Challenging Preconceived Notions

Students in the lecture hall close their eyes and picture an environmentalist. Or, they take out a piece of paper and draw an environmentalist. When I ask students to share the characteristics of this archetype, hands sheepishly raise and the responses often converge around a young, able-bodied, white male hiker wearing head-to-toe Patagonia clothing. Then, we discuss the assumptions they’ve made about environmentalists and we talk about people outside this prescribed identity who are engaged in “environmental work.” This opens the door to examine the power imbued in representation. In an Environmental Hero(ine) assignment, students are challenged to learn more about those engaged in environmental work who don’t fit the “Patagonia man” mold. 

 A discussion prompt at the beginning of a general university requirement course in Environmental Studies asks students to reflect on the connection between race and the environment. Several students respond with versions of this: “Racial justice is important, but it’s a separate issue from environmental concerns.” These comments provide space to introduce concepts from environmental justice – both a social movement aimed at addressing environmental inequity and a field of study aimed at understanding the patterns and process of that inequity. We explore the history of BIPOC-led efforts to protect the environment, which includes not only national parks and other seemingly “pristine” land, but also – to borrow phrasing from the environmental justice movement – the places where people live, work, play, and pray. (Finney, 2014; Gottlieb, 2005; Taylor, 2016). Similarly, we look at the connections between mainstream U.S. environmental organizations and eugenics and anti-indigenous movements (Purdy, 2015), and we study how the U.S. National Parks system was created by forcibly removing indigenous people from their land (e.g., the Tukudika band of the Shoshone in what is now Yellowstone National Park). 

 I ask the class, “What is preventing society from taking action to address climate change?” More often than not, the first response is: “People who don’t believe in climate change are uneducated. If only they were provided the correct facts, then the climate change issue would be solved.” I share research by Kahan (2012) and others that suggests that people’s beliefs on climate change are largely shaped by their social environment and that “educating” climate denialists on the science of climate change is ineffective at changing their views.

The environmental field in the U.S. – both within and outside of the academy – rests on a narrative constructed largely by white settlers interested in preserving environmental quality and recreation opportunities for their own well-being, at the expense of BIPOC who have engaged with environmental issues in the context of livelihoods, spirituality, public health, and connection to land. Teaching critical perspectives of environmental studies requires challenging dominant narratives about people and the environment, asking students to pull back the curtain and figure out where those narratives come from, who they serve, and what other stories they obscure (see Chapter 8: Social construction of nature in Robbins, Hintz, and Moore, 2014). For students who have hung their hats on a study of the environment driven by dominant narratives, these early disillusioning conversations are challenging. The fields of environmental studies and environmental justice are rife with delightfully messy and difficult conversations (for a now-classic debate around this messiness and incoherence, see: Maniates and Whissel, 2000; Soule and Press, 1998).

Learning to Communicate in an Interdisciplinary Field

Environmental studies is an interdisciplinary field drawing from different epistemologies and methodologies, one that often embraces calls for engagement in society’s grand environmental challenges (Proctor et al, 2018). Many students and faculty are drawn to this field out of concern for the declining state of the world’s ecosystems. Challenging discussions emerge, then, as students begin to unpack the ways in which their factual understanding of environmental issues is bound up in their normative stance. In order to have more nuanced and interesting conversations about environmental issues, students need the tools to differentiate between empirical (e.g. “Most adults in the U.S. believe that climate change is affecting their communities.”) and normative statements (e.g. “The U.S. government should institute a strong carbon tax). Over time, we can start to look at the way normative positions construct empirical statements, but early on it’s enough to be able to differentiate factual claims from opinions.

