Environmental Justice
Three experts from across campus will each discuss their work related to environmental justice and respond to questions from attendees during the #FunkPanel2025. Their work includes research on the intersection of environmental justice and energy policy in the U.S, research on how community-based movements and marginalized communities address environmental inequalities particularly related to water systems in Puerto Rico, and research on public health and water quality issues facing underserved, rural communities and those on private wells around the U.S. This hybrid panel presentation on Tuesday, April 15, 2025 from 2:30-3:30 p.m. (Central) will be an opportunity for people to come together with the Funk ACES Library to learn about and discuss environmental justice research and initiatives led by members of our campus community.
- Attend in PersonWe invite you to attend the panel in-person on the 2nd floor of the Funk ACES Library for an opportunity to talk with the panelists and other attendees during the 30-minute reception following the presentation. Also for in-person attendees, we will have a raffle for two environmental justice-related books.
We also are providing a Zoom option for people to attend the panel virtually.
Live-streaming for virtual attendees is made possible by the R.J. "Rusty" Laible Endowment Fund.
Books
Building Something Better: Environmental Crises & the Promise of Community Change
"As the turmoil of interlinked crises unfold across the nation and world - crises ranging from climate disasters to the rise of authoritarianism to state-sponsored violence - social scientists can explain what is happening and why. Malin and Kallman offer an accessible, clear book, showing how communities are building better systems and how sociology can help us understand how and why they do this challenging work." - Provided by publisher.
Agriculture, Environment and Development : International Perspectives on Water, Land and Politics
"Agriculture, Environment and Development: International Perspectives on Water, Land and Politics deals with past legacies and emerging challenges associated with agriculture production, water and environmental management, and local and national development. It offers a critical interpretation of the tensions associated with the failures of mainstream regulatory regimes and the impacts of global agri-food chains." - Provided by publisher. Also available in print.
Unbottled: The Fight Against Plastic Water and for Water Justice
"Unbottled examines the vibrant movements that have emerged to question the need for bottled water and challenge its growth in North America and worldwide. Drawing on extensive interviews with activists, residents, public officials, and other participants in controversies ranging from bottled water's role in unsafe tap water crises to groundwater extraction for bottling in rural communities, Daniel Jaffee asks what this commodity's meteoric growth means for social inequality, sustainability, and the human right to water." - Provided by publisher.
Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples: The Search for Legal Remedies
"Indigenous peoples occupy a unique niche within the climate justice movement, as many Indigenous communities live subsistence lifestyles that are severely disrupted by the effects of climate change. The contributors to this book bring a range of expert legal perspectives to this complex discussion, offering both a comprehensive explanation of climate change-related problems faced by Indigenous communities and a breakdown of various real world attempts to devise workable legal solutions." - Provided by publisher.
Nature's Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Biodiversity Conservation and Food Sovereignty
"When first published in 2009, Nature's Matrix set out a radical new approach to the conservation of biodiversity. This new edition pushes the frontier of the biodiversity/agriculture debate further, making an even stronger case for the need to transform agriculture and support small- and medium-scale agroecology and food sovereignty." - Provided by publisher.
Neighborhood as Refuge: Community Reconstruction, Place Remaking, and Environmental Justice in the City
"Environmental justice as studied in a variety of disciplines is most often associated with redressing disproportionate exposure to pollution, contamination, and toxic sites. In Neighborhood as Refuge, Isabelle Anguelovski takes a broader view of environmental justice, examining wide-ranging comprehensive efforts at neighborhood environmental revitalization that include parks, urban agriculture, fresh food markets, playgrounds, housing, and waste management." - Illinois Library Catalog.
Drawing Books
Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger
"Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger examines mobilizations and movements, from protests at Standing Rock to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Environmental justice movements fight, survive, love and create in the face of violence that challenges the conditions of life itself. Exploring dispossession, deregulation, privatization, and inequality, this book is the essential primer on environmental justice packed, with cautiously hopeful stories of struggle for the future that we need now." - Provided by publisher
As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock
"Interrogating the concept of environmental justice in the U.S. as it relates to Indigenous peoples, this book argues that a different framework must apply compared to other marginalized communities, while it also attends to the colonial history and structure of the U.S. and ways Indigenous peoples continue to resist, and ways the mainstream environmental movement has been an impediment to effective organizing and allyship"-- Provided by publisher
Meet Our Panelists
McKenzie Johnson is Assistant Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. As an environmental social scientist, she engages in research at the intersection of environmental politics, human security, and environmental justice. She has conducted interdisciplinary research projects in the United States, Central and South Asia, West Africa, and South America, with her most recent work focused on energy justice in the United States and environmental peacebuilding in Latin America.
Omar Pérez Figueroa is an Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is dedicated to supporting underrepresented and disenfranchised communities in addressing environmental inequalities, particularly those impacted from extreme weather events and water injustice issues. At UIUC he is also an affiliated faculty member with the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies and the Illinois Water Research Center. He graduated cum laude in 2010 with a Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. In 2011, he was awarded the Truman Foundation Scholarship, which he used to complete a master’s degree in water, Interdisciplinary Analysis, and Sustainable Management from the University of Barcelona. He later completed a PhD in Environmental and Urban Planning and Public Policy at the University of California, Irvine, supported by the Ford Foundation. His current research is set at the intersection between climate justice and housing, public policy participation and urban design.
Steve Wilson is a Groundwater Hydrologist and Head for the Environmental Public Health, Information and Data Services Section at the Illinois State Water Survey (ISWS), Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois. He authored and manages The Private Well Class, an online self-paced curriculum for private well owners that uses education through online and in-person webinars/conferences to increase the knowledge and competency of well owners and the dedicated environmental health professionals who work closely with private water well owners. Steve has a B.S. in Agricultural Engineering and a M.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Panel Poster
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Library Guides Related to Environmental Justice
Endangered and Threatened Species in Illinois, the U.S. and Worldwide LibGuide
Research guide to assist users on how to find information about endangered & threatened species in Illinois, the U.S. and worldwide.
American Environmental History LibGuide
Research guide on how to find resources and materials about American Environmental History.
Energy-Water Nexus Research Guide
Find information on the connection between water and energy using this research guide.
Rain Gardens
This guide contains various resources about rain gardens. A rain garden is a planted depression that allows rain water runoff to slowly soak into the ground instead of storm drains and surface waters.