Read Part 1 here.

Read Part 2 here.

3.1: Environmental ‘activisting while Black’: Questions and conundrums

Within and between the world of mainstream environmental movements and me, there are ever many unasked or unanswered questions about race, wrapped in conundrums of justice, inside notions of common interests and collective visions for a world transformed. On the frontlines of environmental activism, those questions, conundrums, and notions can be tracked and traced in demands for ‘system(s) change, not climate change’, vociferous calls for ‘climate justice now’, and ubiquitous proclamations insisting ‘another world is possible’. What, exactly, do they all mean? For example, which systems are included in my fellow activists’ ideas about ‘system change’? What forms of justice constitute ‘climate justice’? If another world is to be made possible, what is the roadmap for getting there and, perhaps more importantly, who are the cartographers? How, why, and where do matters of race intersect with all those questions?

In this final piece of my three-part series looking at the contested relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice through the bifocal lens of my research and activism with various environmental movements, I offer some reflections guided by those sample questions. I do so in recognition of long-simmering tensions and emergent fault-lines amongst different groups of activists about the locations, hierarchies, and particular forms of justice in the vital interplay of causes, demands, tactics and grand visions that inform what I call ‘the soul-craft of a social movement’ – how any movement understands and frames its organising concerns, demands and tactics to address not just the direct drivers of its discontent, but also the root causes and other interrelated issues beyond.

Having previously looked at how the defiantly-positive Transition movement is now trying to proactively engage with growing queries about social justice in its community-based and solutions-focused approaches to environmental actionism, I now turn to focus on the unapologetically-disruptive Extinction Rebellion (XR), which has become one of the most prominent and influential environmental movements in recent years by using a kaleidoscope of non-violent direct action (NVDA) or ‘dilemma action’ (Sørensen and Martin, 2014) repertoires to arouse public consciousness, engage ‘the power of the powerless’ (Havel, 2009), and invigorate the necessary political debates and actions on the climate and ecological emergency that present a ‘code red for humanity’.

Here in the UK, XR recently embarked on a(nother) journey of critical self-reflection, re-examining its relationships with, and representations of, various forms of justice within its soul-craft. That process arose from sustained scrutiny and criticisms, both internal and external, about the perceived lack of proper or sufficient attention given to persistent and multidimensional matters of (in)justice by the movement since its inception in October 2018.

From the outset, XR presented three core demands to governments. First: Tell The Truth about the scale of the ecological crisis by declaring a climate emergency, and work with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change. Second: Act Now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025. Third: Go ‘beyond politics’ to create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly to tackle the climate crisis (Rebellion, 2019). Infused in those three demands are far-reaching calls for ‘system(s) change’. The inescapable quandary, though, is, “how far-reaching is ‘far-reaching’?” My emphasis on ‘system(s)’ is a provocation to recall my earlier query about “which systems are included in ideas about system change” on the frontlines of contemporary mainstream environmental activism.

3.1.2: System(s) change: Beyond environmental spheres?

“Environmentalism without class struggle is just gardening” — Chico Mendes

Environmental movements like XR are, by definition and ambitions, overwhelmingly preoccupied with the conservation of nature in perpetuity. Environmental sustainability is therefore typically understood and presented as a precondition for anything and everything. On that basis, most environmental movements have traditionally exhibited what is seen as an acutely limited engagement with class struggles and various concerns about justice that are seemingly not immediately connected to the major environmental spheres – the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, pedosphere, and lithosphere.

Answers, then, to questions about what is to be sustained in perpetuity are habitually formulated in relation to the environmental spheres. Accordingly, on the frontlines of contemporary mainstream environmental activism, the predominant demands for ‘system(s) change’ are articulated in terms of disrupting or upending the prevailing fossil fuel-based energy systems and networks of industries, corporations, institutions, and lifestyles that drive, or are known to be complicit in, the degradation and/or destruction of the environmental spheres. The inescapable question though is, what happens after we, for instance, ‘Insulate Britain’ or ‘Just Stop Oil’? Would any such symbolic policy change signify ‘mission accomplished’ for environmental movements?

It is certainly undeniable, a truism, that environmental sustainability is a precondition for anything and everything – and that, sadly, includes, for instance, class struggles, global injustice, social injustice, racial injustice, and various other persistent configurations of distributive and procedural injustice. Arguably, absent of a recognition and meaningful engagement with such struggles and injustices, any talk of system(s) change indicates a misunderstanding of the underlying system and a misdiagnosis of the problem. All too often, this leads to a prognosis that promises to change specific systems whilst keeping everything else the same – in short, a placebo. It is not enough, I would argue, to focus exclusively on sustaining the major environmental spheres without much broader analyses of justice concerns, including class struggles. Doing so betrays a strategically naked and/or elitist approach – compositional or demographic elitism, ideological elitism, and impact elitism.

At first glance, XR’s three demands appear to exemplify the elitist or exclusionary perspectives and approaches of traditional environmental movements; the principal focus is on achieving environmental sustainability. However, a closer examination of the demands, when taken together with a longitudinal analysis of the movement’s ‘soul-craft’, suggests that XR has a much broader agenda infused into its overarching ambitions for systems change. To wit, the movement’s untamed cries of crises, of emergency and of urgency, coupled with its unsanitised warnings of impending civilisational collapse, all of which are amplified by the language of ‘extinction’ in clarion calls for rebellion, imply that XR is not solely concerned with the environment, but about everything – this changes everything.

The suggestion that ‘this changes everything’, invites questions about the degree and/or nature of social transformation that XR and its activists are committed to. Are they talking about a tinkering or tweaking of the existing order, the status quo, or are they looking for far-reaching social, economic, and political changes beyond the environmental spheres? In other words, are they, or I should perhaps here say ‘are we’, talking about revolution or reform?

3.2: Kairos: XR and the choice between reform and revolution in social transformations

“It’s time to change the course of human history. We appear to be heading into what the ancient Greeks called Kairos, a window of opportunity, when our capacity for change is put to the test.” — David Wengrow

Notions of ‘revolution’ often invoke negative emotive forces associated with violence in the overthrow of an existing government and/or the prevailing social, economic, and political regime. In contrast, most references to ‘reform’ come with positive connotations of an improvement to the status quo (Nielsen, 1971). Since joining XR in April 2019, I have spoken with hundreds – 311 and counting – of my fellow activists and ‘Rebels’ during and between the movement’s biannual ‘Rebellions’, about their perceptions of ‘system change’ – as both a process and an outcome. Most activists expressed a tacit understanding that systems are constantly in flux, but the processes of change have been pushed and pulled in the wrong direction by the vested interests of a few elites – elite capture (Táíwò, 2022). ‘Elites’ in this context can best be described as the oilgarchy and oligarchy whose pervasive and/or unchecked economic powers have been increasingly blended into the politics of statecraft, thereby distorting democratic mandates to advance their corporate and individual self-interests – resulting in what the political theorist Sheldon Wolin referred to in his book Democracy Incorporated as an ‘inverted totalitarianism’; in part a state-centred phenomenon that primarily represents “the political coming of age of corporate power and the political demobilization of the citizenry” (Wolin, 2017).

Given that understanding, my questions about perceptions of system(s) change elicited diverse and, in some cases, divergent responses relating to both processes and outcomes. On the possible processes, perspectives offered ranged from a spectrum of national democratic changes centred on notions of participatory democracy, to the rather more radical and internationally-focused anti-oppression and liberatory consciousness advocates who insist that the existing interrelated national and international routes for change are woefully inadequate to bring about the deep structural – local and global – transformations needed to address the root causes of the crises. As Audre Lorde (2003) said, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”.

In terms of envisioned outcomes, opinions ranged from improvements to the insulation of all social housing – Insulate Britain – to no new fossil fuel licences in the UK – Just Stop Oil – as well as a growing volume of anti-state perspectives advocating for a borderless world – ‘No borders, No nations, Stop deportations!’

Within and beyond the reformist and radical viewpoints, and indeed the various shades of grey in between, there are numerous ‘Rebels’ who are “mad as hell”, and lean towards Andreas Malm’s (2021) “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” provocation, which suggests that strategic property sabotage is the only viable route to revolutionary change. For those so-inclined, the roll-call of disappointments – following decades-long appeals, campaigns, and mass street protests, as well as the countless international agreements, accords, protocols, and development goals that emerge as inconsequential from lobbyists-infested meetings such as the, to date, 27 Conference of the Parties (COP) gatherings – justifies sabotaging, even if only symbolically, the properties of corporations and institutions linked with the fossil fuel industry.

However, against the backdrop of increasing state repression, any acts of sabotage, and for that matter civil-disobedience, that seek to disrupt business-as-usual with the intention of disrupting the unsustainable trajectories of business-as-usual, are being met with tougher punishments including unlimited fines and/or imprisonment. In spite of those threats, the moral imperative to rebel continues to drive many activists.

