geographies, the geographies of violence, racial capitalism, and abolition ecologies. Ultimately, the review highlights how physical geographers may directly converse with critical geographers, promote equity and environmental justice, and work to reduce adverse impacts of extreme temperature events.


The use of outdoor (open) spaces in public buildings is vast and has significant roles ranging from individual (users) perception of the development of urban centers and cities to the satisfaction of the various functions they perform. However, little research is available on the use of the outdoor spaces in these Public buildings environment and the activities that take place thereof. This study investigates the factors that take users of public buildings to the outdoor environment and the physical factors that constitute their uses within the spaces. Using both qualitative and quantitative research approach, the paper examined the importance of restructuring the outdoor spaces for quality of the surrounding of the built environment. The study adopts a purposive sampling where participants were selected based on the outdoor use only. A total of seventy (75) questionnaires were administered to the various users of public buildings within specific open spaces. Only seventy (70) representing (93.33%) of the total population were returned and subjected to data analysis using the relevant descriptive and inferential statistical techniques, Mean Weighted Score (MWS) and Relatively Important Index (R.I.I) were used to rank features obtained. The study concludes that proper restructuring of landscape elements is necessary within public buildings, in order to provide human comfort, well-being and improved productivity. It was recommended that revitalizing the environmental features of these public building necessitates the insufficiency of outdoor features in government own buildings. Therefore, the user’s satisfaction of this outdoor (open) space in public buildings should be key consideration and emphasized on right from planning and design stages to it implementation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Chelsea Kershaw

<p>Aotearoa New Zealand is a society with inequality deeply embedded in its culture, and this translates to the health of vulnerable members of the community. In its current state, healthcare infrastructure and rehabilitative landscapes are isolated from one another, creating physical and mental barriers for achieving well-being. Therapeutic landscape research suggests outdoor spaces can facilitate rehabilitative healing, community support, and self-empowerment. This form of preventive and rehabilitative health may bridge the gap between treatment at the institutional level, and day-to-day living, to better support the well-being, of people in transition.  The under-utilized interface between the residential landscape and Kenepuru Community Hospital in Porirua is used as a design case study, for testing how hospital infrastructure, residential housing, and therapeutic landscapes may coexist for mutually beneficial health and well-being outcomes. Results suggest that careful design of the interstitial spaces bridging housing with healthcare can form an important service for the well-being of vulnerable people.</p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (10) ◽  
pp. 1071-1104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Hadavi

This study investigated the mediating role of neighborhood satisfaction and use of outdoor spaces in the effects of the physical environment on mental well-being. Four planning/design-related aspects of the environment were examined: perceived proximity of home to green/social spaces, open lawn with trees, and building-dominated spaces as well as perceived barriers to neighborhood use. A random sample of 434 Chicago residents participated in a photo survey. The results of linear regression modeling and mediation analyses support the hypothesis that satisfaction with quality of public space and frequency of use of green/social spaces have a significant mediating role in the relationship between nearby environmental attributes and mental well-being. Perceived barriers were also found to have both direct and indirect effects on mental well-being. Recognition of the differential roles played by environmental attributes, neighborhood satisfaction, and use patterns can help guide planners/designers to create outdoor spaces that enhance urban residents’ mental well-being.


2020 ◽  
pp. bmjspcare-2019-002151
Author(s):  
Margo Annemans ◽  
Koen Coomans ◽  
Ann Heylighen

ObjectiveThis study explored how built space plays out in palliative care, focusing on spatial aspects that could support or hamper patients’, relatives’ and caregivers’ well-being.MethodsThis study was conducted in a freestanding small-scale hospice combining a residential part for eight guests with a day-care part for groups of about five persons. Observations were combined with semistructured, individual interviews with eight guests (sometimes accompanied by relatives) and three focus-group interviews with staff, volunteers and relatives. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed based on the Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven.ResultsThe most important spatial aspects that impact on physical and social well-being in palliative care turned out to be the building scale and physical proximity. The small-scale setting counters the (often negative) association of palliative care with hospital environments. When the medical condition of the guest allows, it makes communal or outdoor spaces reachable, which enhances emotional and social well-being. In worse conditions, it still makes that care and nature are always nearby. The compactness of communal spaces intensifies social contacts.ConclusionsThe building scale and physical proximity play out in the relationship between the building and its surroundings, between the residential and the day-care parts and among people within the building. Future research could investigate to what extent these spatial aspects are relevant in more conventional palliative care units or even in general hospital wards.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Marques ◽  
Jacqueline McIntosh ◽  
Alvin Valera ◽  
Anuroop Gaddam

The use of technology for social connectivity and achieving engagement goals is increasingly essential to the overall well-being of our rapidly ageing population. While much of the extant literature has focused on home automation and indoor remote health monitoring; there is a growing literature that finds personal health and overall well-being improves when physical activities are conducted outdoors. This study presents a review of possible innovative and assistive eHealth technologies suitable for smart therapeutic and rehabilitation outdoor spaces for older persons. The article also presents key performance metrics required of eHealth technologies to ensure robust, timely and reliable biometric data transfer between patients in a therapeutic landscape environment and respective medical centres. A literature review of relevant publications with a primary focus of integrating sensors and eHealth technologies in outdoor spaces to collect and transfer data from the elderly demographic who engage such built landscapes to appropriate stakeholders was conducted. A content analysis was carried out to synthesize outcomes of the literature review. The study finds that research in assistive eHealth technologies and interfaces for outdoor therapeutic spaces is in its nascent stages and has limited generalisability. The level of technology uptake and readiness for smart outdoor spaces is still developing and is currently being outpaced by the growth of elderly fitness zones in public spaces. Further research is needed to explore those eHealth technologies with interactive feedback mechanisms that are suitable for outdoor therapeutic environments.


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