Environmental justice is not only about pollution in low-income and communities of color, but the environmental justice movement also represents community-building and a positive spirit.
Research
A key mission of the EJP is to encourage student (undergraduate and graduate) and faculty research and campus community on environmental justice and environmental equity issues at UC Davis building on existing campus strengths in environmental and scientific research in the Central Valley. Given our proximity to Sacramento, we also hope to advance state policy analyses that promote environmental justice and community perspectives on particular environmental, environmental health, or urban planning issues.
We also hope to help build campus and community partnerships on environmental justice utilizing existing campus programs and partnerships. A key tenet of the environmental justice movement (see About Environmental Justice) is that the communities historically disenfranchised by race and class "speak for themselves." Thus, research on environmental justice needs to be community-sensitive, and not "top-down." There is an extensive literature on community-based research on environmental health and justice which highlight successful partnerships.
We hope to build relationships with Central Valley communities working on a wide range of issues that have environmental equity and justice components and to work on community-based research projects. These may include projects dealing with water, transportation, and air quality. To this end, EJP Senior Researcher Jonathan London currently represents UC Davis on the Community University Research and Action Alliance for Justice (CURAJ) Advisory Board. CURAJ is a coalition of researchers, legal advocates, and community activists dedicated to applying research to address issues of race and poverty in the Central Valley. Members represent the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Latino Issues Forum, Madera Coalition for Community Justice, Youth In Focus, UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law Center for Social Justice, UC Merced, UC Sacramento Center, and UC Davis.
Projects
- Environmental Justice Research Inventory
- Environmental Justice Coalition for Water Delta Health Study
- Environmental Justice and Regional Change in the Delta
- AB32 and Environmental Justice
- Building Capacity of the Environmental Justice Project at UC Davis
- Environmental Justice and Regional Change in the Central Valley
- Building a Foundation for Participatory Action Research with Agricultural Worker Communities: An Environmental Justice Perspective
- Research Interest Group on Race, Gender and the Environment
Project Details
Environmental Justice Research Inventory
http://ej.ucdavis.edu/cvdb/
Principal Investigators
Julie Sze (American Studies) and Jonathan London (Human and Community Development)
Funding
UC Davis Environmental Justice Project, John Muir Institute of the Environment, Consortium for Women and Research, Ford Foundation
Description
The research inventory builds relationships between researchers and communities suffering from environmental injustice in the Central Valley of California. The Community Research Inventory is focused on what the community knows and what the community needs, in term of research. The community perspectives subsection is based on a series of six focus groups with Central Valley EJ activists to discuss their research needs. The Academic Literature Review is about finding out what is already known, and what gaps exist. The purpose of the review is to introduce and organize an annotated bibliography that summarizes research on environmental justice, broadly defined, in the Central Valley.
Environmental Justice Coalition for Water Delta Health Study
Principal Investigators
Environmental Justice Coalition for Water
Funding
Rose Foundation, UC Community Forestry and Environmental Research Partnerships Program - a collaboration between the EJP, the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water (EJCW) and the Data Center
Description
The EJP regional decision making research collaborative is comprised of scholars from environmental and plant sciences, sociology, urban design, American studies and geography who are interested in issues of space, place and power in California’s Central Valley. Scholars include both faculty and graduate students. During the 2007-2008 academic year, two research projects examined several regional decision making processes implemented by California agencies. The collaborative examined ways that these processes overtly, covertly, and simultaneously recognize and reject the publically expressed concerns for environmental justice. The Delta Vision process became the primary focus of the first project, and the second project examined how science is acknowledged, used, co-opted, mis/reinterpreted, and otherwise involved regional decision making specific to the Delta Vision process.
ABSTRACT (PDF, 10 KB)
Environmental Justice and Regional Change in the Delta
Principal Investigators
Julie Sze (American Studies) and Jonathan London (Human and Community Development)
Funding
UC Davis Office of Research Collaborative Interdisciplinary Project
Description
During the 2007-2008 academic year, the EJP regional decision making research collaborative conducted two research projects to elucidate how politically disenfranchised communities, particularly (although not exclusively) communities of color, are impacted by regional resource use and planning processes. Our collaborative is comprised of an interdisciplinary group of scholars (environmental and plant sciences, sociology, urban design, American Studies and geography) both faculty and graduate, interested in issues of space, place and power in California, particularly in the Central Valley region. The first research project examined several regional decision-making processes implemented by various agencies within the State of California. In particular, we examined the way that the decision-making processes overtly, covertly, and simultaneously recognize and reject the publically expressed concerns of environmental justice. One decision-making process, the Delta Vision process, became the primary focus of our attention. The second research project examined the ways in which science is acknowledged, used, co-opted, (mis/re)interpreted, and otherwise involved with regional decision making, specifically regarding the Delta Vision process.
ABSTRACT (PDF, 16 KB)
AB32 and Environmental Justice
Principal Investigators
Deb Niemeier (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Julie Sze (American Studies) and Jonathan London (Human and Community Development)
Building Capacity of the Environmental Justice Project at UC Davis
Principal Investigators
Julie Sze (American Studies) and Jonathan London (Human and Community Development)
Funding
Description
Project activities include:
- Develop an EJ campus-community advisory committee
- Conduct an inventory of existing EJ-related research relevant to the Central Valley and of new EJ research needs from communities and EJ advocates
Environmental Justice and Regional Change in the Central Valley
Principal Investigators
Mary Cadenasso (Plant Sciences), Fraser Shilling (Environmental Science and Policy), Jonathan London (Human and Community Development) and Julie Sze (American Studies)
Funding
UC Davis Committee on Research
Description
This project is an interdisciplinary study of the social equity impacts of regionalism in environmental governance drawing on perspectives from the natural and social sciences and the humanities.
ABSTRACT (PDF, 12 KB)
Building a Foundation for Participatory Action Research with Agricultural Worker Communities: An Environmental Justice Perspective
Principal Investigators
Julie Sze (American Studies) and Jonathan London (Human and Community Development)
Funding
Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety
Description
Central Valley communities where agricultural workers and their families predominate are threatened by multiple sources of environmental pollution, including pesticide contamination of air and water, asthma-causing particulate matter, and leachate from hazardous waste facilities and disposal sites. Despite this concentration of risk, agricultural workers are rarely represented in public decision-making on the policies and practices that affect their lives.
ABSTRACT (PDF, 10 KB)
Research Interest Group on Race, Gender and the Environment
Principal Investigators
Julie Sze (American Studies) and Jonathan London (Human and Community Development)
Funding
Consortium for Women and Research
Description
The main goal of the Research Interest Group on Gender, Race and the Environment is to facilitate collaborative, cross-disciplinary research and inquiry about gender, race and environment in this region, where the problems of environmental injustice and the need for strong community leadership is especially acute. In addition to facilitating such research, our other goal is to build stronger connections between scholars, policy makers, activists and local communities around the nexus of gender, race and the environment.
On This Page
Quick links
Environmental Justice Project
The Barn, 122B
University of California
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616-8527
530.752.JMIE (5643)
FAX 530.754.9141