For XR, the moral imperative to rebel remains because despite the clear and present danger, the ‘code-red for humanity’, that the climate and ecological emergency presents to current and future generations, particularly in countries of the Global South that have been least responsible for causing the crises, the dirigiste state’s environmental policies continue to be mediated and tamed by GDP growth-fetishism, and delimited by pliable politicians shaped by lobbyists and opinion polls in the vagaries of sado-populism (Snyder, 2018) and, additionally, the short-termism of Party-manifestos within the circus of electioneering cycles that position elections as the defining feature of any modern democracy – electoral fundamentalism (Van Reybrouck, 2018).

To that point, we may recall here that XR’s third demand is for governments to go ‘beyond politics’ to create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly to tackle the climate crisis. That demand, I believe, harbours considerable revolutionary potential. It is borne of a recognition that the highly-managed and money-saturated variants of representative democracy here in the UK and elsewhere around the world are, effectively, not fit for purpose in terms of representing the diverse interests and welfare of people and planet.

Yes, XR’s third demand, as with the first two, has been seen and criticised as being too narrowly focused on the climate and ecological crises as sine qua non for social transformations. In that respect, when I first joined the movement, I thought the founders – all ‘White by law’ (Lopez, 1997) – in formulating the demands, had chosen, as environmental movements usually do, to contest just the direct drivers of their discontent, but not the root causes and other interrelated issues beyond. If that was the case, then I suspected the demands could, on the one hand, be easily co-opted by the government and institutions paying lip-service – essentially green-washing – all the while maintaining fealty to business-as-usual – plus ça change. On the other hand, I feared the demands may even be hijacked to further eco-fascist agendas, given the current political currents of identity politics and sado-populism (Snyder, 2018) in politics feeding into and being fed by growing ethnonationalism and social polarisation.

From my background of racial, social, and global justice activism, and my critical analyses approaches steeped in the traditions of UCL’s Development Planning Unit, the climate and ecological emergency is understood as symptomatic not of a broken system, but, rather, of a system working exactly as designed; religiously pushing to its limits, and resiliently fulfilling, the ideological intents and purposes of a certain demographic – elite capture (Táíwò, 2022). Applying that perspective, I thought the demands could have been formulated as follows:

• Tell the Truth, the whole truth – the science, the histories, and the geographies – about the scale of the ecological and inequality crises by declaring a climate and inequality emergency, and work across institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
• Act Now to halt biodiversity loss, reduce greenhouse gas emissions to real zero by 2025, and announce policies to address the growing income and wealth inequality.
• Go ‘beyond politics’ to create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly to tackle the climate and ecological emergency, as well as the growth in inequality.

Despite my initial reservations about the absence of explicit references to inequality or justice concerns in XR’s demands, I found the movement, across the various camps during the April 2019 ‘Rebellion’, quite compelling. From the audaciously-sited pink boat in the middle of Oxford Circus, to the transformation of Waterloo Bridge into a garden bridge complete with 47 trees and countless potted plants, and from the various presentations, workshops, talks, music and dance around the Marble Arch encampment, to the localised Citizens’ Assemblies held in Parliament Square, the movement seemed to present and represent, even but for a fleeting moment of untamed utopian imaginaries, something of a revolution in motion. The sublime madness of some 10,000 or so fellow activists convivially reclaiming public spaces, making their voices heard, and engaging in various radical and experimental practices of deliberative democracy and mutual aid, whilst contributing absolutely nothing whatsoever to the production of any profit, embodied Henri Lefebvre’s (1968) call to imagine “the reversal of the current situation, by pushing to its limits the converted image of the world upside down” – ‘The Right to the City’ manifested.

However, within and between the conviviality of the different sites there was, notably, an issue I often refer to as a ‘diversity deficiency syndrome’, which seems, in part at least, to define mainstream environmental movements and organisations. That is to say there is a persistent scarcity of people like me – ‘openly Black’ (see, CB4, 1993) – in environmental spaces. This has long been recognised and criticised, mostly through the prism of ‘privilege’, as being symptomatic of wider pathologies of systemic racism that are systematised via unequal power relations. Beyond the usual proliferation of what sometimes appears perfunctory or perhaps ‘à la mode’ but nevertheless noteworthy criticisms, my longitudinal research into the perennial challenges of diversity and inclusion in environmental movements, reveals that the issue is highly complicated, with dynamic social, economic, and political dimensions in causal relationships, which constantly interact with one another in some unpredictable ways that make it resistant to optimal resolutions. In short, it is what is called a ‘wicked problem’ (Rittel and Webber, 1973).

In lieu of the publication of my research findings and analyses, it suffices for me to say, in this final ‘reflections from the frontline’, that contemporary environmental movements such as XR have, in general, acknowledged the significance and implications of the issue, and are trying, even if somewhat clumsily at times, to better understand and address the multidimensional nature of demands related to it. That is evidenced in XR’s ‘soul-craft’.

3.3: The ’Soul-Craft’ of XR

Recall here, my earlier conceptualisation of a movement’s ‘soul-craft’ as being ‘how any movement understands and frames its organising concerns, demands and tactics to address not just the direct drivers of its discontent, but also the root causes and other interrelated issues beyond’. That conceptualisation draws from and builds on what the renowned philosopher and public intellectual Cornel West articulates as “the formation of attention that gets us to attend to the things that matter, not [just] the things on the surface” (Cunningham, 2018).

Yes, XR’s organising concerns, demands and tactics centre on addressing the climate and ecological crises. However, we must note here, in considering the movement’s soul-craft, that, from the outset, the founders were aware of and understood the multidimensional nature of their concerns. That is to say they recognised that the climate and ecological emergency, the direct drivers of their discontent and ire, are but the surfaced symptoms of an exploitative and ultimately unsustainable socio-economic system deeply rooted in and evolving from the histories, geographies, and politics of imperialism’s many crimes. More recently, those crimes have been camouflaged and channelled through a seemingly unfettered rise of corporate power and predatory capital(ism) propelled by transnational market forces to reach into the Earth’s most remote corners. To paraphrase the noted geographer and anthropologist Neil Smith (2010), from his book ‘Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space’, capital stalks the Earth in search of material resources; and to that end, no part of the Earth – the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, pedosphere, and lithosphere – is immune from transformation by capital and its vast spectrum of attendant isms including, but not limited to, colonialism, extractivism, market fundamentalism, materialism, consumerism, nationalism and protectionism.

Crucially, in relation to my introductory remarks, the founders of XR acknowledged how and why, in their formation of attention to attend to the things that matter regarding the climate and ecological emergency, issues of uneven development and disproportionate impacts highlight questions about race that are inextricably wrapped in conundrums of justice inside notions of common interests and collective visions for a world transformed. Although being quite well-versed and attuned to the multifaceted correlations between matters of race and environmentalism, the founders sought, like all movements ought, to build solidarity across differences with some seasoned activists and groups that bring the necessary but oft-marginalised voices of Global South concerns and resistance to inform a justice focus on, and greater understanding of, the histories, geographies, and politics of imperialism old and new – we cannot heal what we do not understand. By fostering solidarity through shared critical analyses of the dominant social, economic, and political systems, they engaged in meaningful dialogues around radically different perspectives and practices from all over the world that offer an environmentally sustainable and socially just vision of the world transformed. ‘Unity without uniformity’ thus drives the pluriverse approach championed via the vital work of the Extinction Rebellion Internationalist Solidarity Network (XRISN) and affiliated groups.

Taken together with the demand for a Citizens’ Assembly that seeks to go ‘beyond politics’ in order to transcend the pathological partisanship that has come to define contemporary politics, ideas about building solidarity across differences, unity without uniformity, and pluriversality in XR’s soul-craft, all suggest that if another world, a better world, is to be made possible, the cartographers of the roadmap for getting there must be ‘the people’. Therein lies the revolutionary kernel in XR. All power to the people to ‘fight the power’ (Enemy, 1989).

The revolutionary potential or fervour imbued in any movement’s soul-craft does not begin with questions about what is practical. Rather, it is nurtured by asking what is right. Intrinsic to the formation and evolution of XR’s soul-craft, are constant deliberations about what is right in terms of particular tactics and targets pursued by the movement. This drives the concerted exposé of, and unrelenting attacks on, the various wrongs of corporate power and the egregious abuses of government power that bring to light issues of democratic deficits hidden in plain sight. Since the movement’s most notable and, perhaps arguably, most impactful ‘Rebellion’ in April 2019, XR’s actions have increasingly targeted fossil fuel companies and numerous public and private institutions that enable them, as well as mainstream media establishments that fail to convey the truth, urgency and gravity of the climate and ecological crises, clandestine anti-climate lobby groups, and organisations with historic and ongoing ties to the endurance of extractivism and other forms of exploitation that not only represent but intentionally perpetuate the proclivities of overproduction and overconsumption, growth-fetishism, and imperialism.

