Incorporating Movements for Racial Justice into Planning and Management of U.S. National Parks

The National Park Service (NPS) is the federal land management agency responsible for 423 units across the United States. Many of these parks are considered iconic cultural and environmental landscapes. However, scholarship from a number of disciplinary approaches has positioned the national parks and their management as problematic, particularly from Indigenous and racial justice concerns. National parks, like many cultural landscapes in the U.S., are infused with racial relations, with unpleasant histories and contemporary experiences that have both subtle instances of marginalization and explicit episodes of material violence. Recent developments in racial justice movements raise fundamental questions for the social and political maintenance, stewardship, and sustainability of the NPS. In a critical approach that centers whiteness as a lens of institutional critique, we consider the ways that the NPS could more critically engage with racial justice approaches in its planning and management. After acknowledging that histories of U.S. national parks as spaces designed for White, upper class people led to the displacement and marginalization of Indigenous and people of color, we look to contemporary avenues for increased racial justice. Through both local, small-scale initiatives and agency-wide, national policies, we consider how racial justice movements are both expectant and galvanized in this moment, providing a setting for the NPS to redress and make amends for previous harms and missed opportunities. Specifically, we identify recent federal and institutional policy and legislation as promising mandates for progress. We identify specific place-based tactics used by individual NPS units, such as renaming parks and geographic features, or interpretation that is both more accurate and more inclusive of marginalized populations. Our research examines planning and management as potential strategic practices that can more fully highlight and progress racial justice. We offer a range of specific questions that might guide more inclusive planning and management work in the NPS. Finally, we encourage the NPS, as an institution, as well as individual park units, to support contemporary racial justice movements, while simultaneously adhering to the agency’s historical dual mandate.

“Sincere White people, work in conjunction with us”: Racial minorities’ perceptions of White ally sincerity and perceptions of ally efforts

Social justice movements often consist of both targets of bias (e.g., Black people) and nontarget allies (e.g., White people). However, little is known about what factors shape minorities’ perceptions of allies and their ally behaviors. Across four studies, we investigated Black participants’ perceptions of Whites’ motives to engage in ally behaviors. In Study 1, we found that Black participants perceived nontarget allies as both highly internally and externally motivated, suggesting ally motives may be ambiguous to Black perceivers. Studies 2–4 examined the effect of Black participants’ suspicion of Whites’ motives on perceptions of White allies’ sincerity and support for their ally efforts. As predicted, suspicious Black participants perceived White ally protestors, confronters, and political candidates as less sincere than similar Black targets and, in turn, were less supportive of White allies’ efforts. Discussion focuses on how perceived motives of White allies impact perceptions of allies and their ally efforts.

My Fight or Yours: Stereotypes of Activists From Advantaged and Disadvantaged Groups

In social movements, activists may belong to either the disadvantaged or the advantaged group (e.g., Black racial justice activists or White racial justice activists). Across three experimental survey studies, we examined the content of these stereotypes by asking participants to freely generate a list of characteristics to describe each target group—a classic paradigm in stereotype research. Specifically, we examined the stereotypes applied to Black and White activists within racial justice movements (Study 1, n = 154), female and male activists within feminist movements (Study 2, n =134), and LBGT and straight activists within Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender movements (Study 3, n =156). We found that the “activist” category was consistently differentiated into subcategories based on group status: Disadvantaged group activists were stereotyped as strong and aggressive, whereas advantaged group activists were stereotyped as altruistic and superficial. These findings underscore the importance of considering status differences to understand the social perception of activists.

Teaching Social Justice and Engaging Gen Z Students in Digital Classrooms During COVID-19

The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 disrupted the lives of people on all fronts, but especially the traditional education system. Now dependent on online learning during a global pandemic, political unrest, and a contentious presidential election, many school educators were forced to transition to virtual instruction amid the ongoing health crises posed by COVID-19 and the ever-present issue of racism. We gathered and analyzed the teaching experiences of instructors at an historically Black college or university as they addressed social justice issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of college-age students today are from Generation Z (Gen Z), the “digital native” generation. They are living in a time in which recent social justice movements have called them to the frontlines. To teach Gen-Z students, faculty should create courses that fit their needs and consider innovative teaching strategies to engage them in classrooms. We discuss three classroom activities that showcase instructors’ pedagogical efforts during such unprecedented times.

Police Labor and Exploitation: Case Study of North India

This chapter analyzes data collected over more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork with police in north India. It argues that subordinate police personnel in this decolonizing world region often experience exploitation as laborers, even as they routinely deploy excessive force and sometimes misuse their authority to intervene in everyday life. The analysis reveals an imbrication of official police rank hierarchies with broader forms of social inequality (especially socioeconomic class, religion, and caste) through observations of interactions among police personnel of various ranks and interviews with current and former officers in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. It also develops methodological concepts of “strategic complicity” and “critical empathy,” and suggests directions for future ethnographic research on policing that may help us discern the complexities of both local and global social justice movements and power relations.

Conclusion

The concluding chapter documents the impact of the school-to-prison pipeline movement on reducing suspensions and challenging policing practices in schools. It then highlights the features that help explain the growth and success of the movement and its emerging intersectional nature—like centering the participation of people most impacted by injustice. It draws lessons from this study for reconceptualizing social justice movements as ones that “nationalize local struggles.” It considers the enduring challenges facing the movement to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, including the persistence of racial disparities in exclusionary discipline, tensions between local and national organizing, and the difficulties of implementing restorative alternatives that serve to transform deep-seated racialized processes. It ends with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities to building racial and educational justice movements powerful enough to fully transform entrenched systems of racial inequity and educational injustice, particularly in an era that has witnessed the rise of white nationalism.