As students begin to disentangle the normative and the empirical, and to then uncover the ways in which normative positions shape empirical statements, I also ask them to articulate their normative position and underlying personal ethical frameworks. After learning the major currents of Western environmental ethics and a brief foray into Feminist and Indigenous environmental ethics, students in ENVS 303 (Introduction to Environmental Studies I: Human Ecology and Ethics*) are asked to connect these frameworks to their own environmental ethics. They articulate their normative position in a “This I Believe” audio-recorded essay,* modeled on the NPR and CBS radio programs of the same name. Taking the time to reflect on their own environmental beliefs allows students to enter heated conversations about the environment with more clarity of their own position, a greater understanding of divergent values systems as the roots of the most entrenched conflict, and most importantly – a better sense of where they may share common ground with those individuals whose outward positions are seemingly counter to their own.

In addition to the important challenge of situating the normative component of environmental studies, conversations in this field are often challenged by competing academic discourse, content areas, and epistemologies. As a PhD student, I benefited tremendously from watching mentors navigate these challenging interdisciplinary conversations. During my first semester as a fellow in Arizona State University’s IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) in Urban Ecology, I sat around a conference room table with Dr. Chuck Redman (archaeologist), Dr. Stuart Fisher (ecologist), and the other IGERT Fellows – PhD students in ethics, anthropology, geology, engineering, geography, sociology, and biology. As we read common texts, we talked about how to reconcile or even reconstitute our very different ways of making sense of the world to contribute to a more robust understanding of urban ecological systems. Sometimes, the first step in interdisciplinary collaboration involves sharing language. I often tell students about the time I was collaborating on a paper with a geoscientist who repeatedly removed the phrase “wicked problems” from the sections I’d written; what he thought to be an odd turn of phrase is actually a policy concept used to describe a challenge with very particular set of characteristics (e.g. one without an immediate, testable solution) (Rittel and Weber, 1973). When we finally realized the confusion, we laughed together about the communication breakdown. What I’ve learned, and tried to impart upon students, is the importance in being precise and deliberate with language, in defining terms, and in minimizing disciplinary jargon. Because conversations can be difficult when people speak different disciplinary languages.

Teaching in an interdisciplinary field like Environmental Studies means that for any given content area, some students in the classroom are likely to have more expertise than I do. To navigate these challenging interdisciplinary conversations, I treat students as burgeoning subject-area experts. For example, when discussing a chapter on eco-normativity (Di Chiro, 2010) in ENVS 467: Power, Privilege and the Environment*, the class leaned heavily on the expertise of a handful of toxicology students, who helped us understand the impacts of endocrine disruptors on amphibian physiology.

As students in the Environmental Studies graduate program embark on their own research in this interdisciplinary field, they do so in a cohort full of students with divergent interests and in a department with faculty who operate in different content areas and epistemological spaces. In ENVS 501: Research and Projects in Environmental Studies*, graduate students often enter with only a nascent idea of their content area and epistemological space. Several assignments ask them to begin to identify their own language and tools, and to learn to communicate across disciplines. First, in the Paper Discussion Assignment* I ask each student to choose two readings in their field – a seminal paper/chapter and a cutting edge paper/chapter. That student facilitates a discussion of these readings for the whole class. In this way, for example, a student interested in using dendrochronology to reconstruct aspects of the regional climatic record can share their language and tools with students who might be focusing on energy policy or parks planning. Similarly, in the Methodology Interview Assignment* students are asked to interview a faculty mentor about their research methodology, and then share a summary of that conversation with the class. It’s been fun to see the a-ha moments that occur when students begin to understand that their research mentors hold very divergent understandings of how to know and study the world. This gives the students confidence in articulating their own thesis methodology, and getting and giving feedback outside of their disciplines.

Cultivating Humility and Curiosity

For these interdisciplinary discussions of value-laden, contentious material to work well, they need to occur in learning spaces that cultivate humility and curiosity. In big classes, I create space for students to anonymously ask potentially embarrassing or tough questions. At the end of every ENVS 303: Introduction to Environmental Studies I: Human Ecology and Ethics class*, I use Socrative to ask students, “What’s still unclear after today’s lecture?” This has been a valuable teaching tool for engaging in tough conversations in large classes. Students ask things like “Why is this the first time I learned about the link between eugenics and the environmental movement?”, “Is affirmative action a good thing?”, “How can resource-dependent communities find common ground with sustainability advocates?”, etc. Often their questions aren’t factual, but existential. It’s been wonderful to start each class by discussing a few of the previous “muddiest point” questions. Often, I need to do further research or consult with a colleague to answer the students’ questions. I describe this process to the students in class, and in doing so I hope to model my own intellectual humility and curiosity.

