Papers by Jonathan London
Society & Natural Resources, Aug 1, 2006
Disciplinary fragmentation and overspecialization have been identified as the bane of those seeki... more Disciplinary fragmentation and overspecialization have been identified as the bane of those seeking to understand and protect the environment. In the face of almost unfathomable environmental compl...
Contemporary Sociology, Jun 27, 2018
Categories: Community and Urban Sociology, Environment, Stratification Word count: 1120 "Why don'... more Categories: Community and Urban Sociology, Environment, Stratification Word count: 1120 "Why don't they move?" This rhetorical question, asked by skeptics of claims that low income people and people of color are unfairly over-burdened by environmental hazards and deprived of environmental amenities, has bedeviled environmental scholars and activists for decades. The
throughout northern California. It is a socially diverse setting that is the destination for peop... more throughout northern California. It is a socially diverse setting that is the destination for people from around the globe. Its economic, social, and political importance cries out for more secure methods for addressing issues and pursuing opportunities at a regional scale. A central premise of Healthy Youth/Healthy Regions is that framing youth issues at the regional scale has the potential to reveal the interdependence of youth and regional well-being and to inform policy and community change strategies that address patterns of disparity and build on regional assets and strengths. But to be effective, would-be change agents must understand not merely the state of youth well-being across and within the region, but also the region's overall character and the dynamic forces, historical and current, which shape its politics and culture. What follows is a brief introduction to some key regional characteristics, with an emphasis on three broad areas in which forces of fragmentation and connection can be observed: 1) people and cultures (particularly in light of historic and recent patterns of immigration); 2) economy and environment; and 3) political structures and dynamics. In our discussion of each of these areas, we describe forces which simultaneously connect the region to outside influences while setting the stage for internal tension driven by important racial, class, and political divisions. These divisions, in turn, have major implications in driving the sharp disparities in youth opportunities and outcomes that are described in other elements of the Healthy Youth/Healthy Regions report. We end by considering what can be learned from previous efforts at regional collaboration, in order to inform future strategies to improve youth equity and well-being. At stake is not only the wellbeing of individual youth but the economic and social vitality of the region as a place to live, work, learn and raise families.
Practicing anthropology, Apr 1, 2004
If knowledge is a form of power, then to lack knowledge is to lack power, and to build knowledge ... more If knowledge is a form of power, then to lack knowledge is to lack power, and to build knowledge is to build power. This seemingly basic notion is at the source of diverse streams of theory and practice entitled participatory action research, community-based research, counter mapping, popular education and empowerment evaluation. It is from these historical, political and methodological headwaters that a relatively new stream of work, called youth-led action research, evaluation and planning, arises. These practices, while distinct, all represent attempts to build the power and capacity of those at the margins of society to examine, define, and ultimately shape their worlds according to their needs, visions and values. Youth-led action research, evaluation and planning expands the social critique and progressive stance towards breaking the monopolies of power/knowledge to include age-based inequities, along with (and in relationship to) inequities based on race, ethnicity, class gender, sexuality and other markers of difference.
Environmental research: infrastructure and sustainability, Jun 28, 2022
Many areas in the world with chronic and intermittent water shortages rely on informal water syst... more Many areas in the world with chronic and intermittent water shortages rely on informal water systems for much of their daily water needs with water from tanker trucks, purchased bottled water, rainwater cisterns, or pumped well water. These alternative sources all require varying amounts of energy. Water–energy nexus studies have not yet considered environmental impacts of informal water sources, specifically from an energy intensity and carbon emissions perspective. This study compares energy use and carbon emissions per cubic meter and per capita for both formal and informal water sources for a neighborhood in Beirut Lebanon. Energy use and carbon emissions are calculated for three delivery stages per source including pumping, treatment and distribution. The results show that informal sources have the highest energy use and carbon emissions. From the total water delivered to households, they account for 83% of energy use and 72% of carbon emissions per capita, even though they only provide 23% of total delivered volume per capita. Bottled water and distribution of water by tanker trucks have the highest energy intensity values per cubic meter of all water sources. Moreover, internal building water pumping, which is not typically accounted for, takes up to 14% of total energy use and 23% of total carbon emissions per capita compared to other water sources. To address model uncertainty, we conduct a sensitivity analysis, showing that the base model presented reasonably stable results and identifying the most sensitive parameters for further research. While informal sources help communities overcome water shortages they result with negative impacts. Strategies are proposed to improve the environmental performance of the Lebanese electrical grid, reduce water losses, replace inefficient truck engines and incentivize household to invest in low carbon technologies.
