By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution
2021-10-19 17:30 - 19:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Salon.com founder and former editor-in-chief David Talbot and his sister Margaret, a longtime staff writer at the New Yorker, together explore the potential landscape of the 1960s and 1970s. Based on exclusive interviews, original documents, and archival research, By the Light of Burning Dreams explores critical moments in the lives of a diverse cast of iconoclastic leaders of the 20th-century radical movement.

Join us for our conversation moderated by Nikki Silva as she explores with Margaret and David Talbot and our panelists Madonna Thunder Hawk, Dolores Huerta, Heather Booth, and Bill Zimmerman, the epiphanies that galvanized these modern revolutionaries and created unexpected connections and alliances between individual movements and across race, class, and gender divides.

Co-sponsored by The Humanities Institute and the Institute for Social Transformation.

Register

Authors

David Talbot (Stevenson, ’73) is a journalist, author, activist, and independent historian.

Margaret Talbot is an essayist, non-fiction writer, and staff writer at The New Yorker.

Panel

Madonna Thunder Hawk is an activist and a veteran of every modern Native occupation from Alcatraz, to Wounded Knee in 1973, and more recently the NODAPL protest at Standing Rock.

Bill Zimmerman is a political consultant and author, who managed Tom Hayden’s campaign for the U.S. Senate in the 1976 California primary.

Heather Booth is a civil rights activist, feminist, and political strategist and has been heavily involved in progressive causes.

Dolores Huerta is a co-founder of the United Farm Workers and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom; she has played a major role in the civil rights movement for over 50 years.

Moderator

Nikki Silva (Porter, ’73) is co-executive producer of the public radio team, The Kitchen Sisters, who are creators of hundreds of stories for NPR and public broadcast. Her current NPR and podcast series is the Keepers.

About the Book The political landscape of the 1960s and 1970s was perhaps one of the most tumultuous in America’s history, shaped by the fight for civil rights, women’s liberation, Black power, and the end to the Vietnam War. In many ways, this second American revolution was a belated fulfillment of the betrayed promises of the first, striving to extend the full protections of the Bill of Rights to non-white, non-male, non-elite Americans excluded by the nation’s founders. Based on exclusive interviews, original documents, and archival research, By the Light of Burning Dreams explores critical moments in the lives of a diverse cast of iconoclastic leaders of the twentieth century radical movement: Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers; Heather Booth and the Jane Collective, the first underground feminist abortion clinic; Vietnam War peace activists Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda; Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers; Craig Rodwell and the Gay Pride movement; Dennis Banks, Madonna Thunder Hawk, Russell Means and the warriors of Wounded Knee; and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s politics of stardom. Margaret and David Talbot reveal the epiphanies that galvanized these modern revolutionaries and created unexpected connections and alliances between individual movements and across race, class, and gender divides. America is still absorbing—and reacting against—the revolutionary forces of this tumultuous period. The change these leaders enacted demanded much of American society and the human imagination. By the Light of Burning Dreams is an immersive and compelling narrative of seven lighting rods of change and the generation that engraved itself in American history—and set the stage for those today, fighting to bend forward the arc of American history.

Building Back Better: Tools and Methods for a More Inclusive Recovery
2021-10-21 12:00 - 13:30
The Center for Social Innovation at UC Riverside, along with the Institute for Social Transformation at UC Santa Cruz and Alianza Coachella Valley, will be hosting Building Back Better: Tools and Methods for a More Inclusive Recovery on Thursday, October 21 starting at Noon PT.

The event will include a panel discussion with experts on the different types of tools and methods that are available to help build a more inclusive economic recovery. In addition, the conversation will be informed by a joint policy brief that will be released, which draws on the collaborative work with UCSC and Alianza in the Salton Sea region (including prospects for lithium extraction and battery manufacturing). The brief also draws on Manuel Pastor and Chris Benner’s forthcoming book on Solidarity Economics and the Center for Social Innovation’s RISE and Ready framework that lays out pragmatic indicators to track progress on resilience, inclusion, sustainability, equity.

The goal of this event is to help inform and ultimately transform the way we think about inclusive economic development at the local, state, and national level.

Register here

Chris Benner, speakerDorothy E. Everett Chair in Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship, Director of the Everett Program for Technology and Social Change, and a Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Mary Collins, speakerGovernor’s Office of Planning & Research (OPR), Program Manager, Just Transition

Manuel Pastor, speakerDistinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California

Silvia Paz, speakerAlianza Coachella Valley Executive Director, Chair of California’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Lithium Extraction (also known as the Lithium Valley Commission)

Toni Symonds, speakerChief Consultant, Assembly Committee on Jobs, Economic Development, and the Economy for the California State Legislature

Karthick Ramakrishnan, moderatorProfessor of Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside, Director for the Center for Social Innovation, and Executive Director of California 100

The Senate: From White Supremacy to Governmental Gridlock
2021-10-25 17:30 - 19:00
Join us for this lively analysis by UC Santa Cruz Professor of Politics Daniel Wirls of the U.S. Senate, its relation to our other institutions of government and the constitutional system as a whole, and the role of the “world’s greatest deliberative body” in undermining effective government and maintaining white supremacy in America.

In his new book The Senate: From White Supremacy to Governmental Gridlock Wirls argues, from the founding era onward, the Senate constructed for itself an exceptional role in the American system of government that has no firm basis in the Constitution. This self-proclaimed exceptional status is part and parcel of the Senate’s problematic role in the governmental process over the past two centuries, a role shaped primarily by the combination of equal representation among states and the filibuster, which set up the Senate’s clash with modern democracy and effective government and has contributed to the contemporary underrepresentation of minority members. If constitutional changes to our institutions are necessary for better governance, then how should the Senate be altered to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem? This book provides one answer.

Presented by the UC Santa Cruz University Forum and co-sponsored by the Institute for Social Transformation.

Register here

Daniel WirlsUCSC Professor of Politics Wirls received his PhD in Government from Cornell University in 1988 and has been teaching at UC Santa Cruz ever since. Dr. Wirls’s research interests range across American politics, institutions, public policy, and political history. He has published work on the founding period and the early Senate, antebellum representation in the Senate and House, the Seventeenth Amendment, Cold War and post-Cold War military policy, and contemporary political transformations. His other books include The Invention of the United States Senate (2004), Irrational Security: The Politics of Defense from Reagan to Obama (2010), and The Federalist Papers and Institutional Power in American Political Development (2015).

Chris Benner, moderatorUCSC Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology Benner is Director of the Institute for Social Transformation, the Dorothy E. Everett Chair in Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship, and the Director of the Everett Program for Technology and Social Change. Rooted in an urban political ecology approach, his research examines relationships between technological change, regional development, and the structure of economic opportunity, focusing on regional labor markets and the transformation of work and employment. He received his BA in African Development Studies from Dartmouth College and his PhD in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley.

Public Interest Technology Chat: Centering the Community
2021-10-27 12:00 - 13:30
The Public Interest Technology Chat (PITCh) is a monthly series of remote conversations between established and early career scholars to support the work of practitioners and academics interested in public interest technology, with topics ranging from substantive issues to professional development topics.