This emphasis on humility and curiosity is even more important in environmental justice conversations. As a white, cis woman, I try to engage in these conversations with humility and a willingness to listen and learn, especially from students in my class. My colleague, Dr. Nini Hayes, pointed me to DiAngelo and Sensoy’s helpful piece, “Leaning in: A student’s guide to engaging constructively with social justice content” (2014), which I now include as an assigned reading towards the beginning of most of my courses. DiAngelo and Sensoy ask students to “lean in” to critically challenging content by acknowledging the resistance they may feel: “When confronted with evidence of inequality that challenges our identities and world views, we often respond with resistance; we want to deflect this unsettling information and protect a world view that is more comforting.” DiAngelo and Sensoy provide specific guidelines for students. This sets the groundwork for a space that allows students to respectfully challenge one another, and to challenge me while still acknowledging that I hold some expertise. In one of the first courses I introduced this piece, a few weeks into the quarter a student politely interrupted another student and said “I’m sorry to interrupt, but you just said that in your experience POC aren’t treated differently in ENVS classes. I think you just violated Guideline #2: ‘Everyone has an opinion. Opinions are not the same as informed knowledge.’ Do you have any evidence to back up your opinion?” The student who made the initial remark acknowledged her error in conflating her observations with knowledge, and this exchange created more open and engaged set of conversations. In this instance and others, I regularly express to students my own fumbling efforts to discuss questions of race, gender and sexuality. I encourage students to let me know when I don’t do well. And they do! And we learn together.

As a white instructor, I try to “lean in” and listen to the needs of BIPOC students in these conversations by both giving voice to students with traditionally marginalized identities and also respecting the possibility that they may choose to disengage in discussions of race and the environment in the context of a predominately white classroom. From my wonderful colleague, Terri Kempton, I’ve borrowed versions of this phrasing: “For some of you, this content may seem shocking and surprising. I challenge you to ask yourself why you are so surprised. What about your identity and experience allows you to be unaware of racism and colonialism? For others, this content reflects your lived experience. I encourage you to engage or disengage as you’d like, and to take care of yourselves.” At the same time, I acknowledge my whiteness and speak to the benefits I experience due to my identity. For example, before discussing environmental justice in a large class, I introduce core concepts, including intersectionality, institutional racism, white supremacy and privilege. I use my own family as an example: “I have an 8-year old son. He’s smart and funny and mischievous. As a parent, I worry about a lot of things. When he’s a teenager, I have no doubt that he’ll make some foolish choices. But what I don’t have to worry about? I don’t have to worry about him being the victim of police violence. He has light brown hair and bright blue eyes. Other parents of similarly smart and funny and mischievous kids don’t have that privilege.” I find that talking in a personal and honest way about these issues allows for more learning for all of us.

Creating Space of Communities of Care and Learning

Difficult conversations like these aren’t possible without first creating a community of care and mutual respect in the classroom. Cultivating this means spending time checking in with students, regularly asking them to reflect on how they’ll take care of themselves in stressful times, and providing opportunities for students to connect with one another. This has been especially important in the development and implementation of the Environmental Justice minor. In response to a student proposal for a new minor in environmental justice, and growing student and faculty interest in developing such a program, in 2017 a group began meeting weekly to make this happen. The group – which included students, faculty, and staff – operated in an interstitial learning space. Some students took independent study credit for their work in developing the new curriculum and programming, while others treated their participation more as a co-curricular experience. The typical classroom hierarchy was flattened and each week we checked in with one another and then set about the difficult work of designing a curriculum and co-curriculum. In Fall 2020, a new environmental justice minor launched, and this created space for continued difficult conversations and community-building.

