Our Future Environment

A friend of mine recently said that for him social justice was righting an injustice rather than promoting a right. However, I believe I may be the opposite.

I am taking three courses: Environmental Planning in the Architecture department at Columbia, Anthropology of Property in the CUNY GC Anthro department, and American Political Culture and National Identity in the CUNY GC Political Science department.

Besides these classes I also work as a project mentor/tech guide for a program that introduces online technologies as a way to increase literacy in NYC public schools.

I’m also trying to write my second year research paper on the Social and Sensory Dimensions of Cave Exploration.

I have also joined/helped start a few research groups: Peace and Tolerance Research Group, Participatory and Community Based Research Group, and Students for a Democratic Society.

Somewhere on the side of all of this I have developed a heightened awareness of, concern for, and need to act because of the lives lost or damaged, both Iraqi and American, in this ongoing war of ours.

So where do all my interests and endeavors intersect? In my courses/papers/activism I am drawn to ideas of who the environment is shaped for, how we define property beyond rights of ownership, who defines democracy and why in the U.S., who has access to quality education and what structures create these (in)equalities, how people work within social networks to include or exclude others, and why we must and how we can, as graduate students, extend our research into the public realm.

My interests inevitably come back to social justice. But, as my friend Jen asked in her comments, social justice for who? And how am I bringing in the natural environment? I’m thinking about this and how I can further define my ideas, so stay engaged.

Filed under: observations and opinions, goals on March 4th, 2008