Tag Archives: environmental humanities

Faculty Fellows Seminar

Katherine Lieberknecht: Home is where your heart is: climate change, buyout programs, and land reuse

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Katherine Lieberknecht, Assistant Professor of Community and Regional Planning  in the School of Architecture, led the Thursday, September 9 meeting of the Fellows Seminar.  Lieberknecht’s work focuses on environmental planning centered in equity. The project she presented to the Fellows examines the practice of property buyouts of climate-impacted residential areas.

Typically initiated by local governments, buyout programs pay residents of areas subject to climate events of increased intensity and frequency to relocate. The process usually focuses on the purchase of the land; residents have little or no say in how the buyouts are carried out or what happens to the land after they leave. To frame the conversation, Lieberknecht offered examples of buyout processes, including three located in Texas: the Kashmere Gardens neighborhood in Houston, and two sites in the Austin area, the Williamson Creek and Onion Creek neighborhoods.

Kashmere Gardens is a historically Black community wedged in between two railroad lines, developed under racist land use and zoning policies that allowed inadequate infrastructure and increased exposure to pollution. Affected by proximity to multiple brownfields (former industrial or commercial sites with a high probability of being contaminated), the community underwent a 25-year buyout process in which they had little input.

The Austin area neighborhoods were constructed based on faulty flood plain maps drawn up in the 1970s; homes should not have been built in the areas the neighborhoods occupied. The decision to offer buyouts came after repeated catastrophic flooding. Buyout plans for the Austin neighborhoods made an effort to incorporate the perspectives and views of people who accepted buyouts and those who stayed. However, decision-making remained siloed, and largely out of the hands of residents.

Lieberknecht’s project asks whether climate buyouts can be structured differently. Many times, buyouts occur after traumatic community events, such as catastrophic floods that include loss of life and extensive property damage and loss. Is there a way to consider the emotional ties people feel to community and land? Can the perspectives of former residents be taken into account when the land is repurposed? Is it even possible to include emotion and trauma in planning processes?  She asked the Fellows to use their own disciplinary lenses to critique what is from a planning perspective uncomplicated, but very complex from a human perspective.

Buyouts often occur in neighborhoods that, like Kashmere Gardens, are already marginal, doubly victimizing the residents. Fellows noted resonances with the relocations of Indigenous peoples. Coastal Indigenous communities in Alaska and Louisiana have been among the first to participate in “just processes” as part of climate-related relocation. Intended for groups that wish to move as a unit, this takes into consideration non-real estate values that go along with homes, such as attachment to bioregion and emotional and spiritual ties to land and people. Efforts to keep community together make an already slow process even slower.

The Louisiana communities received federal money to relocate through FEMA, but have yet to find a suitable location. The climate-related change affecting the Alaskan villages is erosion, which FEMA does not recognize as a disaster, disqualifying them for federal funds. Even relocations designed with social justice in mind can repeat painful histories. The coastal communities in Louisiana are all descendants of tribes forced to move during the Trail of Tears; the Alaskan communities were traditionally migratory groups forced into settlements.

Fellows considered the various ways the processes Lieberknecht described are named: climate retreat, migration, displacement, relocation, destruction, buy-out, resettlement, rehoming, eviction, “climigration.” She acknowledged the difficulty in finding adequate terms. Each word carries different connotations. For example, “climate retreat” invokes the notion of military or tactical defeat, and can provoke shame. The term “community” can also be contested. Who and what defines “the community” when planners and others seek input?

Struggles with language often point to the structural violence that shapes the impacts of climate change on neighborhoods, and language itself can do further violence. Lieberknecht currently works in Dove Springs, one of the neighborhoods affected by multiple Onion Creek floods. Her Dove Springs community partners don’t like the word “resilience.” To them, it implies individual responsibility for helping themselves and avoids assigning the city a role. They prefer “response” and “responsibility,” which gives them agency and the city to responsibility.