Environmental Justice, Oct 1, 2021
Background: The environmental justice (EJ) movement has struggled for several decades to transfor... more Background: The environmental justice (EJ) movement has struggled for several decades to transform public agencies to be more responsive to the needs and voices of disadvantaged communities. Recent...
Water, Aug 31, 2022
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
Social Forces, Sep 1, 2010
litical power (because they are low-income and usually minority, female workers), it is in the sy... more litical power (because they are low-income and usually minority, female workers), it is in the symbolic realm where they have found sufficient leverage to wage their labor campaigns, through the moralistic clamors for justice and fairness. For scholars, this poses the challenge of seeking to understand under what conditions such symbolic struggles are successful and what leads to failure. For labor movement activists, it brings to the forefront the need to validate the approaches workers on the margins have found to improve their situations. Chun’s analysis illustrates the ways business unionism has taken positions harming the interests of nonstandard workers. In order to develop solidarity between elite workers and those in the margins, elite workers will need to let go of some long-standing strategies and beliefs. The relevance of any book is best understood in the context in which it would be used. Chun’s piece is very valuable for undergraduate courses on labor studies, work organization and labor movements. By offering an explanation of what is meant by nonstandard work and a clear illustration of the bad conditions these workers endure, students are better prepared to understand why workers mobilize. The story nicely shows the many challenges workers face in forming a union, as well as the difficulties for the unions to be officially recognized and gain labor contracts. It is evident that the workers’ achievements have taken years of commitment and struggle. Chun’s style is engaging as she explains the complex relationships within each nation’s labor movement: how traditional unions have been hesitant to mobilize workers in the margins; the way such mobilization has arisen; and how traditional unions have slowly and tepidly moved closer in support of marginal workers’ efforts. Her syntheses of the labor movements in both nations illustrate these long-standing struggles, more recent turns and current challenges. Furthermore, the analysis offers many themes for classroom discussion. For scholars in the field, however, the above reiterates what is already known: Contingent/nonstandard work and its relationship with neo-liberal globalization, new labor mobilization strategies, internal union disputes, and the role of moralistic appeal and solidarity from citizens’ organizations in the success of national and transnational movements. Yet, Chun’s book nicely highlights the important role of the symbolic realm as the source of power for nonstandard workers in both the North and South.
Antipode, Apr 1, 1998
Conflicts over the protection of redwood trees on California's North Coast are often depicted... more Conflicts over the protection of redwood trees on California's North Coast are often depicted as following the trajectory of the radical wing of the larger American environmental movement, in which “radical” refers to the sharpness of the boundary drawn and defended between human despoliation and pure nature or “wilderness.” Earth First!—an environmental organization characterized by their slogan, “No compromise in the defense of Mother Earth!”—is often depicted as simply the leading edge of this deepening rift between nature and culture. I argue, on the contrary, that the Earth First! branches on California's North Coast should be understood as making bold, if incomplete, attempts to cast off the problematic nature–culture dichotomy and to define social justice and ecological health as struggles with a common root. By moving beyond wilderness, the North Coast Earth First! offers the promise of a truly radical movement, by which I mean one which truly confronts capital's interlinked degradation of both natural and human communities. This article examines the efforts by the North Coast Earth First! to inscribe a new community of activists and timber‐workers joined in the struggle to contest corporate claims on the redwood forest. It explores the ambiguous effects of activists' “embodied” and “home‐based” practices on this budding alliance, particularly the ways in which such practices also have alienated workers by redefining the redwood forest as the exclusive property of the activists' themselves.
Children, Youth and Environments
Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad
Nepal: Community, Technology and Sustainability brings together cohorts of US-based university st... more Nepal: Community, Technology and Sustainability brings together cohorts of US-based university students and Nepalese university students in a hybrid online/mobility program that supports intercultural, interdisciplinary, community-engaged, project-based learning. The program seeks to adopt a decolonial pedagogical model that centers the Nepali co-instructors, students, and host community partners as critical knowledge holders, sovereigns of their own development, and co-producers of the educational experience. This article provides a conceptual framework for centering typically marginalized voices, a description of the program and an edited version of a dialogue between several of the course co-instructors. Our major findings are that to achieve these ends, the values of decolonialization and equitable voice must be built into all elements of the program; that this requires pushing against many conventions of education abroad programming and, in some cases, community practices; and ...