The PITCh, hosted by Lab Director Prof. Anne L. Washington, PhD, will feature analysis and approaches by established scholars, and extensive opportunities for dialogue and reflections with two guests per session. Each session will also have a limited number of early career individuals as a “live” audience, who will have the opportunity to ask questions and respond to the main conversation. The events will be broadcast live in a Zoom Webinar format, and will also have a brief general public Q&A towards the end.

The session on October 27 will feature UCSC Professor Chris Benner and Arizona State University Professor Alexandrina Agloro.

The PITCh is partially funded by the National Science Foundation and the New America Public Interest Technology University Network.

Registration and more information available here.

Chris BennerProfessor, Chair, and Director of the Everett Program, and Institute for Social Transformation His scholarship focuses on the relationship between technological change, economic restructuring, and innovative social justice strategies.

Alexandrina AgloroAssistant Professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society As a 2018-2019 Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellow, she pursued a book project on global participatory game design in communities of color in South Africa and the U.S. Her most recent game, “The Resisters,” was an alternate reality game she designed through participatory research with young people of color about local social momvement history in Providence, Rhode Island. Agloro studies the connections between reproductive justice; land, water and internet sovereignty; and interactive media.

The Art of Black Ecologies: A Virtual Studio Visit & Conversation
2021-10-27 12:15 - 13:30
The concept of black ecologies underscores the undue impact of climate and environmental injustice on Black diaspora communities while lifting up “insurgent” Black ecological knowledge (Roane & Hosbey 2019). Join us for a virtual studio visit and conversation on art and black ecologies with independent scholar and artist Jennifer Steverson. Steverson uses indigo dye, textiles, and archives to highlight Black diaspora community and resilience practices created through art, craft, and agriculture.

She will be in conversation with arts-based geographer Naya Jones (UCSC Sociology). This event is moderated by the UCSC Black Geographies Lab and is part of the growing Black Botany Studio.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Cultural Studies.

RSVP using the button below by 11 a.m. on Wednesday October 27th to receive the Zoom link and password.

Register

Jennifer Steverson Jennifer Steverson (she/her/hers) is an independent scholar and multi media artist based in Central Texas. Her work is informed by the cultural ecologies of the African Diaspora, specifically by the way that Black people have crafted community and resilience practices through art, craft, and agriculture. She completed her undergraduate work at Eugene Lang College, a division of the New School and her masters degree in Community and Regional Planning at UT Austin. Jennifer was a Hive Collective Artist in Residence in 2019. In 2020, she completed a Texas Folklife Apprenticeship focused on quilting. She was a researcher on the Carver Museum’s African American Presence exhibit which opened in February 2020. Her work has appeared in the Rootwork Journal.

Naya Jones Naya Jones (she/her/hers) is a UCSC Assistant Professor of Sociology and Core Faculty in the Global and Community Health Program. She is a geographer and cultural worker whose solo and collaborative work foregrounds Black geographies of health, ecologies, and healing in North and Latin America. She practices arts-based methods, from participatory film to ritual and botanical arts. Her current book and storytelling project focuses on African-American plant knowledge and the Great Migration. She initiated the Black Botany Studio, a research lab, to promote the study and art of black diaspora plant geographies.

Emerging Perspectives: Theorizing Extractivism and Socio-Territorial Conflicts in Post-Pandemic Americas
2021-10-28 09:00 - 13:30
The Extractivism and Society Research Cluster is organizing a four-part series entitled “Conversations on Extractivism in a Post-Pandemic World.” The first of these conversations will take place on October 28, and features a panel with some of the top scholars in the field. The series will continue over winter and spring quarter.

Since 2018, a wide range of studies have sought to enrich our understanding of the economic, political, cultural and socio-ecological impacts of extractivism. These innovative perspectives however have not been sufficiently put in conversation with one another, and much is to be gained from doing so. While it is impossible to offer a complete inventory of all these contributions arising from different disciplines and sites of knowledge production, a limited and partial review of some of these illustrates how new perspectives are struggling to emerge. How do we translate these emerging perspectives into more effective lines of sight that can guide our inquiry, research, and action?

Register here

Dr. Eduardo GudynasResearcher at Centro Latino-Americano de Ecología Social (CLAES), Uruguay Dr. Gudynas is a Senior Researcher at the Latin American Center for Social Ecology (CLAES) in Montevideo, Uruguay. For more than three decades he has been researching the problems of development, the environment and social movements in Latin America. He was the first Latin American to receive the Arne Naess Chair in Environment and Global Justice from the University of Oslo (Norway). Most recently he was a Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Munich (Germany) and currently participates in the economic transformation commission of the Club of Rome. He has a master’s degree in social ecology and collaborates with South American citizens’ organizations. His latest books include a manual on the theory of extractivism, many others on extractivism and corruption, and the most recent on extractivism, violence and human rights focused on Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. His most recent English language book is his most recent book is Extractivisms: Politics, Economy, and Ecology (Fernwoord, 2021).

Dr. Thea RiofrancosAssociate Professor, Providence College Dr. Riofrancos is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2020-2022), a Radcliffe Institute Fellow (2020-2021), and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College. Their research focuses on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology, social movements, and the left in Latin America. These themes are explored in their book, Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020), as well as in peer-reviewed articles, essays, and their coauthored book, A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso Books, 2019).

Dr. Tom PerraultProfessor and Chair of the Department of Geography and Environment, Syracuse University Dr. Perrault’s research and teaching revolve around the relationship between people and their environments, with an emphasis on questions of social justice and political economy. In particular, their scholarship explores how rural peoples and their organizations access, manage, struggle over, and organize themselves in relation to nature and natural resources in the central Andes and western Amazon in South America.

Conference: Civic Education in Polarized Times
2021-10-29 00:00 - 2021-10-30 23:59
Please join our Zoom conference, Civic Education in Polarized Times, October 29-30, 2021, to be held by the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy! The Institute for Social Transformation is a co-sponsor of this year’s conference, which features papers, commentary, and audience Q&A on pressing issues: In pluralist and conflicted societies, can teachers, particularly those from minority groups, play transformative roles by helping students gain civic maturity and learn how to respect diversity, thereby ameliorating social and political polarization? Do modern democracies need to develop models of civic education that can better prepare and empower student-citizens to be “co-authors of the law,” participants in free speech and democratic governance, and possessors of civic literacy? In an era of division over the content of and approaches to civic education (epitomized in the U.S. by the New York Times’ 1619 Project versus President Trump’s 1776 Commission Report), could there be consensus around promoting “student-centered civic education” by teaching historic struggles for civil and constitutional rights — both as a lens on national history and a tool for undertaking critical evaluations of rights in the present? What might these models of civic teaching and learning entail? And what other concerns, goals, and models do we need to consider to confront the challenges of civic education in polarized times?

Click below to register for FREE and read the principal papers. We will provide the Zoom link to registrants shortly before the conference. Please share this information widely with your networks — students, colleagues, and friends!

The ASPLP is an interdisciplinary society that creates annual exchanges on crucial social issues among scholars of philosophy, politics, law, and other disciplines. We welcome anyone interested to join the ASPLP ($50/year for regular members; $20 for graduate students and emeriti faculty). Register by 11/1 to receive our two recent conference volumes NOMOS LXIII: Democratic Failure, and NOMOX LXIV: Truth and Evidence (forthcoming).