Accounting for affect—love of place and love of community—as a public policy and planning issue provides a way to address issues of belonging and disempowerment. “Retreat” can also imply moving towards something, a contemplative state before undertaking an action. Are there ways of looking at climate retreat as the possibility for rethinking larger questions around expertise and consultation? Can these conversations about dispossession shift from simply managing or mitigating harm to opportunities for challenging the status quo of property relations and perhaps discussing reparations?

Lieberknecht recognizes buyouts as an opportunity to rewrite the ways we conceptualize private property. Planners in the United States work within a system designed to uphold individual rights. Rethinking buyouts requires engaging with the complexity and legacy of private property in the United States, wrestling with how property was allocated and value capped because of segregation. She pointed to Austin’s 1928 master plan, which forcibly segregated the city along the east/west divide. In parts of Texas and many other states, no one holds clear title to land. This disproportionately affects communities of color.

Fellows asked how to undertake community-centered design without forcing people to repeat the traumas of dispossession and loss. How is damage documented and who has access to that information? Lieberknecht observed that sharing “your story” is like a tax residents must pay in order to receive city assistance. Perhaps there are ways to shift how stories are shared: a listening process in which everyone is listening to one another, rather than the planners listening and community members sharing stories.

Uncertainty about the fate of places that they valued also contributes to the distress of displaced residents. Onion Creek residents had no input into the city’s plans for their former homes post-buyout. The city combined the purchased land with land it already held to create Onion Creek Metropolitan Park. Remnants of its former use appear in photographs Lieberknecht shared with the Fellows: bits of sidewalk, lampposts, and glimpses of homes belonging to the few residents who refused the buyouts. Its indeterminacy called to mind what Marc Augé (2009) describes as “non-places,” interstitial spaces that offer no opportunity for connection with either other people or land.

Transitional justice surfaced as a possible path to more just resolutions. Originally conceived as means to address large-scale human rights abuses, it offers several options that can be adapted to a smaller scale. Compensation is one form of indemnification, but there are other options: truth reports, memorials, public recognition of people and places ravaged by environmental disasters. Lieberknecht agreed that this framework was helpful. New forms of engagement and amplified understandings of value hold promise for more equitable outcomes as more communities face the realities of climate-based relocation.

Onion Creek Metropolitan Park, 2019 City of Austin photo
Faculty Fellows Seminar

Craig Campbell: Anthropocene Greetings

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On Thursday, September 2, Craig Campbell shared his project, “Anthropocene Greetings,” with the Faculty Fellows. Campbell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and directs the Intermedia Workshop at UT Austin. He is also part of the collaborative Bureau for Experimental Ethnography.

“Birthday (humorous);” “Anniversary (special);” “Graduation (money holder); “Any Occasion (blank).” Most of us have perused the rows of greeting cards at a drugstore or Target, looking for an appropriate sentiment to send to a nephew who is getting married, or a far-away friend celebrating a birthday.  But what is a greeting card, really, and what does it do? What sorts of social relations does it make and sustain? Campbell’s project, “Anthropocene Greetings,” seeks to explore the possibilities offered by creating and sharing greetings that address climate catastrophe.

Campbell presented from inside the Design Lab in the campus Fine Arts Building. He introduced the Fellows to the Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection, which include the 19th Century typefaces he has used to make a variety of anthropocene greeting cards.

Campbell describes  Anthropocene Greetings as a project of research-creation, a methodology that considers the place of making in the practice of research. Citing the work of Erin Manning and Brian Massumi in Thought in the Act and Natalie Loveless in How to Make Art at the End of the World: A Manifesto for Research-Creation, he explained that research-creation permits movement between disciplinary territories and asks the question, “what counts as research?”

Campbell walked the Fellows through the process of creating a letterpress print, showing them the Vandercook press used to print the cards. He emphasized the embodied and sensory nature of the printmaking process: the ways in which the printmaker becomes related to the machine as it forces certain postures or bodily behaviors, the squelch of the ink as it is expressed. The process forces the maker to slow down. The type must be set, the paper cannot be rushed through the press, the ink must dry between each color application. For Campbell, the slowness of the process allows for different kinds of thinking.

