1 Ecological Justice

Faculty Mentor: Andrea Baldwin (Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies, University of Utah)

Ecocriticism is a movement aimed to bring awareness to environmental concerns. This movement started in the 1990s but soon displayed a need for more diversity regarding how they approached sustainable environments. Research published during this time was very Westernized and catered to white intellectual men. This lack of diversity soon started impacting vulnerable communities in ways they could process environmental situations that go beyond them. Such as many families not having much knowledge about how the environment is impacting their health. Or some families not having the resources to leave the community that they reside in that is at risk due to the environment. Implementing research is critical in situations where vulnerable communities are at risk. It is important because we have a right to have as much help and research with environmental issues as white communities do. The lack of diversity in research is something that should not be dismissed and need to be brought to light. Therefore in this research, we use open-ended interview questions to gather data about how vulnerable communities broadly defined are impacted by the environment in which they reside. This research is specifically interested in understanding vulnerable communities in Utah and as well as gathering information about how these communities are working toward just environment futures. In this research, we hope to bring light and discover how ecocriticism movements impact vulnerable communities here within Utah, and how many vulnerable communities are affected by the current state of Utah’s environment. We hope to use this data to show how many of the vulnerable communities are not aware of environmental risks that are occurring in their backyard. This should help bring to light why it’s important to include all communities even black and brown in research tailored to environmental concerns.