From a systems analysis point of view, the specific targets chosen by XR for direct action interventions, represent what the environmental scientist Donella Meadows (1999) and other systems thinkers conceptualise as ‘leverage points’ – places within a complex system where a small shift in one thing can activate or produce big changes in everything. Leverage points are key points of power. Notwithstanding the disproportionate and undue influence of elites and corporations in the policy-making decisions and agendas of government(s) pursuant to addressing the urgency of the climate and ecological emergency, the most important leverage point in any properly functioning democracy should, logically, be ‘the people’. In that context, XR has sought to raise awareness to shift the mindsets and paradigms out of which the socio-political and economic systems’ goals, power structures, rules, and culture arise and are legitimised.

As well as targeting the leverage points represented by certain government institutions, companies, and organisations, XR is well-known for its repertoires of public disruptions. These include, for example, the blocking of roads and bridges, and, quite often, activists locking-on or gluing themselves to various structures, thereby inviting police arrest and subsequent engagement with the criminal justice system. Although such ‘dilemma action’ (Sørensen and Martin, 2014) tactics have been effective in gaining widespread publicity and stimulating important dialogues about the cause across different sections of society, research suggests that they – the disruptive protest tactics – often undermine popular support for any movement due to reduced feelings of emotional connection and social identification with the movement.

That said, and despite varying types of cost to some individual activists and indeed public perceptions of the movement as a whole, XR has, until very recently, been unyielding about sounding the ‘code red for humanity’ alarm not through the ‘practical’ – tried, tested, and failed – routes of marches, petitions, and letters to MPs, but by deploying the ‘right’ repertoires of public disruptions and dilemma actions deemed commensurate with the existential threats that the climate and ecological emergency presents for current and future generations. Whilst that has caused much consternation amongst some sections of the public, evidence from a variety of polls suggests that the message is getting through (Corner et al., 2020). That is to say, in recent years there has been a remarkable shift in the British public’s perceptions towards greater awareness and apprehension about the different risks and impacts associated with the climate and ecological emergency. That shift, it would appear, closely correlates with the emergence and ‘impossible to ignore’ activities of XR – and, of course, other contemporary movements such as the youth-led Fridays For Future (FFF), and their vociferous demands for climate justice.

Illustration Amelia Halls (@amelia_halls)

Quite clearly, there is something of a symbiotic, albeit somewhat fraught and often fragile, relationship between XR’s disruptive protest actions and attracting broad public support. Cultivating a critical mass of awareness, and by logical extension support, has always been a strategic goal in the movement’s quest for ‘tipping points’ towards multi-level and deep societal transformations. However, amid unsettled debates about the percentage of the population needed to achieve that tipping point goal, there are underlying questions about how to convert awareness into concern through a greater understanding of interconnected issues, and then converting concern into a significant support base who are willing to coalesce in civic actions – not necessarily civil disobedience or direct actions associated with XR – that could help to disrupt the unsustainable trajectories of business-as-usual.

Whilst those debates and questions have been oscillating since the emergence of the movement, we should perhaps consider, as XR activist Nuala Gathercole Lam (2021) argues, “So what if Extinction Rebellion isn’t popular? We’re protesting to bring about change, and it’s working”. Similarly, as psychology professor Colin Davis (2022) of the University of Bristol has pointed out, “people may ‘shoot the messenger’, but they do – at least, sometimes – hear the message.” That succinctly captures the idea of “the activist’s dilemma”, wherein disruptive actions that raise awareness also tend to diminish popular support.

On that note, an inescapable quandary for us to keep in mind is how public opinions of XR’s disruptive actions might influence political agendas and the course of government decisions or policies. Two key questions arise. First, do such actions that raise awareness likewise increase public support for more urgent climate action from the government? Second, and relatedly, do disruptive protest actions increase public backing for greater police powers and the introduction of draconian measures to discourage such protests? A necessary reflection when grappling with those two questions is the role of the media in steering public narratives. If power is, as often thought, the ability to control what happens, then real power is controlling what and how people think about what happens.

The reciprocal nexus between disruptive protest actions, public perceptions, the media, government policies, and the police and criminal justice system, takes on a different hue and cry when viewed through the prism of race matters. In the overarching context of questioning environmental sustainability’s problematic relationship with social justice, and more specifically my inquiry in this section into how matters of race intersect with the formation and evolution of tactics in XR’s soul-craft, it is noteworthy that among the criticisms from certain sections of the public about the movement’s use of disruptive actions, XR has also been periodically rebuked, and in a few cases even ‘cancelled’, by some movements representing racially marginalised people’s interests, for being insufficiently attentive to the things that matter in what W. E. B. Dubois (2015) called ‘The Souls of Black Folk’. In our current era, the things that matter in the ‘souls of Black folk’ includes the near-constant drumbeat and reminders of institutional racism and durable inequalities within and beyond the police and criminal justice system. Hence, a backdrop of social injustices foregrounds the ‘hostile environment’ viewpoints of many Black, Brown, and ‘othered’ people in the UK.

In the unsettled multiculturalisms of Occidental countries such as the UK, ideas about ‘appropriate adaptations in a hostile environment’ mediate the everyday life experiences and conduct of many Black and Brown people. A major consideration in that regard are the disproportionately negative interactions and outcomes with the police and criminal justice system. Consequently, for a variety of groups representing different interests of racially marginalised people, any possibilities of coalescing with XR were stillborn in the widely-publicised moments of the movement’s activists declaring love for the police during the April 2019 Rebellion (Campfire, 2019). Additionally, the fact that XR’s brand, to date, has been in part shaped by and seen as inviting arrest, has tended to reinforce some perceptions of privileged ignorance (Wretched of The Earth, 2019). That, of course, calls into question, as outlined in my opening remarks and provocations, fundamental notions of common interests and collective visions for a world transformed.

The more people identify with the soul-craft of a movement, the more they are inclined to join that movement. Put differently, unless the organising concerns, demands, visions and tactics that determine a movement’s soul-craft collectively and positively resonate with people, they may support the cause but will not join the course. Accordingly, as Assata Shakur, a political activist in the USA with the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army in the 1970s once said:

“No movement can survive unless it is constantly growing and changing with the times. If it isn’t growing, if it’s stagnant, and without the support of the people, no movement for liberation can exist, no matter how correct its analysis of the situation is. That’s why the political work and organizing are so important.” 

3.3.1: This is the work

Being a radically decentralised leaderless movement as XR is, can sometimes frustrate the pace of decision-making processes needed to help advance any tactical reorientation and organising to help build solidarity across differences. Nevertheless, in the past year, after much internal deliberation ever since I joined, the movement has undergone what I think are two significant changes worth highlighting here as I begin to draw towards my conclusion.

First, after countless meetings, workshops, conversations, and agonising debates about understanding the justice conundrum and how best to explicitly situate and communicate it within a revision of the movement’s demands, a decision was finally reached. The preamble to the revised demands clearly illustrates that XR is not just a movement solely focused on environmental sustainability, but is also “rooted in love, care and a fundamental commitment to climate justice”. Further, the preamble emphasises that “In the UK, we bear a particular responsibility to the Global Majority, and acknowledge and support the incredible work of the many organisations specialising in the specific issues related to justice”. However, despite the justice-turn in the revised demands, the decision not to include a fourth demand specifically about justice proved to be a point of considerable distress, a deal-breaker, for some activists – of all colours, but most pertinently some racially marginalised activists – who subsequently decided to withdraw or reduce their participation, citing irreconcilable differences.

The second significant change by the movement, is a recent “controversial resolution to temporarily shift away from public disruption as a primary tactic”. Perhaps even more so than the revision of the demands briefly sketched above, that decision signifies a radical departure from XR’s brand, which I earlier described as ‘unapologetically-disruptive’. For various reasons, not least of which is an authoritarian-turn by the government marked by an increasingly repressive approach to many forms of protest, the movement will, for now at least, “prioritise attendance over arrest and relationships over roadblocks”. To that end, and as I write, XR has facilitated the coalescence of a ‘movement of movements’ – The Big One – which has involved building solidarity networks across over two hundred social, environmental, and justice campaign groups, movements, and unions – Unite To Survive. The aim is to become even more impossible to ignore by encouraging a hundred thousand supporters to peacefully occupy the public spaces in and around the epicentre of politics and government power. This strategic pivot from the movement’s established public disruption tactics, has been criticised by some seasoned activists who argue that the urgency of the climate and ecological emergency, coupled with the government’s record of inaction, demands more, not less, disruptive actions.