The original group wanted to ensure that the EJ minor included components that mirrored our experiences creating the minor. To that end, every quarter I facilitate a 1-credit reading group (ENVS 499D). We read a book or two each quarter, and the texts are selected by students in the previous quarter’s reading group. This has become a wonderful space of community building. Last spring, our group read Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy, which offers approaches to activism that are community-based, self-sustaining, and joyful. I was so touched by the vulnerability and kindness shared in this space: as we read Brown’s beautiful ideas about community-building, many students expressed their own feelings of loneliness. In that one-hour session each week, students exchanged stories, and dreams for a more sustainable and just future, and also phone numbers and plans for the weekend.

Difficult Conversations Made More Difficult

Over the last year, difficult conversations have been made more difficult by the shift from in-person to virtual learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The virtual learning environment does not replicate an in-person learning experience, but it has offered some new opportunities for cultivating difficult conversations. Reconceiving of discussion threads on Canvas as spaces for difficult conversation¹, has allowed students who might be more timid in the classroom to take time to share their thoughts and respond to others through their writing. Allowing a week for conversations to unfold means that students can return to the conversation as thoughts occur to them.

Zoom conversations during the pandemic have been more difficult because of the collective stress, anxiety and trauma that many of us are facing. My favorite icebreaker for the weekly environmental justice reading group lately has been “What will you do to take care of yourself or your communities this weekend?” This Fall (2020), the environmental justice reading group (ENVS 499D) read Sarah Jaquette Ray’s A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety. Though we met on Zoom, this practical text bound us together in a common discussion and effort to navigate the anxieties of not just climate change, but also COVID-19 and anti-Black racism. Regardless of the topic, each difficult conversation in the classroom, on Zoom, or in a discussion thread is really meant to serve as an entry point for a series of lifelong “difficult conversations” through which students might continue to build responsive, learning communities.

*course syllabus and assignments co-developed with Prof. Rebekah Paci-Green

Works Cited

• Barrett-Fox, R. Setting the Tone for Discussion Boards.(2020, March 18). https://anygoodthing.com/2020/03/18/setting-the-tone-for-discussion-boards/

• Brown, Adrienne Maree. (2017). Environmental justice: insights from an interdisciplinary instructional workshop.Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. AK Press.

• Darby, K. J., & Atchison, C. L. (2014). Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 4(4), 288–293.

• Di Chiro, G. (2010). Polluted politics? Confronting toxic discourse, sex panic, and eco-normativity. Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire, 199–230.

• DiAngelo, R., & Sensoy, O. (2014). Leaning in: A student’s guide to engaging constructively with social justice content. Radical Pedagogy, 11(1), 1–15.

• Finney, C. (2014). Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors. UNC Press Books.

• Gottlieb, R. (2005). Forcing the spring: The transformation of the American environmental movement. Island Pr.

• Kahan, D. (2012). Why we are poles apart on climate change. Nature News, 488(7411), 255.

• Maniates, M. F., & Whissel, J. C. (2000). Environmental studies: the sky is not falling. BioScience, 50(6), 509–517.

• Proctor, J. D., Bernstein, J., Brick, P., Brush, E., Caplow, S., & Foster, K. (2018). Environmental engagement in troubled times: a manifesto. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 8(3), 362–367.

• Purdy, J. (August 13, 2015). Environmentalism’s Racist History. The New Yorker. Retrieved February 5, 2021, from https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/environmentalisms-racist-history

• Ray, S. J. (2020). A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety. In A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety. University of California Press.

• Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01405730

• Robbins, P., Hintz, J., & Moore, S. A. (2014). Environment and society: a critical introduction. John Wiley & Sons.

• Soule, M. E., & Press, D. (1998). What is environmental studies? BioScience, 48(5), 397–405.

• Taylor, D. E. (2016). The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection. Duke University Press.