Greeting cards serve as a form of “human infrastructure,” helping us to send words of condolence or celebration while alleviating the burden of coming up with them on our own. They are “gestures of concern” (Ingraham 2020) that promote shared awareness and seek to create connection. Sending a card permits us to discharge an obligation with minimal effort and, perhaps, minimal risk. Fellows discussed what sorts of accountability and care greeting cards in general, and Campbell’s Anthropocene greetings in particular, offer.

The climate crisis prompts us to question the effectiveness of individual acts when confronting complicated and multi-pronged problems. Loveless suggests that research-creation “can persuade us to care and to care differently” (2019: 107). Making and sharing Anthropocene greetings provides a means to communicate concerns about climate change, a small way to shore up the world, a minor gesture that reminds “us” that we’re all in this together, though we may not experience it in the same way. Perhaps expressing care through the template of a card creates more mental and emotional space for other, more large-scale, efforts and affects.

The climate crisis prompts us to question the effectiveness of individual acts when confronting its complicated and multi-pronged  problems. Loveless suggests that research-creation “can persuade us to care and to care differently” (2019: 107). Making and sharing   anthropocene greetings provides a means to communicate concerns about climate change, a small way to shore up the world, a minor gesture that reminds “us” that we’re all in this together. Perhaps expressing care through the template of a card creates more mental and emotional space for other, more large-scale, efforts.

Fellows questioned whether the form of the greeting card works across different social and cultural contexts, citing communities in which cards are not part of a shared affective vocabulary. They also explored “touch” as both a physical form of, and a metaphor for, care: keeping in touch, a touching message, feeling moved by a message. What about moments when touch and closeness are undesirable?  Liberal ideals of community and commons stress conviviality, but Covid puts pressure on those ideals.  If the cards are about creating social relations, what sorts of relations are created when they are sent to those who deny climate change? Perhaps the cards communicate dissent, or serve as provocations.

The question of access also surfaced. Printmaking requires access to materials and equipment.  Additionally, there are many kinds of print cultures. What are the possibilities for meeting communities on their own terms? How does literacy work into the the question of affect? Can communities that don’t operate in that mode participate in the project? What would broadening the typefaces used in the cards imply?

Campbell acknowledges the limitations of the form, while positing it as a site of possibility. Non-literate people live among literate people; cards are often read aloud or become prompts for narratives, like photos in albums. Once the card is made and sent, it is in the hands of someone who can alter it. The cards provide a low-stakes invitation to play even if the maker or recipient is not personally familiar with the custom. Future plans include workshops to be hosted in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada with Cree participants, and at Marfa Community Print in West Texas. Working with Cree syllabics might require making a new typeface, while the Marfa site could allow for access to Spanish language typefaces.

Creating anthropocene greetings provides an opportunity for conviviality that pushes against and extends beyond congeniality and what  Teju Cole, writing in The Atlantic,  calls the “sentimental need to ‘make a difference'” (2012) that undergirds many white Western responses to social injustices. A greeting card cannot halt climate disaster, but its creation and dissemination can be part of efforts to sustain community.  It’s an imperfect response to an impossible situations. As Campbell said in closing, everyday materials present much with which to work.

 

 

 

 

Faculty Fellows Seminar

Neil Blumofe: “Shemittah (Sabbatical Year): the remission of debt, manumission, and the concept of home in relationship to the current disruptions and climate crisis in our world”

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The Fall 2021 Faculty Fellows met for the first time on Thursday, August 26, led by Rabbi Neil Blumofe, our Community Fellow. Blumofe leads Congregation Agudas Achim, a synagogue in Austin. He presented the concept of “shemittah,” a sabbatical year, a time at which routine is disrupted and the land is allowed to rest. His project—which he is approaching as a spiritual autobiography—seeks to consider shemittah within the framework of land ethics and conservation. His reflections come just before the celebration of the Jewish New Year of 5782, a shemittah year which begins on the evening of September 6th.