Co-Sponsors: Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics is pleased to host this Zoom conference. It is joined by the following co-sponsors: Princeton’s University Center for Human Values and Department of Politics; Boston University School of Law; University of California-Santa Cruz Institute for Social Transformation and the Politics and Legal Studies Programs; and University of Pennsylvania’s Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy.

Questions? Please contact Elizabeth Beaumont, Associate Professor of Politics and Legal Studies, beaumont@ucsc.edu.

Register here

Virtual Conference Schedule:Please note times listed below are in Eastern Daylight Time, which is three hours ahead of Pacific Time. Friday, October 29 Keynote Address: 5:30-7:00 EDT Sigal Ben-Porath, University of Pennsylvania (Graduate School of Education and Political Science), and Dennis Thompson, Harvard University (Department of Government and Kennedy School of Government, emeritus) Saturday, October 30 Panel I: 12:00-1:30 EDT Principal paper: Seana Shiffrin (UCLA, Philosophy and Law), Democratic Civic Education and Democratic Law Commentator: Robert Tsai (Boston University, Law) Commentator: Brandon Terry (Harvard University, African and African American Studies and Social Studies) Break: 1:30-2:00 Panel II: 2:00-3:30 EDT Principal paper: Yael Tamir, (Beit Berl College, President, and Political Science), To Sir with Love: Advancing Civic Awareness through Cross Communal Teachings Commentator: Kristine Bowman (Michigan State University, Law and Graduate School of Education) Commentator: Rima Basu (Claremont-McKenna College, Philosophy) Break: 3:30-4:00 Panel III: 4:00-5:30 EDT Principal paper: Justin Driver (Yale University, Law), Civic Education, Students’ Rights, and the Supreme Court Commentator: Jennifer Morton (University of Pennsylvania, Philosophy) Commentator: Lisa Barcia Bedolla (University of California-Berkeley, Political Science and Graduate School of Education) Virtual Reception/Cocktail Hour: 5:35-6:30 EDT

Solidarity Economics: OUR Movement, OUR Economy
2021-11-04 16:00 - 17:30
Join us for an event with prominent national policy advocates and social movement leaders in conversation with Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor on their forthcoming book Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter.

Solidarity Economics is an economic frame that recognizes that people are not just individuals, but also members of broader social groups and communities; that people are motivated not just by self-interest, but also by caring for others and a desire for belonging; and that we can and should build our economy not on an embrace of individuality and competition, but rather on a sense of the commons and our shared destiny.

This conversation delves deeply into the concept of Solidarity Economics, its meaning and how to enact change that is real in terms of policy and power. It also discusses how we can expand the notion of Solidarity Economics in our movements and how Solidarity Economics can provide a useful framework to change the narrative of OUR economy. For more information read this UCSC News article, Reimagining our economy for the benefit of all.

Featured Speakers

Chris Benner, Professor, Director of the Institute for Social Transformation at UC Santa Cruz

Manuel Pastor, Distinguished Professor, Director of the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California

Taifa Smith Butler, President of Demos

Jennifer Epps-Addison, Network President & Co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy

Joseph Tomás McKellar, Executive Director of PICO California

Felicia Wong, President and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute

Co-sponsored by

UCSC Institute for Social Transformation and USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute.

To pre-order your copy of the book visit Bookshop Santa Cruz or Polity Books

Register

About the Book Traditional economics is built on the assumption of self-interested individuals seeking to maximize personal gain. This is far from the whole story, however: sharing, caring and a desire to uphold the collective good are also powerful individual motives. In a world wracked by inequality, social divisions, and ecological destruction, can we build an alternative economics based on our mutual co-operation? In this book Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor invite us to imagine and create a new sort of solidarity economics – an approach grounded in our instincts for connection and community – and in so doing, actually build a more robust, sustainable, and equitable economy. They argue that our current economy is already deeply dependent on mutuality, but that the inequality and fragmentation created by the status quo undermines this mutuality and with it our economic wellbeing. They outline the theoretical framing, policy agenda, and social movements we need to revive solidarity and apply it to whole societies. Solidarity Economics is an essential read for anyone who longs for an economy that can generate prosperity, provide for all, and preserve the planet. Learn more at solidarityeconomics.org

Settling Climate Accounts: Navigating the Road to Net Zero
2021-11-05 09:00 - 10:00
As drivers of climate action enter the fourth decade of what has become a multi-stage race, Net Zero has emerged as the dominant organizing principle. Hundreds of corporations and investors worldwide, together responsible for assets in the tens of trillions of dollars, are lining-up for the UN Race to Zero. This latest stage in the race to save civilization from heat, drought, fires, and floods, is defined by steering toward zeroing out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Register here

Alicia SeigerLecturer, Stanford Law School; Managing Director, Precourt Institute Sustainable Finance Initiative; Managing Director, Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance Alicia will discuss the material of her recent book, Settling Climate Accounts, which probes the practice of Net Zero finance. It elucidates both the state of play and a set of directions that help form judgements about whether Net Zero is going to carry climate action far enough. The book delves into technical analyses and activates the reader’s imagination with narrative accounts of climate action past, present, and future. Settling Climate Accounts offers context and foundation to ground the rapidly evolving practice of Net Zero finance. Targeted at seasoned practitioners, newly activated leaders, educators, and students of climate action the world over, this book embraces the complexity of climate action and, in so doing, proposes to animate and drive hope.

Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship
2021-11-09 12:00 - 13:30
Join us for a book launch event with UC Santa Cruz co-editors (Catherine S. Ramírez, Sylvanna M. Falcón, Juan Poblete, Steven C. McKay, Felicity Amaya Schaeffer) of Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship (Rutgers University Press, 2021).

Co-sponsored by the Research Center for the Americas.

Register here

About the Book Precarity and Belonging examines how the movement of people and their incorporation, marginalization, and exclusion, under epochal conditions of labor and social precarity affecting both citizens and noncitizens, have challenged older notions of citizenship and alienage. This collection brings mobility, precarity, and citizenship together in order to explore the points of contact and friction, and, thus, the spaces for a possible politics of commonality between citizens and noncitizens.

2021 Alumni Achievement Award Celebrating Dr. Barbara Ferrer
2021-11-09 17:30 - 19:00
Join us for a special evening to celebrate the extraordinary work of alumna Dr. Barbara Ferrer (Rachel Carson ‘78–Community Studies) who leads the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. As UCSC prepares to launch a new Global and Community Health program aimed at addressing challenges of ill-health both globally and locally, Grant Hartzog, professor of molecular, cell and developmental biology and Matt Sparke, professor of politics will join our conversation to discuss Dr. Ferrer’s path from UC Santa Cruz to the Department of Public Health, the lessons learned over the last two years leading one of the largest counties in the country through a global pandemic, and the important role of global and community health in addressing the challenges of ill-health globally and locally.

In 1984, the UCSC Alumni Office began honoring alumni who have made outstanding contributions to their field. Recipients are of the Alumni Achievement Award are UCSC alumni who have rendered special and outstanding service to UCSC or who, by personal achievement, have brought distinction to the university.