We should note here that as, over years, a certain level of familiarity and, inevitably, staleness have gradually crept into the multi-level impacts of XR due to the repetition of disruptive repertoires, questions about the movement’s own sustainability have arisen. In that context, many studies of radical environmental movements suggest that they rarely last more than a few years, even if the reasons for their discontent and emergence remain just as urgent. As I suggested in a presentation to the movement’s Strategy Assembly in February 2021, social movement theory indicates that XR was, at the time of my presentation, at a crucial stage wherefrom there were at least seven possible, but not mutually exclusive, outcomes: success, failure, fragmentation, co-optation, repression, stagnation, or going mainstream – which would require aborting the movement’s distinguishing repertoires of public disruptions in order to garner greater support from the general public, and build a broader coalition of interests. In many ways, I would argue, the movement has succeeded. All its demands have been met, albeit severely compromised adoptions, by the government. Most crucially, public awareness about the climate and ecological emergency has increased exponentially since XR’s emergence despite, or perhaps even because of, the repressive actions of the State. Therefore, the resolution to temporarily shift from public disruptions is, I suggest, not only timely, but altogether wise. It should address some of the glaring blind spots in the movement’s determination to reconcile its environmental sustainability aims with a broad range of social justice concerns.

3.4: Conclusion: We cannot heal what we do not understand

In this three-part series questioning the relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice, I have presented a snapshot of my longitudinal research on the perennial challenges of inclusion and diversity in environmental movements as a way of problematising and interrogating that relationship. Drawing on my research experiences at UCL’s Development Planning Unit, the underlying consideration that has driven my journey is the fundamental question about development: What is development? At the heart of that deceptively simple question, are some of the most basic but deep philosophical reflections about ‘the human condition’: What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to be human? Who are we to each other? How best can we organise ourselves to collectively thrive on this finite planet, knowing that our journey is limited and, in many cases, riddled with durable inequalities and uncertainties?

Given the persistent absence or failure of adequate multi-level governance responses to some of the most pressing problems in contemporary development thinking, planning, and practice, a brief study of recent human history across space and time tells us that collective action has always played a vital role in resolving a myriad of intractable societal issues. In that respect, social movements have been absolutely instrumental in driving some of the most important and positive social transformations in modern times, including independence from colonial rule, universal suffrage, civil rights, and much more.

In many ways, then, we can think of social movements as somewhat prophetic. That is to say they `speak before’ to announce what is taking shape even before its direction and detailed contents have become clear. They can be seen as thermostats shaping the climate of socio-political changes that are yet to be, and yet must be. Whilst many of our lobbied and pliant politicians tend to check the temperature of polling data before declaring what their deepest convictions are, movements like XR force issues out into the open, onto the streets, infiltrating the attention marketplace and opinion corridors with particular demands for transformative change. The success, failure, or indeed the degree of change achieved by any movement, often depends on interlinked dynamics between various factors such as the production of space and time, resource mobilisation, and the political opportunities that foreground their emergence and operations.

Moreover, with the current social and political currents increasingly being fuelled by identity politics, culture wars and, relatedly, the weaponisation of ‘belonging and othering’, ‘us versus them’, one of the foremost challenges and determinants of success or failure for environmental movements like XR, involves reaching beyond the low hanging fruit or echo chambers of ideologues in order to achieve the critical ‘mass factor’ necessary to trigger the tipping points for regime change in socio-political conventions. In that context, the inescapable conundrum that all movements must grapple with, is how to build and maintain solidarity within, with and between different interest groups, without fatally compromising the core cries and demands of each group. A successful coalescing of groups, then, should begin not by seeking to erase, circumvent or dilute differences, but, rather, by recognising, respecting, honouring, and appreciating differences. XR has come a long way in doing that.

The movement has been, encouragingly, attentive to the different justice demands of other non-aligned groups. To that point, we should note here that justice is a multifaceted ideal and, consequently, as I have frequently highlighted in various spaces and conversations within the movement, it can be quite cumbersome to specify and then amalgamate different types and hierarchies of justice into the specific demands of environmental movements. Thus, whilst numerous theories of justice – beyond the immediate scope of my enquiry in this piece – have been debated and advanced over many centuries by a number of notable philosophers, the relatively recent concept of climate justice has been profusely adopted by the current generation of mainstream environmental movements such as XR and the youth-led Fridays For Future.

“What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? NOW!!!”

What, though, is the justice demand in climate justice? An array of formations exist, perhaps best encapsulated by the demand that “polluters must pay”. Imbued in that phrase are three fundamental formulations of justice: justice as recognition, distributive justice, and procedural justice. Within and beyond those three forms of justice that frame ‘climate justice’ as a demand, the concept has become something of an empty signifier that is sufficiently capacious and user-friendly enough to suggest that the demands of environmental sustainability can be reconciled with the quest for all iterations of social justice. As the British MP David Lammy (2020) explained:

“The climate crisis is in a way colonialism’s natural conclusion. The solution is to build a new coalition made up of all the groups most affected by this emergency. Climate justice is linked to racial justice, social justice, [and] intergenerational justice”.

The links between historic and ongoing forms of colonialism and the climate and ecological emergency have now been recognised (IPCC, 2022), and are broadly accepted. In that context, capitalism alone cannot explain the racial inequities produced by the twinned crises. Colonial and racial capitalism can help us develop a better understanding of the origins, dimensions, and impacts of the crises. Put differently, and as I have often discussed with fellow activists, if we do not understand the idea of racial capitalism – how it started, what it is and how it works in our current era (Kelley, 2017) – then everything we think we know about the climate and ecological emergency will only confuse us, and the possible solutions that we propose in our activism, will most likely be futile.

The Green New Deal, as currently proposed and widely understood, supported, and promoted by many contemporary environmental movements and progressive politicians, offers, as has been pointed out by Jasper Bernes (2019), a promise to change everything while keeping everything the same – a placebo.

Any truly just and sustainable solution to the ‘code red for humanity’ requires us to recognise and understand the stratification of global and local societies – world systems analysis (Wallerstein, 2004). More pointedly, any/all solutions, I would suggest, should take as their starting point, the perspectives of racialised and colonised communities. We cannot heal what we do not understand.

Thankfully, there is a rich corpus of literature from marginalised scholars to help us; for example, from the Black feminists Anna Julia Cooper, bell hooks, and Mariame Kaba, postcolonial thinkers like Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Arundhati Roy, Indigenous scholars such as Vine Deloria Jr., Winona LaDuke, and Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, and the liberatory consciousness and critical social theories from the Black radical traditions of resistance evidenced in the works of Cedric Robinson, W. E. B. Dubois, and numerous others.

On that note, just as I began this final offering of my ‘reflections from the frontlines’, I now close by invoking, through paraphrasing, the sentiments of W. E. B. Dubois in his landmark book ‘The Souls of Black Folk’.

Between me and the world of mainstream environmental movements and activists, there are ever many unasked questions: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way during or between protests and meetings, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then cautiously enquire, “how can we attract more Black and Brown people into our movement?”, or they say something like “I wish there were more people like you in our movement”. Sometimes, after a little discussion, some reveal in exasperation, “we have tried and tried to get them to join us, but they won’t”. Others imply, after several conversations, that ‘race as a focal point for considering matters of environmental sustainability, means that we fixate on differences instead of similarities, which does not lead to what Martin Luther King Jr called The Beloved Community’. At these I smile, and remain focused. To the real question, “What if justice, particularly social justice and racial justice, are distractions that are getting in the way?” I answer seldom a word, for I know that we cannot heal what we do not understand. Justice is key.

I also know that no movement in history has ever been perfect, and the mélange of activists that make up any movement are not perfect either. As Cornel West so often reminds us, “we are all cracked vessels, trying to love our crooked neighbours with our crooked hearts”.

We cannot talk about climate change without acknowledging the sciences of climate change. We cannot acknowledge the sciences of climate change without looking into the histories of climate change. And we cannot look at the histories of climate change without seeing the geographies of catastrophes mapped out on what the United Nations General Secretary António Guterres has referred to as “an atlas of human suffering”. That atlas makes apparent the enduring prominence of race matters and matters of injustice in what I call ‘the necropolitics of climate change’.

Meaning what?

Meaning that is the title and subject of my next blog. See you soon.