The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, 2018
Any avid gardener will tell you that planting seeds is not enough to ensure an abundant harvest. ... more Any avid gardener will tell you that planting seeds is not enough to ensure an abundant harvest. While you might get lucky and hit a patch of fertile ground, you will likely have more success if you first prepare the soil. Community-university partnerships (CUPs) require the same investment. Just as soil provides the physical foundation for plant growth, relationship building between communities and researchers provides the foundation for productive and sustained CUPs. In that vein, we argue that successful CUPs not only require seed money to initiate projects, but soil money to cultivate strong, resilient, and productive partnerships. There is increasing pressure for scientists to demonstrate the societal relevance of their work (Keeler et al. 2017). Many scientists achieve this through partnership with community organizations. Yet, whether CUPs are effective, and for whom they are effective, is poorly understood, partly because partnerships are often formed under conditions that are driven by funding and academic publishing opportunities. This may ultimately shortchange the potential benefits to scientific innovation and the ability of science to contribute toward social benefit. Partnerships formed through the exploration and definition of mutual interests may yield more impactful work (London et al. 2017). Soil money directly addresses SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
Landscape Journal, 1998
A community-based masterplanJbr an exisling 80-acre hilltop urban park, Oakland, California The G... more A community-based masterplanJbr an exisling 80-acre hilltop urban park, Oakland, California The Glenn W. Daniel King Estate Park encompasses eighty acres of a north-south ridge overlooking the East Bay Hills and an expansive panorama of the San Francisco Bay. The park is the largest open space and only urban wildland west of Interstate 580, the city's social and physical divide. The Glenn W. Daniel King Estate Park master plan is not a blueprint for a park constructed as a single project. Rather, it is a guide for a sustained effort to bring to fruition a park that is ecologically healthy and well integrated into the social life of its community. The park lies within a homeowning, middle-class, primarily African American neighborhood, considerably integrated with European American, Latino, and Asian American residents. In a time when many communities are turning their backs on
99th ESA Annual Meeting (August 10 -- 15, 2014), Aug 12, 2014
ABSTRACT Background/Question/Methods Recent advances in socio-spatial analysis of environmental j... more ABSTRACT Background/Question/Methods Recent advances in socio-spatial analysis of environmental justice issues in urban areas, including concentrations of hazardous waste facilities, facilities with toxic releases, air pollution, and other issues coupled with measures of social vulnerability (e.g., poverty, limited formal education, limited English proficiency) have provided unprecedented ability to identify environmental justice communities. Environmental justice analysis and visualization tools that have offered researchers, policy makers, and community advocates the visual resources to make more strategic decisions to allocating funding, personnel, and other organizational resources. However, despite access to these new information sources, actual application (uptake) to decision-making has been uneven. This study examines the reasons for this pattern of connection and disconnections between analytical capacity on the one hand, and policy and advocacy decision-making on the other. The study draws on data gained through participant observation of several key regional environmental justice mapping initiatives in California, covering both urban and rural communities in the Sacramento, San Joaquin Valley and Coachella Valley. The author’s team served as either the direct producer of environmental justice analysis and mapping tools or as advisors to processes led by other teams. Results/Conclusions Significant variations in the applications of EJ analysis and mapping resources have been shown to be associated with several key factors. More extensive and sustained application of the EJ tools have resulted from: (1.) the level of trust and mutual-respect between tool producers and users (2.) the level of user participation in the process of the tool development; (3.) the early identification of the policy or advocacy target to be addressed, (4.) the level of capacity-building on the use of the tools; (5.) the inter-active and adaptability of the tool for place and context specific applications (6.) the sustained collaborative relationship between producer and user and (7.) the sense of the identification or ownership of the tools and association reports and products. These results can serve as guidance for future EJ analysis and mapping initiatives in metropolitan regions around the country.
Transportation Research Part A-policy and Practice, Jun 1, 2016
Environmental justice (EJ) refers to policy and advocacy intended to achieve equitable protection... more Environmental justice (EJ) refers to policy and advocacy intended to achieve equitable protection from environmental harms and access to benefits across demographic groups. Research has shown that low-income communities and communities of color are often exposed to greater harms and enjoy fewer benefits from transportation systems than the general population. However, federally-mandated EJ analyses rarely conclude that projects could result in disproportionate impacts to these communities. This paper investigates the methods used to define EJ communities-a key analytical step for which there is little specific guidance-as a potential driver of variation in observed EJ outcomes. Using a case study of transit accessibility in Fresno County, California, the paper contrasts three methods for the identification of EJ communities: (1) a commonly used threshold-based approach that groups geographic areas using demographics, (2) a population-weighted approach that calculates weighted means of performance measures, and (3) communitybased identification of EJ areas. The analysis indicates that the first method is appropriate for targeting transportation investments but not for assessing EJ outcomes, while the second two methods are appropriate for assessing EJ outcomes. Importantly, the method used to define EJ communities can substantially affect the analytical outcome, potentially shifting a finding of inequity from null to positive or vice versa. These results have important implications for transportation planning agencies and transportation service providers that conduct EJ and equity analyses, as a finding of inequity may lead to design changes or mitigations.