Register here

Dr. Barbara FerrerRachel Carson ‘78–Community Studies, Director LA County Department of Public Health Barbara Ferrer is a nationally-known public health leader with more than 30 years of professional experience as a philanthropic strategist, public health director, educational leader, researcher, and community advocate. Dr. Ferrer served as the executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, where she led a range of public health programs and built innovative partnerships to address inequities in health outcomes and support healthy communities and healthy families. Dr. Ferrer has also served as director of Health Promotion & Chronic Disease Prevention and director of the Division of the Maternal & Child Health at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. As a headmaster at a district high school in Boston, she led efforts to significantly improve high school graduation rates and ensure that every graduating senior was accepted to college. Dr. Ferrer received her Ph.D. in Social Welfare from Brandeis University, a Master of Arts in Public Health from Boston University, a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a Bachelor of Arts in Community Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Grant Hartzog Grant Hartzog received his Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics from the University of California, San Francisco in 1992. After postdoctoral training with Fred Winston at Harvard Medical School, he moved to a faculty position at the University of California Santa Cruz in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology. Dr. Hartzog’s research program focuses on studies of the regulation of transcription elongation and its connections to chromatin structure and RNA processing in yeast.

Matt Sparke Matt Sparke is a Professor of Politics. He moved to the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Fall of 2017 after 22 years at the University of Washington. At UW he held joint appointments in international studies and geography, and also helped create and direct new undergraduate programs in global health and integrated social sciences. Navigating between these varied positions, Matt sought to connect the collaborative work of curriculum development with his interests in political theory and global studies. And it is these same interests that he now brings to politics at UCSC.

Keynote and Panel at Bioneers 2021 Conference
2021-11-13 00:00 - 23:59
Keynote by Manuel Pastor: “Solidarity Economics: Mutuality, Movements and Momentum”

November 13 @ 10:45am -11:05am

The Bioneers conference will feature a keynote by Manuel Pastor, director of the Equity Research Institute at USC, on Nov. 13: “Solidarity Economics: Mutuality, Movements and Momentum.” Pastor also works on the Solidarity Economics project with Chris Benner, which is a collaboration between the Equity Research Institute at USC and the Institute for Social Transformation at UCSC.

In a world wracked by income inequality, social divisions, and ecological destruction, can we build an alternative economics based on mutual cooperation and respect for our environmental commons? Among the nation’s most influential progressive thought leaders, activists and scholars, Manuel Pastor taps his new book, written with his long-time colleague Chris Benner, to propose that drawing on our instincts for connection and community can actually help create a more robust, sustainable, and equitable economy. But while most of us would benefit from centering mutuality and equity, some people do benefit from the current stark inequalities. As a result, seizing this moment for change will require brave conversations about racism and social fragmentation, a deep commitment to intersectional social movements, and a clear strategic vision for building people power. More info here

Panel – Solidarity Economics: Our Economy, Our Planet, Our Movements

November 13 @ 12:45pm -2pm

The Bioneers conference will also feature a panel discussion with Natalie Hernandez, Nailah Pope Harden, Manuel Pastor, and Chris Benner. Solidarity Economics is an economic frame that recognizes that people are not just individuals, but also members of broader social groups and communities, that people are motivated not just by self-interest, but also by caring for others and a desire for belonging, and that we can and should build our economy not on an embrace of individuality and competition, but rather on a sense of commons and our shared destiny. In this session, Natalie Hernandez, Associate Director of Climate Planning and Resilience at Climate Resolve, and Nailah Pope Harden, Executive Director of ClimatePlan, join Manuel Pastor, one of the nation’s most influential thinkers on poverty and social movements, and Chris Benner, a leading innovator in urban political ecology, to discuss how these concepts might apply in the realm of solidarity with people and the planet, and how we can make this real in terms of policy and power in this moment. More info here.

The full conference schedule features speakers and performances around topics ranging from conservation to indigeneity to youth leadership. In this time, we’re all called upon to be leaders.

Register here

Manuel PastorDirector | Equity Research Institute, USC Manuel Pastor, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at USC and Director of its Equity Research Institute, has long been one of the most important scholars and activists working on the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities and the social movements seeking to change those realities. He has held many prominent academic posts, won countless prestigious awards and fellowships for his activism and scholarship, and is the author and co-author of many important, highly influential tomes, including most recently, State of Resistance: What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Means for America’s Future (2018) and the just-about-to-be-released Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter.

Natalie HernandezAssociate Director of Climate Planning and Resilience | Climate Resolve Natalie Hernandez is a Los Angeles region-based specialist in environmental policy and community planning who is deeply knowledgeable about climate change-related government processes, funding, stakeholder engagement and resilience. She is Associate Director of Climate Planning & Resilience at Climate Resolve, where she has: managed climate preparedness projects, co-authored California’s Adaptation Planning Guide, led community outreach for an urban cooling project in Canoga Park, and provided technical expertise on a number of climate grant programs. Her past positions include stints at the California Natural Resources Agency, California Air Resources Board, Institute for Local Government, and USC’s Equity Research Institute (formerly USC PERE).

Nailah Pope HardenExecutive Director | Climate Plan Nailah Pope Harden, who has years of community organizing experience spanning regional, state and national environmental justice campaigns, is the South Sacramento-based Executive Director of ClimatePlan, where she: manages state policy campaigns; mobilizes partner organizations; provides analysis on policy, state investments, and legislation; and builds strong relationships with state agencies and key decision-makers, all in order to further Climate Plan’s vision of a healthier, more equitable California.

Chris BennerProfessor of Environmental Studies and Sociology | UC Santa Cruz Chris Benner, Ph.D., the Dorothy E. Everett Chair in Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship and a Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology at UC Santa Cruz, also directs the Everett Program for Technology and Social Change and the Institute for Social Transformation there. His research examines the relationships between technological change, regional development, and the structure of economic opportunity, focusing on regional labor markets and the transformation of work and employment. He has authored or co-authored seven books (including the forthcoming Solidarity Economics) and more that 75 journal articles, chapters and research reports.

Friendships, Identity, and Well-being Among Diverse California Youth and Implications for Life After the COVID -19 Pandemic
2021-11-17 12:00 - 13:00
The first 21 years of the 21st century have been a continuous period of major social, cultural, demographic, economic and political changes. From the September 11 terrorist attacks, to the Great Recession, to marriage rights for same-sex couples, to the climate crisis, to the immigrant and refugee crisis on the southern border, to the Black Lives Matter movement, to the COVID-19 pandemic, to becoming a “majority-minority” state and country in the foreseeable future, the entire life context of today’s youth has been a cycle of rapid and often unexpected opportunities, challenges and disruptions. California has often been at the epicenter of these events. What has this meant for the adolescents and young adults of our state?

In this session, two UC faculty will discuss their research on California youth of diverse ethnic, racial, sexual and gender identities. Dr. Phillip Hammack, Professor and Chair of Psychology at UC Santa Cruz, will discuss the processes of identity development for sexual and gender diverse teens living in coastal, more urban versus central, more rural parts of northern California, and the implications for social policy to support adolescent health and well-being. Dr. Adrienne Nishina, Professor of Human Ecology at UC Davis, will present her research on the benefits of ethnic and racial diversity in schools and neighborhoods, and the implications of the remote-schooling, stay-at-home guidelines and other consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for adolescents’ social, academic and professional development.

Co-sponsored by the UC Adolescence Consortium.