Recommended reading, listening, viewing, and visiting

Bernes, J., 2019. Between the Devil and the Green New Deal. Commune. Issue 2, Spring 2019. Accessed via:

https://communemag.com/between-the-devil-and-the-green-new-deal/

Campfire, C., 2019. Police, We Love You, We’re Doing It For Your Children Too. Accessed via: https://youtu.be/uAH3AkuNCO8

CB4., 1993. – I’m Black, Y’all! Scene. Accessed via: https://youtu.be/Y_21Agi0t8I

Corner, A., Demski, C., Steentjes, K. and Pidgeon, N., 2020. Engaging the public on climate risks and adaptation: A briefing for UK communicators. Accessed via:

https://climateoutreach.org/reports/engaging-the-public-on-climate-risks-and-adaptation/

Cunningham, P. 2018. In keynote address, Cornel West urges integrity, action, and ‘soulcraft’. Yale News online. First published 5 February 2018. Accessed via:

https://news.yale.edu/2018/02/05/keynote-address-cornel-west-urges-integrity-action-and-soulcraft

Davis, C. 2022. Just Stop Oil: do radical protests turn the public away from a cause? Here’s the evidence. The Conversation online, First published 21 October 2022. Accessed via:

https://theconversation.com/just-stop-oil-do-radical-protests-turn-the-public-away-from-a-cause-heres-the-evidence-192901

Du Bois, W.E.B. and Marable, M., 2015 [1903]. Souls of black folk. Routledge. Accessed via:

https://openlibrary-repo.ecampusontario.ca/jspui/bitstream/123456789/1284/2/The-Souls-of-Black-Folk-1645717452._print.pdf

Enemy, P., 1989. Fight the power. Def Jam Recordings—Let the People Speak. Accessed via: https://youtu.be/mmo3HFa2vjg

Graeber, D. and Wengrow, D., 2021. The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity. Penguin UK.

Havel, V., 2009. The power of the powerless (Routledge revivals): Citizens against the state in central-eastern Europe. Routledge.

IPCC., 2022. Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Working Group III Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Accessed via:

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_FullReport.pdf

Kelley, R.D., 2017. What did Cedric Robinson mean by racial capitalism? Boston Review, 12, p.2017. Accessed via:

https://collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/What-Did-Cedric-Robinson-Mean-by-Racial-Capitalism-by-Robin-DG-Kelley.pdf

Lam, N. G., 2021. So what if Extinction Rebellion isn’t popular? We’re protesting to bring about change and it’s working. Independent Newspaper online. First published 01 September2021. Accessed via:

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/extinction-rebellion-protests-uk-climate-crisis-b1912418.html

Lammy, D., 2020. Climate justice can’t happen without racial justice. TED Talks. First published 13 October 2020. Accessed via: https://youtu.be/EkIpeO1r0NI

Lefebvre, H. 1996 [1968]. ‘The right to the city’, in H. Lefebvre, Writings on Cities. Ed. and Trans. E. Kofman and E. Lebas, pp. 63–184. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

Lopez, I.H., 1997. White by law: The legal construction of race (Vol. 21). NYU Press.

Lorde, A., 2003. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Feminist postcolonial theory: A reader, 25, p.27. Accessed via:

https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2850kmaspring2017/files/2017/01/Lorde_The_Masters_Tools.pdf

Malm, Andreas. How to blow up a pipeline. Verso Books, 2021.

Meadows, D., 1999. Leverage points. Places to Intervene in a System, 19. Accessed via:

http://drbalcom.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/35173014/Leverage_Points.pdf

Nielsen, K., 1971. On the choice between reform and revolution. Inquiry, 14(1-4), pp.271-295. Accessed via:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00201747108601635?journalCode=sinq20

Rebellion, E., 2019. This is not a drill: An extinction rebellion handbook. Penguin UK.

Rittel, H.W. and Webber, M.M., 1973. Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences, 4(2), pp.155-169.

Sørensen, M.J. and Martin, B., 2014. The dilemma action: Analysis of an activist technique. Peace & Change, 39(1), pp.73-100.

Smith, N., 2010. Uneven development: Nature, capital, and the production of space. University of Georgia Press.

Snyder, T., 2018. The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. Crown.

Táíwò, O.O., 2022. Elite capture: How the powerful took over identity politics (and everything else). Haymarket Books.

Van Reybrouck, D., 2018. Against elections. Seven Stories Press.

Wallerstein, I., 2004. World-systems analysis, in world system history. Ed. Modelski, George. Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS). Oxford: Eolss.

Wolin, S.S., 2017. Democracy incorporated. In Democracy Incorporated. Princeton University Press.

Wretched of The Earth, 2019. An open letter to Extinction Rebellion. Red Pepper. Accessed via: https://www.redpepper.org.uk/an-open-letter-to-extinction-rebellion/

**VISIT: Kairos, The Bookroom, Essex Hall, 1-6 Essex Street, London WC2R 3HY

https://www.kairos.london

Focus Development Association – Madagascar

This blog was written as part of the Learning Alliance between the OVERDUE project and the DPU’s MSc in Environment and Sustainable Development. Namita is a recent graduate of this MSc programme (2021/22), and her reflections on gendered sanitation infrastructures were produced in a module that tackles issues of environment and sustainable development in practice.

“It should be socially acceptable for women to wear diapers since we don’t have the freedom to urinate wherever we wish, as the men do!”

A frustrated aunt exclaimed during an 8-hour road trip when all the women in the car had to pee but could not, for the lack of toilets on Indian highways. The men, who had stopped multiple times since, to relieve themselves laughed off my aunt’s loud rumination.

I wondered why it was more intuitive for her to think of diapers before wishing for more toilets, in her moment of frustration. A redundant question, as I already knew that accessible, safe, and hygienic toilets for women along Indian highways are a utopian expectation.

Photo: A. Allen

It was after several such experiences that I realised that cities are not designed by or for women. The lack of toilets, streetlights, and accessible transport renders the urban space easier for the men to occupy and challenging for the women to navigate.

The simple fact that I, despite my privilege, often resorted to “disciplining my body” (Kulkarni, O’Reilly and Bhat, 2017)during road trips as a coping mechanism for the lack of decent toilets reveals the extent of the predicament faced by those from marginalised classes and vulnerable communities – their embodied and lived experiences made more adverse by their female bodies. The sociocultural notions of shame and modesty, purity and pollution and the stigmatization attached to bodily processes of women such as menstruation and excretion invisibilises their material and infrastructural needs thereby perpetuating themselves.

Thus far, my lived experiences around sanitation as a woman were always from the perspective of a user. Learning from, and with our partners in Mwanza and St. Louis, I discovered the significant role women play as the providers and producers of essential sanitation infrastructures. It was one thing to read an article about bodies as urban infrastructures (Truelove and Ruszczyk, 2022) as part of my coursework, and a completely surreal experience to witness it In real-time, through fieldwork informed by real women.

“The women carry the entire burden of sanitation, especially during the winter months. The women here help the men here, no sanitation, no pipes, the women empty the water”

acknowledged a man from the Focus Group Discussion conducted in Saint-Louis, Senegal.

Flipping the coin to view women as providers of sanitation, was a revelation. I realised how easily we dismiss women’s role in shaping urban processes specifically in water and sanitation although they are present in every sphere. It is the women who fetch the water and clean the toilets, filling the infrastructural gaps left by the governments. But they are hidden actors, their roles overlooked and under-represented.

‘Gender is not just a lens but a valuable analytical tool’ is an essential insight that I have gained through this journey. I realised it is like stained glass – look at your immediate world through it and what you will see is a different version – a different hue, a deeper saturation, set against a different mosaic.

Photo: P. Hofmann

In Africa, women perform a large bulk of care work involving activities like cleaning, cooking, and childcare. However, in the absence of effective sewerage systems in Mwanza and St. Louis, by performing sanitation work bracketed as ‘care work,’ women become the wardens and custodians of the sanitation chain. They perform the roles of essential urban sanitation infrastructures and are responsible for the maintenance of shared household toilets. They clean the toilets and empty the pit latrines without any bodily protection, motivated by the well-being of their families and children, exposing themselves to health risks and vulnerabilities emerging from routinely handling faecal matter.

Fundamentally, they are filling a critical gap in sanitation service provision, in the absence of which their settlement and city systems would collapse, especially during the winter months of severe flooding. However, their role is relegated to the ‘work’ that they are expected to perform for being born with a female body. Their contributions as providers of sanitation services are invisibilised, and unrecognised and their work is labelled as ‘duty.’ Although the sanitation responsibilities added to the burden of care, the women, aware of their role as sanitation service providers seemed content with the notion that they were only fulfilling their biological roles.

“When and how does care work become duty and duty become oppressive?”

is a question that underpinned the group research. The dissonance as to whether women should be materially compensated to ease the burden of sanitation, fulfilling practical gender needs, but perpetuating internalised gender roles or should they challenge the unequal power relations in their households and societies, bewildered me. However, learning from the African cities, I appreciated how similar lived experiences of women are across time and space, as both users and producers.

A bigger insight I gained was that women are present everywhere across the sanitation chain as both users and producers and possess specialized knowledge which can inform policy and practice and hence carry the immense potential to catalyse long-term socio-political change.  Women play highly significant roles in the sanitation realm which benefits stakeholders across the scale of the household, the community, and the state.