Blumofe sees the sabbatical year as a way to disrupt routine and as a way to give poise. He began the session by sharing photos from a recent trip he made to the western USA: open landscapes populated by bison; mountains; and glacier lakes. The two final photos showed sites that mark depletion and the destruction of land, the Minuteman National Historic Site and the Sanford Underground Research Facility, located in an abandoned gold mine. He closed the introduction with song and an invitation to contemplation taken from Rav Kook quote found  in David Seidenberg’s essay on Jewish ecological thought:

“Contemplate the wonders of Creation, the divine dimension of their being, not as a dim configuration that is presented to you from the distance but as the reality in which you live. Know yourself and your world . . .”

Blumofe explained that shemittah is mentioned three times in the Hebrew Bible. Historically, it entailed a pause in the cultivation of land; remission of debt; and the release of enslaved and indentured persons.  The shemittah year resets the economy. Private property ceases to exist: plants and animals are given reign over land, and people may access it without restriction. Those in debt are amnestied.

Fellows explored what it means for land to rest. For what purpose?  Is it rested because of diminished productivity, so it can produce later?  Is it rested so that it may return to some previous state? If there are multiple users of the land, who decides when it should rest? What is the vision for the land after its rest period, and who determines that?

The discussion included different ways that humans interpret land at rest.  Human management of land often seeks to restore it to a previous state. Restoration implies modifications of some kind; perhaps the soil is amended, or trees are planted. The goal of restoration is to make the land function as humans think it should. Another way of “resting” land is through preservation, setting it aside and allowing nature to have its way.

Fellows suggested a third term: remediation.  Remediation is not a return to pristine state. Whereas restoration is an erasure of history, remediation doesn’t pretend to erase history. It leaves us with something less than pristine. It holds the trace of history and is a reminder of that.

Many classic—and some contemporary— environmentalist and conservationist texts ignore or idealize the perspectives of indigenous and other marginalized peoples and consign them to the past. Fellows grappled with how to read such works. How are these texts considered  historically and how do those conversations reverberate with current conversations?  How do we think about manumission during movements of abolition? What is the place of reparations?

For Blumofe,  the shemittah year provides sanctuary and allows a lessening of the hold of commodification. He understands it as a spiritual model, a perspective that is more than ours, regardless of privilege. To illustrate this, he turned to two texts, Leviticus 25:2 from the Torah, and a 2nd century commentary on that passage. The passage from Leviticus describes Moses on Mt. Sinai, receiving a message from the divine: “the land shall observe a sabbath, a sabbath of the divine.” The commentary focuses on why the concept of the sabbatical year is juxtaposed with Sinai.

Blumofe explained that the commentary asks, what does it mean to speak from a place that is Mount Sinai? It’s aspirational: Sinai is a place where everyone together was able to receive a revelation of hope and aspiration.  For Blumofe, shemittah is a way of thinking about reordering, a way to look at the world and find a way through. The  juxtaposition gives us a sense of how to live in the world, something to work in our everyday lives. We can also keep it ahead of us. We may not experience the shemittah, or know whose land it is, or even who we are, but we can move forward. The shemittah doesn’t just give you rest from exhaustion, it allows you to do the work.

 

 

Sinai mountains with a yellow. pink. and purple sky
The Sinai Mountains, photo by Mohammed Moussa, through Wikimedia Commons
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Difficult Dialogues Spring Public Forum: Health, Infrastructure, and the Environment

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This spring’s Difficult Dialogues Public Forum, held on April 13, featured three of the 2020-2022 Faculty Fellows: Dr. Andrea Gore (College of Pharmacy);  Dr. Ben Hodges (Cockrell School of Engineering, Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering); and Dr. Katherine Lieberknecht (School of Architecture, Community and Regional Planning) speaking on the topic of “Health, Infrastructure, and the Environment.” Each panelist spoke briefly, followed by conversation moderated by HI Director Dr. Pauline Strong.