Register here

Dr. Phillip L. Hammack Dr. Phillip L. Hammack is Professor and Chair of Psychology and Director of the Sexual and Gender Diversity Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is an expert on the role of culture and context in human development and has published widely in developmental and social psychology. His current research examines sexual and gender diversity in cultural and historical context.

Dr. Adrienne Nishina Dr. Adrienne Nishina is a Professor in the Department of Human Ecology at UC Davis. Her research focuses on peer relationships during adolescence and emerging adulthood. Specifically she examines young people’s exposure to peers from diverse ethnic backgrounds in the context of schools, and how these critical social experiences are connected to short and longer-term academic, psychological, social, and physical well-being.

Dr. Paul HastingsModerator Dr. Paul Hastings is a developmental psychologist and Professor of Psychology, past Chair of Psychology, and past Interim Dean of the School of Education at the University of California Davis. He is a member of the UC Consortium on the Developmental Science of Adolescence, the Center for Poverty and Inequality Research and the Center for Mind and Brain, where he directs the Healthy Emotions, Relationships and Development Laboratory (HERD Lab).

Designing a Faculty Website on WordPress and Making it Work for You
2021-11-19 12:00 - 13:00
Professional websites can boost your reputation and promote your research. UCSC provides free access to WordPress for faculty (with several design templates). This workshop will walk you through best practices and what to consider when creating your UCSC faculty website. Learn how journalists and media relations officers use websites and how you can optimize your online presence to gain media exposure for your work.

This workshop is for UCSC faculty and graduate students and is part of a series on Media Tools for Social Impact. Sponsored by the Institute for Social Transformation in collaboration with UCSC Communications & Marketing. See previous workshop on How to Use Twitter for Social Impact (workshop slides).

Register here

Jason Chafin Jason Chafin graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1993 with a bachelor’s in environmental studies. He earned his master of environmental studies from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, and spent over a decade as an environmental planner. He switched gears in 2010 and became a web developer, working primarily with WordPress. He’s been with University Relations as the senior web developer in the Communications and Marketing Department since 2017.

Allison Arteaga Soergel Allison Arteaga Soergel is the public information representative for the Social Sciences Division at UC Santa Cruz. Her work is focused on building relationships between faculty and journalists to promote high-impact research and share faculty insights and expertise. She has a decade of experience in journalism, media relations, and advocacy-based public engagement.

Andrea Limas Andrea Limas is the assistant director of marketing communications for the Division of Social Sciences at UC Santa Cruz. She has over 10 years of digital marketing and communications experience. Andrea has worked with a variety of industries from tech startups to higher education institutions to develop and amplify their brand presence. She received bachelor’s degrees in literature and politics from UC Santa Cruz.

Poisoned Water & Corporate Greed; Robert Bilott in Conversation
2021-11-30 17:30 - 19:00
Join one of the USA’s most impactful environmental lawyers Robert Bilott for a conversation about his latest work followed by an intergenerational World-Cafe style dialogue aimed at inspiring hope and action. Rob is the protagonist in the recent award-winning film “Dark Waters” featuring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway and participants are highly encouraged to watch the film beforehand (available online @ UCSC library). Topics we’ll cover include the legacy of toxic forever chemicals, corporate greed, and strategies for environmental legislation to hold corporations accountable.

Hosted by the Right Livelihood College at UC Santa Cruz with support from UCSC Anthropology, Legal Studies, the Institute for Social Transformation and Social Sciences Division.

Register Now

Robert Bilott Robert Bilott is an outstanding environmental lawyer from the United States, who has uncovered the worldwide impact of contamination by a group of “forever chemicals” known as polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that accumulate in the environment and in living things, including people. With a combination of innovative litigation, scientific understanding, and extraordinary perseverance, Bilott has achieved one of the most significant victories for environmental law and corporate accountability to date. In a legal battle lasting over two decades, Bilott represented 70,000 people living near Parkersburg, West Virginia, whose drinking water had been contaminated with a toxic “forever chemical,” known as PFOA, released by the chemical giant DuPont. Expanding upon the concept of class-action litigation, Bilott eventually obtained over 1 billion US dollars in benefits for the victims, including direct cash settlements for thousands of disease victims, totaling over 753 million US dollars, and ongoing medical monitoring for those exposed.

Everett Project Student Showcase 2021
2021-12-03 16:00 - 19:00
Join us, in person or on Zoom, for the Everett Program’s 3rd Annual Student Showcase, Embracing Change , Everett in Transition. This is an opportunity for our students to showcase their 2021 projects despite the challenges and obstacles highlighted by the pandemic. Our students have remained resilient and persistent in advocating for social justice and social change locally and globally; and we are excited to celebrate their accomplishments together!

As we transition back into in person collaboration, this is a great opportunity for our students to articulate their project’s purpose, design, strengths, and challenges to the wider community, friends, and family. Throughout the hybrid showcase there will be a chance for you to learn more about our student’s projects, the Everett Program at large, participate in a raffle, enjoy food and get to know our beautiful community!

The EP Student Showcase will take place on December 3rd, from 4:00 – 7:00 PM in the College 9 MPR at UCSC. The showcase will be a hybrid event so everyone has the option to attend in person or through zoom. Please indicate your preference on the registration form.

Click here for more details and registration info

Andrew Carnegie Fellows Forum: Smart Takes on Climate Change
2021-12-08 09:00 - 10:00
Following the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), it is clear that finding agreement on climate change action requires complex considerations, among them human impact, new technologies, and global energy needs. There is no doubt that urgent action is required but some solutions present their own dilemmas. How will the costs of green capitalism impact the pursuit of clean energy and social justice? What is the role of global governance to ensure that geoengineering does not yield harmful and unjust consequences? How can we develop sustainable and equitable modern energy systems in countries where people still lack access to electricity?

Join us as four Andrew Carnegie Fellows explore these questions in a research-backed discussion about how we can align and design a greener world to better protect all of us.

Featured fellow Sikina Jinnah is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz and an Executive Board Member of the Institute for Social Transformation.

The event is Wednesday, December 8, 2021, 12-1 p.m. ET / 9-10 a.m. PT. Register here.

Justin WorlandModerator Senior Correspondent for TIME covering climate change and the intersection of policy, politics and society

Michael GreenstoneFeatured Fellow Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Class of 2019 Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor of Economics University of Chicago

Paulina JaramilloFeatured Fellow Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Class of 2020 Professor of Engineering & Public Policy Carnegie Mellon University

Sikina JinnahFeatured Fellow Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Class of 2017 Associate Professor of Environmental Studies University of California, Santa Cruz

Thea RiofrancosFeatured Fellow Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Class of 2020 Associate Professor of Political Science Providence College

Better World Book Party 2021
2021-12-08 16:00 - 18:00
Join us as we celebrate this year’s published authors and editors from the UCSC Division of Social Sciences. The event will be held in-person at the Namaste Lounge. All are welcome!

For more information about the books visit our Better World Books page.

Sponsored by the Institute for Social Transformation.

