Join the Blum Center in welcoming special guest, Professor Tendai Chitewere, from the Department of Geography and Environment at San Francisco State University for a keynote talk: Green Lifestyles and Consumption-based Environmentalism: Critical Lessons from an Ecovillage
A growing number of cities and communities are attempting to model sustainable ways to live. These efforts, like in ecological cohousing communities, concentrate environmentally conscious residents who promote a sense of community as a tool for confronting social and environmental degradation. Through establishing a green lifestyle with architecture that can decrease ecological footprints and reduce social isolation, these communities propose structural, cultural change in the United States. At the same time, they are deeply embedded in a capitalist economy, one that insists on consumption as a way of life. This presentation examines the tension between capitalism and environmentalism through the lens of environmental justice and political ecology. Specifically, environmental justice is noticeably missing from the ecovillage discourse raising the question, for whom is the sustainable community envisioned? Based on ethnographic research in an ecovillage, Dr. Chitewere argues that US environmentalism needs to confront the growing influence of capitalism in environmentalist discourse. Without a critical analysis of social and environmental injustice, ecovillages risk contributing to the problems they aim to address.
Beginning at 2:30pm, 2018-19 Blum Center Seed grantees will present on their research. Speakers include:
Leigh Bernacchi and Professor Josue Medellin-Azuara, "Voices of Water Sustainability in San Joaquin Valley 'Disadvantaged' Communities"
Nathaniel Bogie, "Engineering agricultural lands for soil health and groundwater sustainability"
Julia Burmistrova, "Feasibility of Co-digestion to Manage Organic Solid Waste and Wastewater Solids from Yosemite National Park, USA"
Katie Butterfield, "Community Gardens, Structural Inequalities and Health"
Professor Linda Cameron, "Increasing Microbiome Awareness to Promote Healthy Diets and Use of Health Food"
Professor Catherine Keske, "Developing Food Sovereignty Indicators to Promulgate Food Security and Food Sovereignty"
Andrea Lopez, "Dissemination of the Fairmead Community Health Needs Assessment"
Professor Rebecca Ryals, "Closing the Poop Loop: The Role of Ecological Sanitation in Achieving Multiple Sustainable Development Goals"
Refreshments will be served, join us!