Dr. Lieberknecht’s presentation focused on the importance of including local knowledge in climate planning. She heads a National Science Foundation-supported collaborative project located in Dove Springs that seeks to find ways to integrate community knowledge into city efforts to contain flooding and ameliorate extreme heat. Lieberknecht identified three kinds of infrastructure planners consider when designing solutions: the built environment; the ecological environment; and the social environment. Using seasonal flooding as an example, the built environment includes structures such as levees; the ecological environment includes efforts to create green space; and the social environment includes communication networks within communities. Local knowledge incorporates information about all three. Community members know which storm drain always backs up, which route to the grocery store is shadiest in the heat of summer, and who organizes community responses. The Dove Springs project is still in its beginning stages—the research began roughly 6 months ago, and some aspects have been hampered by C19 restrictions—but Lieberknecht and her academic and community partners hope that its findings will help planners and communities design more robust climate solutions.

Dr. Hodges followed. He opened his presentation by sharing a simple fact: global warming means increasing rain, increasing rain means more floods. Floods happen for three reasons, Hodges explained. Rivers exceed their banks; storm surges overwhelm coastal areas; and “water bombs,” localized intense rainstorms. Cities are not currently designed to manage such storms. Design criteria must change. But civil engineering solutions operate almost exclusively from a cost benefit analysis.  Wealthy people live on the most valuable land, so it’s that land that civil engineers strive to protect. Hodges pinpointed a dilemma in infrastructure planning: when changes are made to mitigate undesirable circumstances, such as flooding, property values rise. Gentrification often follows, driving the original residents out. How can engineers and city planners create solutions that preserve communities instead of displacing them? Hodges suggested a few ways to change current practices. Firstly, he encouraged more interdisciplinary work to provide more holistic understandings of the problems and possible solutions. He promoted investment in ripping out concrete and asphalt to create new green spaces, and stressed the importance of building codes in addressing infrastructure inequities. He also proposed that cities begin thinking of eminent domain as a tool to bring more valuable properties into green space.

To close the panel, Dr. Gore brought a more direct focus on health outcomes. Since the “chemical revolution” of the World War II period, synthetic chemical production has increased dramatically. Many of these chemicals allow us to have products that make our lives easier or more convenient. However, their production often causes pollution that harms both human and non-human life. Gore described her research on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, which she defined as “a chemical that interferes with any aspect of hormone action.” Hormones, she explained, affect brain development and behavior regulation, among other factors. She emphasized two points: EDCs have adverse effects on brain health, and these adverse effects can affect the health of future generations. We’re all exposed to EDCs, primarily through food. Chemical contamination harms wildlife as well as human life, which Rachel Carson demonstrated in her 1962 book, Silent Spring. As the planet warms up, the polar ice caps melt, and chemicals once trapped in the ice are released into the air and water. While it would be impossible to avoid all exposure to EDCs, Gore offered some actions we all can take in order to minimize risk. She advised microwaving in glass containers rather than plastic; drinking filtered water, not bottled water; and eating fresh produce—organic, if it’s affordable—instead of industrially processed food.

A lively discussion followed. Participants discussed the tension between local and national needs when addressing infrastructure issues, and the need for context-informed solutions. Lieberknecht cited the need to “think with equity.” Solving these issues requires thinking holistically, including conversations about living wages, affordable housing, and access to healthy food. While all agreed that community cultures of care are important, they stressed that it’s the role of municipalities to step up and address problems.

Several resources were shared by the panelists and participants in the chat. Some are linked below.

City of Austin Climate Equity Plan 

Planet Texas 2050

“Editorial: An International Riposte to Naysayers of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals” Andrea Gore

“Policy Decisions on Endocrine Disruptors Should Be Based on Science Across Disciplines: A Response to Dietrich et al.” Andrea Gore, et al.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities Jane Jacobs

The Economy of Cities Jane Jacobs

Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life  Eric Klinenberg

Thinking in Systems and other work by Donella Meadows

Water 4.0: The Past, Present, and Future of the World’s Most Vital Resource David Sedlak

Scale: The Universal Laws of Life, Growth, and Death in Organisms, Cities, and Companies Geoffrey West

 

Photo of the 2015 Halloween flood in Austin, TX courtesy of the City of Austin