RSVP

2021 Social Science Authors and Editors:

Hillary Angelo, SociologyHow Green Became Good: Urbanized Nature and the Making of Cities and Citizens

Chris Benner, Environmental Studies and SociologySolidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter

Heather Bullock, PsychologyPoorly Understood: What America Gets Wrong about Poverty

Melissa Caldwell, AnthropologyWhy Food Matters: Critical Debates in Food Studies

Roberto de Roock, EducationThe Handbook of Critical Literacies

James Doucet-Battle, SociologySweetness in the Blood: Race, Risk, and Type 2 Diabetes

Sylvanna Falcón, Latin America and Latino StudiesPrecarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship

David Gordon, PoliticsCities on the World Stage: The Politics of Global Urban Climate Governance

Camilla Hawthorne, SociologyThe Black Mediterranean: Bodies, Borders, and Citizenship

Fernando Leiva, Latin America and Latino StudiesThe Left Hand of Capital: Neoliberalism and the Left in Chile

Mark Fathi Massoud, PoliticsShari’a, Inshallah: Finding God in Somali Legal Politics

Steve McKay, SociologyPrecarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship

Bob Meister, Politics and History of Consciousness Justice Is an Option: A Democratic Theory of Finance for the Twenty-First Century

Catherine Ramirez, Latin America and Latino StudiesPrecarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship

Tsim Schneider, AnthropologyThe Archaeology of Refuge and Recourse: Coast Miwok Resilience and Indigenous Hinterlands in Colonial California

Daniel Wirls, PoliticsThe Senate: From White Supremacy to Government Gridlock

Pat Zavella, Latin American & Latino StudiesThe Movement for Reproductive Justice:Empowering Women of Color through Social Activism

Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health
2021-12-09 09:00 - 10:30
Global and Community Health at UCSC presents a book talk by Eugene Richardson on Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health. A physician-anthropologist, Richardson “explores how public health practices–from epidemiological modeling to outbreak containment–help perpetuate global inequalities.”

The talk will be held on-campus in Humanities 210. Please register here for online or in-person attendance.

Eugene RichardsonAssistant Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School Dr. Richardson previously served as the clinical lead for Partners In Health’s Ebola response in Kono District, Sierra Leone, where he continues to conduct research on the social epidemiology of Ebola virus disease and COVID-19. He also worked as a clinical case management consultant for the WHO’s Ebola riposte in Beni, Democratic Republic of the Congo. More recently, he was seconded to the Africa CDC to join their COVID-19 response. His overall focus is on biosocial approaches to epidemic disease prevention, containment, and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. As part of this effort, he is co-chair of the Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice and co-chair of the BMJGH Commission on Epistemic Injustice.

Epidemic Illusions: On the Coloniality of Global Public Health In Epidemic Illusions, Eugene Richardson, a physician and an anthropologist, contends that public health practices—from epidemiological modeling and outbreak containment to Big Data and causal inference—play an essential role in perpetuating a range of global inequities. Drawing on postcolonial theory, medical anthropology, and critical science studies, Richardson demonstrates the ways in which the flagship discipline of epidemiology has been shaped by the colonial, racist, and patriarchal system that had its inception in 1492. Deploying a range of rhetorical tools, including ironism, “redescriptions” of public health crises, Platonic dialogue, flash fiction, allegory, and koan, Richardson describes how epidemiology uses models of disease causation that serve protected affluence (the possessing classes) by setting epistemic limits to the understanding of why some groups live sicker lives than others—limits that sustain predatory accumulation rather than challenge it. Drawing on his clinical work in a variety of epidemics, including Ebola in West Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, leishmania in the Sudan, HIV/TB in southern Africa, diphtheria in Bangladesh, and SARS-CoV-2 in the United States, he concludes that the biggest epidemic we currently face is an epidemic of illusions—one that is propagated by the coloniality of knowledge production.

BET Her Presents…Becoming: Michelle Obama In Conversation
2022-01-17 16:00 - 17:30
Legal studies student Aissata Ba was among the students who participated a conversation last year with Michelle Obama. Ba filmed a wealth of material from the trip to Maryland, both for her own channels and for an Instagram takeover for Better Make Room, the nonprofit organization, founded by Michelle Obama, that offers resources and encouragement for young high schoolers applying to colleges and universities. All of that content will go live in advance of the Jan. 17 premiere of BET Her Presents…Becoming: Michelle Obama In Conversation, a TV special about the event that airs on BET and BET Her.

Why Elementary Kids Need Recess
2022-01-19 12:00 - 13:00
Many educators and policymakers believe recess is simply fun and games, and easily dispensable to make room for more serious educational goals. The reality is that recess serves an important role for the elementary student – providing the key time during the school day when children can practice their social and emotional skills in an unregulated environment as well as be physically active and take a break from the rigors of academic learning. With the social isolation and lost connection to school experienced by children worldwide due to the pandemic, recess is critically important to help children overcome trauma and reintegrate into the school environment. In this talk, Professor London will share findings from her 10-year research collaboration with the national nonprofit organization Playworks, which culminated in the 2019 book Rethinking Recess: Creating Safe and Healthy Playtime for All Children in School (Harvard Education Press).

Register here

Rebecca LondonAssociate Professor of Sociology, UCSC Professor Rebecca London’s research focuses on the ways that communities, educational institutions, and community organizations support young people to be healthy and successful. She is a community-engaged researcher who works closely with nonprofits and government agencies to generate actionable research to address the community’s pressing needs. She is co-founder and Director of Campus + Community, a research center devoted to supporting community-engaged research at UC Santa Cruz. She has conducted research in multiple fields, including K–12 and postsecondary education, cross-sector approaches to “whole student” development, health and wellness, afterschool programs, and social welfare programs. Professor London is author of Rethinking Recess: Creating Safe and Healthy Playtime for All Children in School (2019) and co-editor of From Data to Action: A Community Approach to Improving Youth Outcomes (2013). Her recent work has been published in journals such as the Teaching Sociology, Journal of School Health, Educational Researcher, and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Archives in Plain Sight: Researching Latina/o/x History
2022-01-20 12:00 - 13:30
Dr. Rosina Lozano, Associate Professor of History at Princeton University, work shows us that Latina/o/x history exists all over the United States if someone looks for it. Drawing on examples from her research, including California documents on Spanish language laws, Bureau of Indian Affairs documents about Mexican Americans in relation to Native Americans, and Congressional records of voting rights that recognized Latinos as a distinct group, Dr. Rosina will reveal archival records in plain sight. She will be in dialogue with Dr. Kirsten Silva Gruesz, professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz and Research Center for the Americas Steering Committee member. This event is free and open to the public. Closed captioning and an ASL interpreter will be provided.

Co-sponsored by the Research Center for the Americas.

Register

Rosina LozanoAssociate Professor of History, Princeton University Rosina Lozano is a historian of Latino history with a research and teaching focus on Mexican American history, the American West, migration and immigration, and comparative studies in race and ethnicity. Lozano is working on a second book, tentatively titled Intertwined Roots: Mexican Americans and Native Americans in the Southwest, which tells the story of the ever-changing relationship between Mexican Americans and Native peoples from 1848 through the 1970s. The results of U.S. policies for each of these groups are well known separately, but Intertwined Roots considers them relationally, never forgetting that their connections preceded these policies and continued to form independent of them, too. Through the comparison, the book also explores the impact of state and federal politics on ethnic identities. Triangulating the analysis of Anglos, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans offers the opportunity to understand how local and state power has shaped the Southwest against the backdrop of federal policy.