Thus, just sanitation is not just about providing toilets and sewerage systems. It is about acknowledging and accommodating intersectional identities, embodied experiences, bodily dignity, safety, environmental concerns, and the health and wellbeing of everyone involved. Urban trajectories that do not consciously account for sanitation justice by acknowledging its gendered dynamics and fostering distributive, procedural and recognitional justice (Rusca, Alda-Vidal and Kooy, 2018) in sanitation, will most likely produce social injustices in urban spaces. Neglecting the significance of designing cities to provide just and equitable sanitation for women will generate inequitable outcomes, not just for the women but for the city.

For more information on the OVERDUE / MSc ESD Learning Alliance, please visit https://www.esdlearningalliance.net

Bibliography

Desai, R., McFarlane, C. and Graham, S. (2015) ‘The Politics of Open Defecation: Informality, Body, and Infrastructure in Mumbai’, Antipode, 47(1), pp. 98–120. doi:10.1111/anti.12117.

Kulkarni, S., O’Reilly, K. and Bhat, S. (2017) ‘No relief: lived experiences of inadequate sanitation access of poor urban women in India’, Gender & Development, 25(2), pp. 167–183. doi:10.1080/13552074.2017.1331531.

Rusca, M., Alda-Vidal, C. and Kooy, M. (2018) ‘Sanitation Justice?: The Multiple Dimensions of Urban Sanitation Inequalities’, in Boelens, R., Perreault, T., and Vos, J. (eds) Water Justice. 1st edn. Cambridge University Press, pp. 210–225. doi:10.1017/9781316831847.014.

Shukla, A.M. (2019) Mumbai: Unresolved civic issues irks residents, DNA India. Available at: https://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-mumbai-unresolved-civic-issues-irks-residents-2736710 (Accessed: 26 May 2022).

Truelove, Y. and Ruszczyk, H.A. (2022) ‘Bodies as urban infrastructure: Gender, intimate infrastructures and slow infrastructural violence’, Political Geography, 92, p. 102492. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102492.

This blog was written as part of the Learning Alliance between the OVERDUE project and the DPU’s MSc in Environment and Sustainable Development. Amanda is a recent graduate of this MSc programme (2021/22), and her reflections on gendered sanitation infrastructures were produced in a module that tackles issues of environment and sustainable development in practice.

Unconscious biases

Before this module, I never fully understood what sanitation meant. To my assumption, sanitation only reached to the extent of water and hygiene with little focus on toilets, its infrastructure, and the stories behind its use. But perhaps this disinterest stemmed from my own privileges of living in a city where sanitation facilities meet my own needs: running water, piped sewerage, bins for sanitary pads, division of women/men toilets and decently maintained facilities.

In that very first lecture however, introducing the topic, Adriana Allen said that sanitation was both “visible yet invisible” at the same time. That statement was my personal entry point into sanitation – and as Emmanuel Osuteye said in the Learning Alliance retreat, it was my “hook” into why it is a critical entry point into unlocking just urban development.

Toilet facilities unlock the hidden everyday stories of injustice

It made me flashback to when I was based in peri-urban Kathmandu, Nepal, in 2019. Whilst I was working in a local school, I saw a young female student openly defecating behind the school’s toilet facilities. I wondered why there were practices of open defecation despite there being toilet facilities available just in front of her. After a conversation with female students, it was said that the school toilet facilities were just such poor quality, that students did not end up using them. The school toilets were created by an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) but since its creation, they played no further role. There was no running water, sanitary bins and toilets were not maintained, which resulted in further decline in the facility’s quality (Figure 1). For female students who were menstruating, they would skip an entire week of classes as the facilities were not catered for their menstrual needs. Similarly, outside of the school setting, women who menstruated were often subjected to banishment from the kitchen and places of worship due to passed down beliefs of impurity (Thapa and Aro, 2021).

Figure 1: Image of schoolgirls’ toilet in Kathmandu – similar conditions in example mentioned (Source: Shrestha, 2019)

With that conversation, I left Nepal with more questions than answers. Despite the provision of toilet facilities in schools, what was it about those toilets that discouraged female students from using them? There is a juxtaposition where toilets are visibly everywhere but everyday experiences and realities around these toilet practices, such as menstruation and taboos, continue to be invisible and under-researched. These invisible experiences allow us to understand the injustices in urban development and also provide an opportunity to advance just development. Sanitation is the artery of the city, playing a vital role in urban life, intersecting with the urban environment, health, water and more. Inequitable sanitation in the city therefore ultimately reflects the wider injustices in the city such as inequitable distribution of resources, and a lack of intersectional representation and recognition in governance (Rusca et al., 2018).

Sanitation also allows us to adopt a feminist political ecology (FPE) lens, paying particular attention to the ‘everyday’ and emotional narratives that are not usually recognised in policy and planning (Clement et al., 2019; Lancione and McFarlane, 2016). FPE enables us to understand how power relations are deeply gendered and how they marginalise groups not just related to gender but to caste, class, race, disabilities. As such, these invisible everyday realities are reflective of the inequalities in the city and therefore demonstrate how “spaces of exclusion” are created, thus leading to further injustice in the production of urban spaces (Bhakta et al., 2019).

Urban African parallels and unveiling wider institutional issues

Figure 2: Drawing parallels in Africa and Southeast Asia. A picture of toilet facility in Freetown (Source: participant photo in ESD/OVERDUE research, 2022)

Drawing parallels from the insightful work co-produced with OVERDUE partners as part of the Learning Alliance, from the toilet research in Beira, Bukavu and Freetown and across continents in the Nepali context, I see and hear stories of everyday injustices. These stories reiterate that intersectional sanitation realities – of women, the disabled, young, and elderly – remain invisible, perpetuating the social stigma and taboos around cleanliness, manifesting in lack of locks, doors, and sanitary bins for women (Figure 2), marginalising and creating greater urban inequalities. Yet as noted by Bhakta et al., (2019), these hidden sanitation realities are “characterised by unjust institutional practices” and thus expose unequal governance structures which dictate urban development such as in policy or staff development (pp.18).

Whilst these everyday stories have been powerful in revealing some of the sanitation injustices, I questioned how we could recognise these voices in a system that values quantitative data as facts. It was the use of Levy’s (1996) ‘Web of Institutionalisation’ whilst learning in the African city context that made me realise how these everyday stories of sanitation injustices can be turned into advancing just urban development. Ultimately, the Web shows how processes within institutions like local governments, can play an active role in advancing just urban development through the inclusion of women and intersectional voices in planning (Figure 3). During the Learning Alliance retreat in the UK in May 2022, Kavita Wankhade’s presentation on the Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP) mentioned the role of civil servants being stuck in a system, where bureaucracy is dictated by wider processes but nonetheless still plays a role in representing the voices on the ground. As a civil servant working in procurement, I always assumed that I played only a minor role in local government. Kavita’s comment made me reflect on my own position in vocalising the hidden voices in sanitation. Whether that would be through advocating for gender-sensitive needs in procurement contracts (procedures), the role that we play in vocalising these hidden realities is an important step in a new governance structure which enables equal representation and just development (Levy, 1996).

Figure 3: The Web of Institutionalisation in action (Source: Author, 2022)

Sanitation’s role in advancing just urban development

To summarise, sanitation is an entry point to ensure greater equity in the city. These past months have made me reflect that sanitation is more than just water provision and cleanliness but encompasses a multitude of components like public toilets and the vital role of women as sanitation workers. Within these, it is these sanitation experiences that perpetuate injustices that continue to be hidden. By acknowledging the realities within the sanitation conversation, we also start tracing opportunities within the institutional web to change fundamental processes that impact urban development as well as awaken our own personal agency. By improving sanitation, we can therefore begin to advance genuine just urban development that is for women, men, children, elderly, disabled and for all.

For more information on the OVERDUE / MSc ESD Learning Alliance, please visit https://www.esdlearningalliance.net

Bibliography

Bhakta, A., Fisher, J., and Reed, B. (2019) Unveiling hidden knowledge: discovering the hygiene needs of perimenopausal women, International Development Planning Review, 41(2), pp.149-171.

Clement, F., Harcourt, W.J., Joshi, D., and Sato, C. (2019) Feminist political ecologies of the commons and communing, International Journal of the Commons, 13(1), pp.1-15

Lancione, M., and McFarlane, C. (2016) Life at the urban margins: Sanitation infra-making and the potential of experimental comparison, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 48(12), pp.2402-2421.

Levy, C. (1996) The process of institutionalising gender in policy and planning: the ‘web’ of institutionalisation, DPU Working Paper No.74, pp.1-25.