An Alternative to Development Framework: A Study of Permaculture and Anarchism in Global Justice Movements in New Zealand

<p>This study is a response to calls for alternatives to development by postdevelopment authors and critics of post-development alike. It asks “can the praxis of permaculture and anarchism provide an alternative to development?” Although alternatives to development arguably do not exist untouched by the dominant development paradigm, it is possible to imagine and to create the different possible organisations based on principles of mutual aid, direct action and self-management. Anarchism as a politically focused social philosophy and permaculture as an ecologically focused design philosophy are mutually beneficial in strengthening each other. The combined analysis of alternatives to development uses case studies in the Wellington Region, primarily Climate Camp Aotearoa, with permaculture and anarchist principles, and contributes another perspective to the post-development debate. The two approaches share converging central ethics, principles and struggles of praxis. They recognise that transformative change is necessary. Whether it is called a cultural revolution, transition or paradigm shift, the underlying recognition is that we need to live more harmoniously with each other and the natural environment by creating diverse post-industrial societies. Many tools, principles and processes advocated by alternative development and post-development are the same. However, the combination of those tools, principles and processes, and how they are designed and applied in relation to each other systemically, are significant in determining whether or not the intent is that of an alternative to development. Solidarity and stewardship, decentralisation and autonomy, tight multiple feedback mechanisms and a whole system design approach are some of the alternative people-focused solutions proposed by anarchism and permaculture. Fieldwork research was conducted using the qualitative ethnographic and action research methods of participant observation from a constructionist and post-development perspective. Global justice networks are given importance as examples of the anarchistic intent of alternatives to development.</p>

An Alternative to Development Framework: A Study of Permaculture and Anarchism in Global Justice Movements in New Zealand

<p>This study is a response to calls for alternatives to development by postdevelopment authors and critics of post-development alike. It asks “can the praxis of permaculture and anarchism provide an alternative to development?” Although alternatives to development arguably do not exist untouched by the dominant development paradigm, it is possible to imagine and to create the different possible organisations based on principles of mutual aid, direct action and self-management. Anarchism as a politically focused social philosophy and permaculture as an ecologically focused design philosophy are mutually beneficial in strengthening each other. The combined analysis of alternatives to development uses case studies in the Wellington Region, primarily Climate Camp Aotearoa, with permaculture and anarchist principles, and contributes another perspective to the post-development debate. The two approaches share converging central ethics, principles and struggles of praxis. They recognise that transformative change is necessary. Whether it is called a cultural revolution, transition or paradigm shift, the underlying recognition is that we need to live more harmoniously with each other and the natural environment by creating diverse post-industrial societies. Many tools, principles and processes advocated by alternative development and post-development are the same. However, the combination of those tools, principles and processes, and how they are designed and applied in relation to each other systemically, are significant in determining whether or not the intent is that of an alternative to development. Solidarity and stewardship, decentralisation and autonomy, tight multiple feedback mechanisms and a whole system design approach are some of the alternative people-focused solutions proposed by anarchism and permaculture. Fieldwork research was conducted using the qualitative ethnographic and action research methods of participant observation from a constructionist and post-development perspective. Global justice networks are given importance as examples of the anarchistic intent of alternatives to development.</p>

Moving at the Speed of Trust: Radical and Progressive Change through Climate Justice Movements in Aotearoa

<p>Human-induced climate change is already having an acute impact on many lives and livelihoods. This is expected to escalate, especially for “disadvantaged people and communities in countries at all levels of development” (Pachauri et al., 2014, p. 13). This thesis is situated within post- and critical development, enabling critique of mainstream development alongside the exploration of alternative, bottom-up forms of development, such as social movements. Following a social constructionist epistemology, it utilises qualitative methodologies (in-person and virtual in-depth interviews) to navigate the complex, fluid, and subjective field of climate justice. This research situates the emerging climate justice movements in Aotearoa as key to understanding how radical, progressive societal change is articulated in the contemporary era to mitigate and adapt to anthropogenic climate change. Several core themes emerge as part of the research, including how various actors (organisations, sub-movements, and individuals) relate to each other and the world around them. This research asks and addresses not only what climate justice is in Aotearoa and who is involved, but also which theories of change operate within these emerging social movements? The data in this research outlines that climate justice movements in Aotearoa are accessible, inclusive, relational, accountable and frontline community-led, the antithesis of the current dominant structures and systems of society. These movements build upon other rights and justice movements, notably: Indigenous justice, disability justice, intersectional feminism, workers’ rights, and intergenerational justice. The development and negotiation of a collective climate justice identity is shaped by several interconnected tensions: partisanship versus non-partisanship, internal conformity versus diversity, and ecosystem versus ‘egosystem’. These tensions can also impede connection and understanding, at times leading to substantial harm to individuals, communities, and climate justice more broadly. This thesis outlines multiple forces shaping the actualisation of justice in an Aotearoa experiencing climate change. Fundamentally, this thesis highlights that climate justice is an ongoing journey of relationships and negotiations that “move at the speed of trust”.</p>