Pollinators and Urban Community Gardens with Stacy Philpott
2022-01-25 18:00 - 19:00
Pollinators are essential to our environment, but habitat loss, pesticide use, and introduced diseases are causing issues for these creatures all over the world. During this talk, Stacy Philpott will share her research from the past decade exploring how urban garden and landscape management influence pollinators. We’ll tour urban gardens near Santa Cruz and learn about some of the factors that lead to successful pollination and pollinator diversity, as well as issues with parasites and pathogens. This is a virtual event.

This program is in support of the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History’s new exhibit, Pollinators: Keeping Company With Flowers, on view January 15-March 6. Sponsored by 90.3 KAZU, Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural History, and the UC Santa Cruz Center for Agroecology.

Register

Stacy PhilpottProfessor of Environmental Studies, Director of the Center for Agroecology Stacy Philpott is a Professor of Environmental Studies and Director of the Center for Agroecology at UC Santa Cruz. She is an agroecologist interested in community ecology, ecosystem services, urban agroecology, and interactions between agriculture, conservation, and farmer well-being. Stacy has worked for more than 20 years to understand how farm management and the landscapes surrounding farms influence diversity of insects, plants, and birds on farms, and the ecological interactions among species. She has worked in tropical agroforestry systems in Mexico and Indonesia, annual cropping systems in Nicaragua, and in urban agricultural systems in Michigan, Ohio, and California. She has written more than 140 research articles and book chapters.

New Strategies: Extractivist Corporations, Communities, and the State in a Post-COVID World
2022-01-27 09:30 - 11:30
The Extractivism and Society Research Cluster is organizing a four-part series entitled “Conversations on Extractivism in a Post-Pandemic World.” The second of these conversations will take place on January 27. The series will continue over winter and spring quarter.

Description:

The struggles of social movements and communities against extractive multinational corporations have stalled or cancelled major projects, threatening company profits. In response, corporations have developed new strategies to undermine the opposition to their projects. Join us for a panel discussion with leading academic and policy researchers on these new strategies that extractive industry corporations have developed to secure and expand their operations despite organized resistance to mining, drilling, and other megaprojects.

Register here

Panelists:

Anna Zalik: Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, York University

Jennifer Moore: Associate Fellow of Global Economy, Institute for Policy Studies

Maiah Jaskoski: Associate Professor of Political Science, Northern Arizona University

Fernando Leiva: Professor of Latin America and Latino Studies, UC Santa Cruz

Background:

Over the last few decades, resistance to mega-projects has grown in Latin America, especially to projects related to mining and other forms of resource extraction. In response, extractive companies have developed a set of increasingly complex strategies and discourses designed to sway the public opinion on their side and influence governments’ decisions and state institutions. From the production of counternarratives through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the integration of United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to generate social acceptability, some multinational extractivist corporations —in partnership with the state, consultants, and academics– deploy multi-stakeholder engagement processes, new forms of managing conflicts, reinforce their territorial power, and enhance their cultural domination. In order to extract, they foster epistemic communities entirely dedicated to producing meaning, rules and subjectivities that align with their goals.

Evidence shows that the pandemic has become a springboard for such dynamics in Latin America. Multinational extractive corporations have used the ravages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to bolster their presence. They’ve done so by supplementing the state through delivery of medical gear, medicine and food to the pandemic-affected communities that surround their exploitation sites. But they’ve mostly done so by promising that their business activities would contribute to the relaunching of economies devastated by the necessary restrictions imposed to face the pandemic.

We can identify at least three deeply entangled families of strategies at play complementing their extractive operations : 1) Meaning-making: developing international and domestic discourses that support the legitimacy of extractive activities and multinational corporations to win the support of both the society and the state; 2) Rules: integrating with and capturing state agencies to ensure extractive capital accumulation as a development model, and replacing the state in some of its functions; 3) Production of subjectivities: preventing, intervening and managing local opposition to extraction in order to create receptive and supportive communities. These are deeply entangled in the sense that at a particular site of extraction, we may find networks or assemblages of corporations, states, epistemic communities, and NGOs, operating together to secure extraction.

This panel will explore these strategies and their implications for social movements, affected communities, and resource governance in the Americas.

Envisioning the Convergence of the Environmental and Social Justice Movements
2022-01-31 17:30 - 19:00
This coming year will mark the 50th spring since Ken Norris started the first natural history field course at UC Santa Cruz. To commemorate this remarkable milestone, the Norris Center is planning a series of events this year: 50 Years of Wonder, Celebrating the First Half Century of Natural History at UC Santa Cruz. At this first of four events, we will make a brief announcement/invitation to all our students/alumni to join us at our series of events over the next six months. These events will culminate in a large in-person gathering on June 3–5, 2022.

At this first virtual event, we have invited author and wildlife biologist Dr. J. Drew Lanham to speak to the UC Santa Cruz natural history community about the convergence of the environmental and social justice movements. In many ways, we at UC Santa Cruz are a developing example of the convergence of what these two movements look like at the university level. For example, we have two of our themed residential colleges named after luminaries in both movements: Rachel Carson College and our recently named John Lewis College. With this background in mind, we have asked Dr. Lanham to speak to us about this and other related ideas in his recent essay “A Convergent Imagining.”

We encourage everyone attending this talk to first read Dr. Lanham’s essay. Dr. Lanham will first talk more about how these two movements can positively influence the other, how we might better teach natural history to include and inspire future naturalists from all backgrounds, and what he thinks the next 50 years of natural history/environmentalism will look like. After his talk, there will be a short question and answer session.

This event is co-sponsored by the Norris Center for Natural History, the Institute for Social Transformation, Rachel Carson College, and John Lewis College.

Register

Dr. J. Drew LanhamAlumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife EcologyForestry and Environmental Conservation Department, Clemson University J. Drew Lanham is a native of Edgefield and Aiken, South Carolina. In his twenty years as Clemson University faculty he’s worked to understand how forest management impacts wildlife and how human beings think about nature. Dr. Lanham holds an endowed chair as an Alumni Distinguished Professor and was named an Alumni Master Teacher in 2012. In his teaching, research, and outreach roles, Drew seeks to translate conservation science to make it relevant to others in ways that are evocative and understandable. As a Black American he’s intrigued with how culture and ethnic prisms can bend perceptions of nature and its care. Drew strongly believes that conservation must be a blending of head and heart; rigorous science and evocative art. He is active on a number of conservation boards including the SC Wildlife Federation. South Carolina Audubon, Aldo Leopold Foundation, BirdNote and the American Birding Association. He is an inaugural Fellow of the Audubon-Toyota Together Green initiative and is a member of the advisory board for the North American Association of Environmental Education. Drew is a Fellow of the Clemson University Institute for Parks and was named a 2016 Brandwein Fellow for his work in Environmental Education. Dr. Lanham is a widely published author and award-nominated poet, writing about his experiences as a birder, hunter and wild, wandering soul. His first solo work, The Home Place-Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature was published in 2016-17.

