Racial and Anti-colonial Ecologies Lab Project: Black Relationships to place and the environment in a climate and environmental justice community
Tianna Bruno, Professor
Geography
Applications for Fall 2024 are closed for this project.
In this project, undergraduate student researchers will focus on one or two of the following aspects of a broader digital humanities project: 1) archival analysis of historical records related to 'environmental burdens' in an environmental justice community. Students will work to chart a history of the country's largest refinery and the land that it sits on through a racial geographies framework. 2) Students will create story maps of historical places in the environmental justice community where this project is focused, Port Arthur, Texas. 3)*This will be the primary focus of the project for Fall 2024* Related to the story map, students will assist in building a database of oral histories and environmental histories collected from this community environmental justice community. Over the past four years, I have collaborated with community organizations and community members to collect oral histories focused on Black history, environmental relationships, and connections to place in Port Arthur, Texas, a Black community that has long faced climate and environmental injustices. In addition to oral histories, I collected environmental records in the form of tree cores to examine histories of contamination and place environmental history in relation to the racial histories. These findings will be visualized in this digital humanities project in ways that make them accessible to students and community members.
Role: 1) archival analysis of historical records related to 'environmental burdens' in an environmental justice community. Students will work to chart a history of the country's largest refinery and the land that it sits on through a racial geographies framework. 2) Students will create story maps of historical places in the environmental justice community where this project is focused, Port Arthur, Texas. 3)*This will be the primary focus of the project for Fall 2024* Related to the story map, student will assist in building a database of oral histories and environmental histories collected from this community environmental justice community.
Qualifications: It is preferable, but not required that students have:
*taken courses within the geography department's racial geographies and/or 'critical environments' themes.
*Video editing experience
*Story map experience
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Digital Humanities and Data Science Environmental Issues Social Sciences