Environmental Science & Policy, Oct 1, 2009
Understanding any contemporary issue of water management and policy requires attending to the his... more Understanding any contemporary issue of water management and policy requires attending to the history of how water is understood, used, valued, appropriated, and fought over in the particular places tied to the issue (
The MIT Press eBooks, Sep 2, 2011
Transportation Research Part D-transport and Environment, Feb 1, 2019
Quantifying the public health impacts of transportation plans provides stakeholders with informat... more Quantifying the public health impacts of transportation plans provides stakeholders with information that can aid in evaluating alternative transportation scenarios. Active transportation can improve public health through increased physical activity. At the same time, increasing walking and cycling can affect the risk of traffic injury or increase exposure to air pollution. The Integrated Transport and Health Impacts Model (ITHIM) has been applied around the world to understand changes in public health that will result from increases in active travel. However, the model does not provide disaggregate information required to evaluate the social equity implications of such changes. Health benefits are typically reported as a single value (e.g., total reductions in deaths) at the county or regional level. In this work, we draw from several data sources to report demographically explicit (i.e., race/ethnicity and income) results from an ITHIM implementation developed for the Sacramento region in California. This disaggregation is helpful because travel behavior and health outcomes are affected by race/ethnicity and its correlates (e.g., residential location) and planning agencies are required to ensure that their policies and projects are not discriminatory. The results show people of color are generally expected to experience greater overall health benefits than non-Hispanic whites. In addition, the disaggregated results indicate that there is a substantial variation between counties and demographic groups, providing decision makers with the information needed to target interventions to achieve desired outcomes for disadvantaged populations. They also pave the way for further spatial disaggregation. 1. Introduction Contemporary transportation systems are unsustainable and inequitable, contributing to global climate change, emissions of hazardous air pollutants, and resulting in often-fatal traffic collisions (
Uploads
Papers by Jonathan London
Cet article met en lumière l'importance du concept de région dans les domaines de l'écologie politique et de la justice environnementale, en présentant trois arguments relatifs au rôle des régions dans le cadre de mouvements sociaux de défense de la justice environnementale agissant contre le changement climatique dans la vallée de San Joaquin en Californie. Premièrement, les agences de planification régionale et les défenseurs de la justice environnementale sont en conflit, non seulement sur le contenu des plans régionaux de changement climatique, mais aussi sur la définition même de région et sur les compétences exercées par les agences mettant ces visons régionales en action. Deuxièmement, en s'organisant au niveau régional, les mouvements de défense de la justice environnementale développent de nouvelles opportunités de questionnements des orientations de l'économie régionale et de négociations avec les agences de planification régionale, qui dans les deux cas ont un impact sur les effets locaux de l'injustice environnementale. Troisièmement, les stratégies régionales de ces mouvements les mettent face à d'importants dilemmes alors qu'ils essayent de maintenir leur engagement sur de larges territoires et coopèrent avec une grande variété d'acteurs économiques et politiques. De manière globale, cette analyse démontre qu'une approche dynamique aux concepts de région, de régionalisme et de régionalisation peut aider les chercheurs en écologie politique et en justice environnementale dans leur but commun de compréhension de la coproduction des inégalités sociales et environnementales.
Este artículo discute la importancia del concepto de región en la ecología política y los estudios sobre justicia ambiental, a través de la presentación de tres argumentos sobre el papel de las regiones en movimientos sociales en el Valle de San Joaquin, California, que están luchando por la mitigación del cambio climático. Primero, agencias del estado y defensores de la justicia ambiental están en conflicto no solo sobre el contenido de los planes para combatir al cambio climático en nivel regional, sino sobre la definición de region y la autoridad utilizada para poner estas visiones regionales en acción. Segundo, organizando en nivel regional da nuevas oportunidades a los movimientos por justicia ambiental, para trabajar sobre padrones económicos regionales y negociar con agencias de planeación regional. Tercero, el uso de estrategias regionales presenta dilemas importantes para estos movimientos en el trabajo de sostener la iniciativa en espacios y poblaciones diversos, así como confrontar un abanico variado de actores económicos y políticos. Juntos, los tres argumentos muestran que un acercamiento flexible y dinamico a los conceptos de region, regionalismo y regionalización, podría apoyar a los investigadores utilizando enfoques de la ecologia politica y la justicia ambiental en su objetivo mutuo de entender la coproducción de la desigualdad socioambiental y la acción colectivo necesario para cambiarla.