Black Liberation and Pedagogies
2022-02-16 16:00 - 17:30
Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.“ ― John Lewis

This event is part of the 2022 event series “Necessary Trouble: Thinking with the Legacy of John R. Lewis.” In anticipation and in honor of the dedication of John R. Lewis College at the UC Santa Cruz, the Division of Social Sciences, Colleges Nine and Ten, the Institute for Social Transformation, and the Center for Racial Justice are organizing five events centered on topics exemplified by the life of Representative John Lewis.

To learn more about this event, its speakers, and the other events in the series please visit the series page below.

Learn More

38th Annual Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Convocation
2022-02-23 17:30 - 19:00
The annual convocation celebrates the life and dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by presenting speakers who discuss the civil rights issues of equality, freedom, justice, and opportunity. The convocation also seeks to build partnerships and develop dialogue within the campus community and with the local communities served by the university. This year’s speaker is Professor Ruha Benjamin.

Register

Ruha Benjamin Ruha Benjamin is a professor in the Department of African American studies at Princeton University where she studies the social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine. Dr. Benjamin is also the founding director of the IDA B. WELLS Just Data Lab, and a faculty associate in the Center for Information Technology Policy, Program on History of Science, Center for Health and Wellbeing, and Program on Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Communities in Movement: From local territorial defensive action to national and hemispheric political articulation
2022-02-24 09:00 - 13:30
The Extractivism and Society Research Cluster is organizing a four-part series entitled “Conversations on Extractivism in a Post-Pandemic World.” This is the third conversation in the series.

Convening Questions

1. How have territorially-based community-rooted resistance to extractivist projects evolved from merely the local realm to being able to exercise influence at broader national political scene?

2. What are the lessons gleaned from territorially-based community-anchored resistance to disaster extractivism during the pandemic?

3. What are the obstacles faced for moving forward and how are they being addressed?

4. How could the work of engaged/activist scholars accompany and support territorially-based community-connected actors in this new conjuncture as they create new paths from articulating the local with national and hemispheric scales?

Background

After the ebb of Pink Tide governments, a new cycle of massive popular uprisings unfolded during 2019 and 2020 in Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere. These events and their legacies mediated by the Covid-19 global pandemic, are creating a new moment, a sort of “rupture” or “turning point” that needs careful attention at this critical moment.

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown even more starkly the limitations of global neoliberalism as well as its inability to put the lives of communities and ecosystems above the needs of private capital and the profit rate. As communities fashion strategies to ensure their survival and defend livelihoods in the context of global neoliberalism’s deepening hegemonic crisis, we observe the emergence of two parallel trends shaping political struggles in the region.

The first of these, unfolding indifferent degrees across the Americas, is the dramatic loss of legitimacy of existing political institutions including major political parties and levels of participation in electoral politics. In many countries (i.e. Chile, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Haiti), the crisis of political representation deepens as mobilized popular sectors eschew traditional forms of political mediation to make their voices and demands heard, creating emerging forms of political and social involvement that challenge traditional political structures.

A second trend is the “socio-territorial turn” as the preferred locus of action for popular sector mobilizations. The multi-dimensional crises faced by communities, their perceived abandonment by state agencies and sense of betrayal by the political establishment, precisely when facing increased threats of dispossession (theft of water, expansion gold and copper mining, mega infrastructure projects in indigenous lands, etc.) has enhanced the role of community-based resistance, fostered the emergence of new leaders and community-anchored imaginaries for transformative politics.

As community-based leaders and territorially-based organizing strategies fill the vacuum left by the crisis of traditional forms of political representation and strive to prove their effectiveness, we can also observe glimmers of a new “jump in scale” of this socio-territorial turn. Novel territorial arrangements, where territoriality has evolved towards more diffuse and horizontal forms seem to proliferate (Ortega, 2021).

In many countries, territorial and community-based organizations are forging multiple and creative paths that connect the local to the national and even hemispheric scales of political action (viz. Asamblea Constituyente Atacama and Lista del Pueblo in Chile, and the recent Pacto Eco-Social del Sur launched at a transnational level).

Local-territorial organizations are crafting new political opportunities and possibilities for change as they attempt to move from the local socio-territorial defense of resources and livelihoods, to new forms of national and hemispheric political action. Are these just temporary and short-lived phenomena? Or do such trends conform the beginnings of more systemic realignments which will continue reshaping the terrain upon which resolution to current crises of neoliberalism will be decided?

Learn More

Disruptive Archives: Feminist Memories of Resistance in Latin America's Dirty Wars
2022-02-24 12:00 - 13:30
Dr. Viviana MacManus, the author of Disruptive Archives: Feminist Memories of Resistance in Latin America’s Dirty Wars (University of Illinois Press, 2020), will discuss the history of gender and state violence during the so-called “Dirty Wars” of Argentina and Mexico (1960-1980s) and the current struggles over the historical memory of this era. In dialogue with RCA Director Sylvanna Falcón of LALS, Dr. MacManus, Assistant Professor of Spanish and French Studies at Occidental College, will explore narratives of loss, haunting, and trauma to bring forth a Latin American feminist theory of justice. This event is free and open to the public. Closed captioning and an ASL interpreter will be provided.

Co-sponsored by the Research Center for the Americas.

Register

Viviana MacManusAssistant Professor of Spanish and French Studies, Occidental College Viviana Beatriz MacManus’s research and teaching focuses on Latin American and Latinx feminist theory, literature, film, and cultural studies. Her first book, Disruptive Archives: Feminist Memories of Resistance in Latin America’s Dirty Wars, (University of Illinois Press, 2020), examines cultural narratives of resistance articulated by women activists who survived Mexican and Argentinean state terrorism (1960-80s). Prof. MacManus has published in The Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, and Chiricú: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures. Her current research projects center on the politics of violence and visuality in the Américas, the cultural legacy of insurgent motherhood in Latin America’s guerrilleras, and the feminist uses of horror in contending with gender, state, and racialized violence in Latin American film and literature.

Practical Activism Conference
2022-02-26 10:30 - 17:00
Practical Activism will be holding its 19th annual day-long conference on Saturday, February 26th, 2022 in a hybrid format. The conference will take place in the Multipurpose Room at College Nine and John Lewis College. Registration links will be available soon – you can sign up to the PAC ’21-’22 Email List to be notified and register for specific workshops!

Our day-long, student-led conference aims to further local and global change in our community by representing diverse perspectives on a variety of social justice issues, and providing hands on tools to make practical change. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn about many social-justice related topics in student-organized workshops and special-sessions. This year’s PAC takes on special salience given the recent naming of College Ten as John R. Lewis College.This year’s workshop topics include:

Voting Rights: Voting 4 TomorrowBIPOC Mental Health & WellnessCritical Race TheoryNative American Land StewardshipHomelessness & Housing JusticeWorker Exploitation in the Garment IndustrySocial Justice in STEMTherapeutic Activism – A Special Film Screening

This conference will be in person, adhering to current safety protocols, which includes wearing a mask and showing your clearance badge/symptom tracker (for UCSC affiliates). For visitors to UCSC, please note that UC Santa Cruz has COVID-19 guidelines for in-person events. When you arrive, please provide proof of vaccination OR a recent negative COVID-19 test result taken within 72 hours of the start of the event (must be a lab PCR test; home tests/antigen tests are not valid). Campus visitors will also be asked to complete a symptom tracker and are required to wear masks indoors. Additional information can be found here.

More info

What is PAC?
