Urban Environmental Marronage: Connecting Black Ecologies with Charisma Acey
Release Date: 11/04/2024
The Pointillistic City: Well-Being and Equity in Communities and their Places with Dan O'Brien
Cities@Tufts Lectures
The Pointillistic City extends the classic observation that “neighborhoods matter” for health and well-being, arguing that we need to pay more attention to the other geographic scales that we live at—including streets within neighborhoods and even properties within streets—and how they each affect us. This is analogous to a pointillistic painting, which is similarly organized into dots within objects and objects within a full image. This “pointillistic perspective” surfaces microspatial inequities, or disparities between people living in the same neighborhood, as a pressing and...
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Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and Institution Building with Monica White
Cities@Tufts Lectures
Dr. Monica M. White presented Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and Institution Building." The presentation provided context for understanding agriculture as a strategy of resilience and resistance for African Americans. It will offer a perspective of the labor and commitment to agriculture from those in southern Black rural communities to those building community-based food systems in urban spaces. About Monica White Dr. Monica M. White is the Distinguished Chair of Integrated Environmental Studies, associate professor of environmental justice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,...
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Public Everyday Space: Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Barcelona with Megan Saltzman
Cities@Tufts Lectures
Megan Saltzman presented her new book--Public Everyday Space: Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Barcelona--which explores how everyday practices in public space (sitting, playing, walking, etc.) challenge the increase of top-down control in the global city. Public Everyday Space focuses on post-Olympic Barcelona—a time of unprecedented levels of gentrification, branding, mass tourism, and immigration. Drawing from examples observed in public spaces (streets, plazas, sidewalks, and empty lots), as well as in cultural representation (film, photography, literature), this book exposes the quiet...
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A History of Violence: The Legacy of Environmental Racism in Canada with Ingrid Waldron
Cities@Tufts Lectures
Canada was founded on enslavement and dispossession, most exemplified by its assimilationist ideologies and policies, the displacement, subjugation and oppression of Indigenous and Black peoples and cultures, and the expropriation of Indigenous lands. The colonial theft of land and the accumulation of capital have been foundational to Canada’s wealth. In this presentation, Dr. Ingrid Waldron uses settler colonial theory to examine environmental racism in Canada to highlight the symbolic and material ways in which the geographies of Indigenous and Black peoples have been characterized by...
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Local Leadership for Climate Justice with Hessann Farooqi
Cities@Tufts Lectures
This talk explores how and why city governments can step up to lead on climate action and how resident organizing is critical in making this happen. This talk also explores how to build and sustain the political coalition to ensure climate justice policies can be passed and implemented. Hessann Farooqi is the Executive Director of the Boston Climate Action Network. He is the youngest person and the first person of color appointed to lead BCAN. Hessann studied economics at Boston University, worked in the United States Senate under Sen. Ed Markey, and served on various federal, state, and local...
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From City to Sink: Urban Carbon Removal as Promise and Practice with Duncan McLaren
Cities@Tufts Lectures
Climate policy increasingly relies on techniques to remove CO2 from the environment as a supplement to cutting emissions: counter-balancing residual emissions in ‘net-zero’ and reducing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to safer levels. In this talk, Duncan will survey how cities are engaging with carbon removal – reviewing the realistic scope of possibilities such as carbon negative building materials, and carbon removal through urban waste management; and suggest ways in which urban carbon removal could be governed to contribute to goals of justice and sustainability. Duncan McLaren is...
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Solidarity Cities: Examining Solidarity Economies at the Urban Level with Maliha Safri
Cities@Tufts Lectures
Contemporary urban discourse is caught in a binary between the Gentrified City, and the Disinvested City. Maliha Safri’s new book presents an alternative urban imaginary: the Solidarity City. Her new co-authored book Solidarity Cities. Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation introduces an alternative spatial imaginary highlighting solidarity relations as definitional features of urban life. In contrast to profit-motive and competition, solidarity economies and the corresponding international movement have commitments to cooperation, democracy, and inclusion. The movement is...