Rusca, M., Alda-Vidal, C. and Kooy, M. (2018) Sanitation justice? The multiple dimensions of urban sanitation inequalities. In: Boelens, R., Perreault, T., and Vos, J. (eds) Water Justice, Cambridge University Press, pp.210-225

Shrestha, E. (2019) Without proper sanitation facilities, girls keep missing school during menstruation [Online] www.kathmandupost.com Available at: https://kathmandupost.com/national/2019/12/31/without-proper-sanitation-facilities-girls-keep-missing-school-during-menstruation [Accessed: 24.05.2022]

Thapa, S., and Aro, A.R. (2019) ‘Menstruation means impurity’: multi-level interventions are needed to break the menstrual taboo in Nepal, BMC Women’s Health, 21(84), pp.1-5

Cover image source: Hesperian Health Guides (2021) Sanitation for Cities and Towns [Online] Available at: https://en.hesperian.org/hhg/A_Community_Guide_to_Environmental_Health:Sanitation_for_Cities_and_Towns

There is an growing body of scholarship that supports the cultivation of green spaces in urban environments as a vital part of healthcare and wellbeing provision in cities and communities (Pearson and Craig 2014; Wyles et al. 2017).  According to the constitution of the World Health Organisation health is ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. In other words, it includes both physical and psychological wellbeing. Good health then is not only the improvement of symptoms associated with chronic illness, but must also include the presence of positive emotions like life satisfaction, a sense of community and happiness (Soga, Gaston, and Yamaura 2017).

We have long known that urban parks provide sites for physical activity and that exercise reduces the prevalence of most chronic diseases and enhances healthiness in general. More recent evidence, however, has demonstrated the manifold positive associations between access to green spaces like forests, cemeteries, reserves, sports fields, conservation areas, and community gardens – and better health outcomes (Newell et al. 2013). For example, psychological wellbeing has been empirically linked to contact with green areas (Berto 2014; Bertram and Rehdanz 2015).  And according to research in environmental psychology simply being in a ‘natural’ environment can help promote recovery from stress.  Parks are said to provide a sense of peace and tranquillity and they can function as a locus of social interaction and play – both associated with positive health indicators. Evidence also suggests that green spaces increase perceptions of safety and belonging.  And Fuller et al. (2009) have found positive associations between species richness and self-reported psychological contentment. Louv (2005) has shown that children who lack access to urban green space can suffer from a wide range of behavioural problems; and that interaction with flora and fauna is crucial to child development. Gardens in care homes have been found to be beneficial for reducing the agitation and aggression linked to dementia, while hospices make use of the tranquillity of green spaces as part of end-of-life care (Triggle 2016).

What’s more, green spaces also support the ecological integrity of cities which is turn have health benefits for the people living and working in them. For instance, trees and plants help to filter air and remove pollution. In 2019 the World Health Organisation found that around seven million people die each year from exposure to polluted air. Vegetation also helps to attenuate noise pollution – another source of stress reported to be increasing in urban environments. And urban forests can moderate temperatures by providing shade and cooling  and thus helping reduce the risk of heat-related illnesses for city dwellers (Wolch, Byrne, and Newell 2014).

But it isn’t simply being present in green spaces that can aid better health. Producing and cultivating them is also increasingly being recognised as a crucial part of the story. Gardening has been linked to lower BMIs, reduced stress, fatigue and depression, better cognitive function, and also to the prevention or management of diabetes, circulatory problems and heart disease (Buck 2016; Soga et al. 2017; Thompson 2018; Van-Den-Berg and Custers 2011).

Speaking personally, I can attest that gardens and gardening undeniably provides a sense of solace. I have always enjoyed being outdoors and walking in beautiful settings but only very recently have I taken up gardening. Much of the academic literature on horticulture and cultivating green space simply asserts an empirical relationship between the act of gardening and its corollary beneficial outcomes. But very little research explores or explains precisely what the mechanisms of association might be. Below I want to examine some of the processes that connect the act of growing green things with the benefits that are ascribed to its practice.

Gardening – the cultivation of and care for plants and vegetables for non-commercial purposes – provides a different way to experience the natural environment: it is far more immersive and visceral than simply being present in a green space. What’s more, gardening is a process and never complete; it is an act of care and it is often hard work. However, I believe its rewards are many.

I felt tired simply looking at our own overgrown ‘cottage garden’ – at least that’s how it was described by the last estate agent. Shrubs and weeds had proliferated during years of benign neglect leaving only a slim pathway to the bicycle shed. Rather than a pleasant space to enjoy, it had been a reminder of another chore yet to address.

All this changed a few years ago and I began to tackle the tangle of vegetation. I hacked back gargantuan shrubs and removed well-established bramble and after a couple of days the hard labour was complete; I could then work on cultivating something resembling a garden in this newly revealed plot. Admiring the freshly made beds of soil I set about planting and digging. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was keen.

It’s become a cliché that gardening is therapeutic, but at that time I hadn’t appreciated just how helpful it could be. Gardening obviously involves effort and according to the Mental Health Foundation, exercise is not only beneficial for physical health it also helps psychological conditions like mild to moderate depression and stress (Buck 2016). There’s also something about its practice which I believe is salutary. At least it is in my own experience.

Digging and manipulating soil to plant bulbs and seeds is a hopeful act. That in itself is heartening, but when the first green shoots push through the earth it can be exhilarating too. It is an act of human agency to dig, plant and to nurture and yet one’s gardening success lies far beyond the control of the gardener herself, notwithstanding her commitment and expertise.

So much can go wrong: blight, poor weather, ravenous slugs – and a hundred other circumstances can conspire to thwart the gardener’s efforts. While plans may go awry, the co-production between gardener and the non-human garden assemblage can produce glorious outcomes. I have felt at once proud of the spring displays that have emerged in my tiny plot, and also humbled; knowing that the results were only partially of my own doing.

One can read-up and share tips with other enthusiasts but sometimes it just doesn’t work out as planned. I was disappointed that my tulip bulbs didn’t materialise into the plants promised on the packet, but I’ve been pleased that the ailing roses I got on discount at the garden centre have thrived.  Gardening knowhow is often more tacit than taught. It is acquired through seasons of practice, of hope and sometimes of frustration. Feeling stressed by the demands of everyday life can make us feel impotent so it’s perplexing that gardening, in which we have only a relative influence on the outcome, can be so satisfying. Or maybe that’s its appeal.

Perhaps it is the combination of endorphin-releasing exercise, surrendering control to serendipity and the slow tacit acquisition of practical know-how that makes gardening special. But there’s something about the rhythms, textures, sounds and scents of gardening too. The immersive and visceral experience of working with plants and mud encourages us to be mindful and present in our own bodies. Instead of worrying about work or the everyday stresses of life, gardening directs us to the tasks at hand: to pruning, repotting, weeding or digging.  Anxiety can worsen when we focus unduly on the past or worry excessively about the future, whereas gardening is an activity engaged in the ‘now’.  And since most plants and shrubs only flower for a short period, to enjoy them at their best we must be fully present.

And of course, gardens are sensual and sensory. Their beauty can’t be captured in a text or by a photograph they must be experienced. The feel of earth warmed by microbes and sunshine, delicate and textured vegetation that brushes the skin, foliage with thorns or stings, inhaling the musty smell of air in soil displaced by rain, or the aromatic scent of leaves and petals, the sound of breeze hissing through leaves. It is these incursions on our senses that can help relieve us of our existential angst and provide succour in difficult times.

In Britain, Hospital Foundations, mental health, homeless and dementia charities are beginning to offer not only access to green spaces as part of their efforts to improve the health of citizens, but also opportunities for publics to get involved in their cultivation. This seems like a very positive move in the endeavour for healthier cities (Soga et al. 2017). However, there are some caveats.  Some studies on green spaces and health reveal that access disproportionately benefits White, able bodied and more affluent communities (McConnachie and Shackleton 2010; Wolch et al. 2014). And enhancing natural amenities in cities has been shown to in many cities to paradoxically facilitate gentrification and increase property prices, further diminishing access to those constituents who might benefit the most (Newell et al. 2013).  Concerted effort needs to be made by urban planners and communities everywhere to keep this most valuable resource accessible and open to all for the good of healthy citizens everywhere.

Berto, Rita. 2014. “The Role of Nature in Coping with Psycho-Physiological Stress: A Literature Review on Restorativeness.” Behavioral Sciences 4(4):394–409.

Bertram, Christine and Katrin Rehdanz. 2015. “The Role of Urban Green Space for Human Well-Being.” Ecological Economics 120:139–52.

Buck, D. 2016. Gardens and Health Implications for Policy and Practice. Kings Fund.

Fuller, Richard and Gaston Kevin. 2009. “The Scaling of Green Space Coverage in European Cities.” Biology Letters 5(3):352–55.

Louv, Richard. 2005. “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.” SCHOLE: A Journal of Leisure Studies and Recreation Education 21(1):136–37.

McConnachie, M. Matthew and Charlie M. Shackleton. 2010. “Public Green Space Inequality in Small Towns in South Africa.” Habitat International 34(2):244–48.

Newell, Joshua P., Mona Seymour, Thomas Yee, Jennifer Renteria, Travis Longcore, Jennifer R. Wolch, and Anne Shishkovsky. 2013. “Green Alley Programs: Planning for a Sustainable Urban Infrastructure?” Cities 31:144–55.