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Environmental Justice, Political-Economic Inequalities, and Pathways to Justice with Prakash Kashwan
Cities@Tufts Lectures
Most researchers of environmental and climate justice agree that political and economic inequalities hurt the environment, racial minorities, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalized communities. Yet, these conclusions are based, almost exclusively, on analyses of the distribution of "environmental bads" (e.g., industrial pollution and toxic waste). Drawing on a longstanding and cumulative multi-methods research program focused on the distribution of "environmental goods" (biodiversity conservation), this lecture offers an alternative analysis of the relationship between environment and...
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Mutual Aid Lessons from East Boston
Cities@Tufts Lectures
This is a special bonus episode of the Cities@Tufts podcast! Last fall, Tufts University Distinguished Senior Lecturer of Urban Environmental Policy and Planning, Penn Loh, hosted a discussion following the release of a new report, . This episode is from that live event, hosted by Tufts UEP, on October 3, 2024 where panelists shared their mutual aid experiences, lessons learned, and other key findings from UEP-community report on how mutual aid can strengthen civic infrastructure, contribute to movements for social justice, and build communities of care. Resources: Report: In addition to...
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Decolonizing Climate and Energy Policy with Noel Healy
Cities@Tufts Lectures
Addressing the climate crisis requires more than incremental reforms; it necessitates a transformative approach that dismantles deep-seated inequalities and confronts the historical injustices embedded in global structures. Achieving global climate justice hinges on decolonizing fossil fuel politics and dismantling obstructionist forces at both national and international levels. By drawing from and critiquing the Green New Deal movement, Professor Noel Healy explores what genuine economic and political transformation looks like in practice, emphasizing that these systemic changes are...
info_outlineUrban Environmental Marronage: Connecting Black Ecologies from Coastal Nigeria to the American South explores how marginalized communities in coastal Nigeria and the American South draw upon historical practices of marronage to create autonomous spaces and combat environmental degradation within cities.
Marronage refers to the practices of enslaved Africans who escaped to form free communities in inaccessible terrains. By connecting Black ecologies from Lagos and the Niger Delta to New Orleans and South Carolina, this presentation examines how communities adapt to environmental challenges, preserve cultural heritage, and develop alternative socio-ecological systems as forms of political and ecological empowerment.
These contemporary case studies of resistance and resilience reflect the enduring legacies of maroon societies across the Black Atlantic, offering new insights into global struggles for human rights and environmental justice.
Charisma Acey is Associate Professor and Arcus Chair in Social Justice and the Built Environment in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on environmental justice, urban sustainability, and equitable access to basic services in cities. Dr. Acey's work spans the Americas and Africa, addressing issues such as climate vulnerability, access to clean water and safe sanitation, women's empowerment, and urban agroecology.
She currently leads projects on air quality and food justice in California, employing participatory action research to identify inequitable policies impacting vulnerable communities. As Faculty Director of the Berkeley Food Institute and co-founder of the Dellums Clinic to Dismantle Structural Racism at the Institute for Urban and Regional Development, she champions interdisciplinary approaches to urban planning and environmental governance.
Dr. Acey holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning and a Master's in Public Policy from UCLA. She is a UW-Madison Health Equity Leadership Institute Scholar. Her work has been recognized with awards for excellence in community-based scholarship. Dr. Acey's publications appear in journals such as World Development, Landscape and Urban Planning, and The Lancet Global Health
In addition to this audio, you can watch the video and read the full transcript of the conversation on Shareable.net – while you’re there get caught up on past lectures.
Cities@Tufts Lectures explores the impact of urban planning on our communities and the opportunities to design for greater equity and justice with professor Julian Agyeman.
Cities@Tufts Lectures is produced by Tufts University and Shareable.net with support from Barr Foundation,
Lectures are moderated by Professor Julian Agyeman and organized in partnership with research assistants Amelia Morton and Grant Perry. Paige Kelly is our co-producer and audio editor, the original portrait of Charisma Acey was illustrated by Anke Dregnat, and the series is co-produced and hosted by Tom Llewellyn.
“Light Without Dark” by Cultivate Beats is our theme song.