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Soga, Masashi, Kevin J. Gaston, and Yuichi Yamaura. 2017. “Gardening Is Beneficial for Health: A Meta-Analysis.” Preventive Medicine Reports 5:92–99.

Thompson, Richard. 2018. “Gardening for Health: A Regular Dose of Gardening.” Clinical Medicine  18(3):201–5.

Triggle, N. 2016. “Gardening and Volunteering: The New Wonder Drugs?” BBC News Website.

Van-Den-Berg, Agnes and Mariëtte Custers. 2011. “Gardening Promotes Neuroendocrine and Affective Restoration from Stress.” Journal of Health Psychology 16(1):3–11.

Wolch, Jennifer R., Jason Byrne, and Joshua P. Newell. 2014. “Urban Green Space, Public Health, and Environmental Justice: The Challenge of Making Cities ‘Just Green Enough.’” Landscape and Urban Planning 125:234–44.

Wyles, Kayleigh J., Mathew P. White, Caroline Hattam, Sabine Pahl, Haney King, and Melanie Austen. 2017. “Are Some Natural Environments More Psychologically Beneficial Than Others? The Importance of Type and Quality on Connectedness to Nature and Psychological Restoration.” Environment and Behavior 51(2):111–43.

In July 2016, the 4^th Community Architects Network (CAN) Regional Workshop brought together community action practitioners from countries all over South East Asia. The first day was spent in Bangkok, Thailand, introducing the participants to the work done and challenges faced by CAN members in Thailand, China and India. The following five days were spent in groups – each focusing on a different sector of city development, for example the transport group, which I was part of – doing fieldwork alongside local communities in Chumsang City of Nakornsawan Province, Thailand.

Today is just about listening

“Today is just about listening,” we were told. That was how we started our fieldwork on the 16^th of July. Focusing our attention on understanding the local communities of Chumsang, listening to their ideas, concerns and how they wished their city to be in the future. This was a challenge, particularly as most of us had spent the first two days of the workshop meeting and exchanging with many different people from Sri Lanka, Nepal, India, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia. So by the time we arrived in Chumsang, my mind was already full of questions and ideas. I was excited and a little rushed to quickly understand the context of Chumsang, considering we had very few days to do so and then to, somehow, ‘co-create’ something.

Co-Creation was the theme of the workshop. It was described in the introductory programme as the “co-creation and design between man and nature through a process of understanding and respect”. Understood in this way, co-creation was very representative of the dynamics and needs of Chumsang. Like other similarly sized cities in Thailand, Chumsang faces many concerns related to its natural resources and landscapes, the loss of its cultural traditions, the changing dynamics of migration in its young and old populations and as a result the increasing day to day challenges in making the city livable, sustainable and lively.

Mapping people’s routes to the community hall

Following this theme, the workshop in general had a loose structure that allowed space for conversations to evolve, take different directions and reveal those elements that were not immediately obvious about the city and its people. At first this way of working felt uncertain, unfamiliar and risky but as we were immersed in to the fieldwork, the friendly people and the excitement of it all, it became easier to go with the flow and allow our ideas and projects to develop in a very organic way.

Our behinds were burning but our faces were bright

As the transport and cycling group, we happily spent a lot of time on our bicycles, visiting the city and using any excuse to get on the saddle. By the end of the first day, it was harder to walk straight and our faces were quite pink from the sun, but it was through these rides around the city that we found inspiration to work. We even wrote a song!

One of the cycling groups meet at 6 a.m. every morning to ride around the city

Within the transport group, I felt very connected to my colleagues, not only by being part of CAN, which encouraged us to work together but also through our other interests, in my case cycling. In other cases, photography, culture, music, heritage and ecology brought people together to share ideas on making the city. These elements, represented through our different interests and hobbies, are also an important part of what makes cities vibrant and CAN Co-Create seemed to build on this synergy very well. It took a wholesome perspective toward community architecture and in this case, for the first time, at the scale of the city. I think this was one of its greatest strengths.

Gathering the cycling groups at the community hall

In this way, the opportunity that CAN workshops bring about by generating attention, bringing in professionals and practitioners from many contexts to work with local communities and catalyze change not only focused on one arm of city development but many. We established groups that addressed housing, mobility, politics, environment, culture, health and one that emphasized the connectivity and cohesion between these different elements at the level of the city. The workshop also became an opportunity for the mayor to come face to face with the energy of the city’s people, their desires and motivations and to engage in direct conversation with them about their different ideas for the future of Chumsang.

At the same time, this transversal approach also brought many communities to work together. We worked with two cycling groups, a group of elderly, the old market community, young school children, communities that were to be relocated and communities that had already been housed. Initially, it seemed that these different groups had their own motivations for participating in the workshop. However, at the end of each day, as we reviewed our progress and our findings, the work gradually demonstrated how intricately connected these different motivations and processes really were.

Policies group presenting outcomes: Chumsang’s journey

Although some groups progressed quicker than others during the five days of fieldwork, reviewing, changing and even starting over a couple of times; the level of involvement from community groups in the presentation of the outcomes, on the last day, was moving. It showed that these processes of participation intrigued people and invited them to feel part of something greater.

So although lengthy and sometimes frustrating, the time it took to build, validate and present ideas with communities, seemed to generate a collective sense of a ‘Community of Chumsang’. In a way, the notion of ‘co-creation’ really materialized through this challenging and timely process. Toward the end of the workshop, I increasingly noticed that people built on these connections and worked with them, moving around the room, between different groups, sharing information and presenting ideas in sync with each other.

Combining activities, processes and project ideas on the same ‘master plan’ for Chumsang

Sharing is where everything starts

There were many things about the CAN workshop that motivated me but it is what happens after the workshops, which I find the most significant. How the transformative process that CAN workshops initiate, by bringing so many minds together in one place, can ripple out into a series of waves of transformation in other places; How those of us who attend the CAN workshop can carry our experiences and through them, diffuse the energy of CAN into existing and new networks. After the workshop I was left with this intrigue, excited to see what happens next.

The workshop produced Facebook groups [CAN Co-Create Chumsaeng City & Unsung Stories of Chumsaeng); brought cycling movements together to carry out a collective ride throughout the city with the support of the police; created brochures to promote tourism, made a song and proposed many other small achievable projects that the local communities could carry on after the workshop. I see these outcomes as small actions and tools that are practical and achievable in the short term but which have the potential to keep co-creation running by “people’s process”, as we like to say, in the long-run. If people follow up and use them.

Leader of ‘The Old Tigers’ cycles with other groups, as we invite people to join and advocate for cycle lane markings, cycle routes for tourists and greater safety for children and elderly who use bycicles

A month later, I am visiting some of the CAN members in Vietnam. They have been great hosts, showing me around and teaching me about the beautiful city of Hanoi.

“Sharing is where everything starts” says Houng, one of my hosts and also a CAN member. Being back in conversations about community practices reminds me of my intrigue, what happens after the workshop? How does the transformative process of CAN Co-Create continue?

Still excited from the experience, I’ve noticed some signs that suggest the transformative process is still running. The actions that we took and the ‘web’ of tools that we began to create seem to have given the ‘network’ a potential to catalyze this process. Believing it all the more as I listen, discuss and exchange with people who, despite having returned to their busy lives, are still talking about visiting Chumsang again, strengthening the CAN network in Vietnam and even about extending the scope of the existing one.

[Video]

CAN Co-Create Workshop Teaser Video – Final Video will be published in October

Luisa is an alumni of the MSc in Building and Urban Design in Development at the DPU. Currently she is working in Manila, Philippines as a beneficiary of the DPU/ACHR/CAN Young Professionals Programme.

Over the last two decades, Uganda has attained a remarkable record of delivering development in the areas of growth and poverty reduction. The country has also seen a significant increase in the involvement of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) in the development process. The MSc Development Administration and Planning field trip to Kampala was focused on exploring how development intervention is planned and implemented in Kampala, Uganda, as well as examining the role of the practitioner and observing the tools and approaches that are used to conceptualise, design, manage, monitor and evaluate development interventions.

Kampala

Kampala city tour

The field trip commenced with a guided city tour of Kampala, which was organised not only as an introduction to the environment but also to elicit and encourage observation and reflection in terms of spaces in the city, forms of social and cultural life.

Kampala is the biggest city and the capital of Uganda. It is also the administrative and commercial centre of the country.  Kampala has undergone changes within the last few decades and with rapid urbanisation and population growth, the city has had to deal with challenges congruent with urbanisation. Kampala, a city, which was originally built on seven hills, has now expanded to one on more than 21 hills.  The town formerly designed for 500,000 is said to now have a population of more than 2 million with migrants coming in from outside Kampala to work and find work in the city. This appears to have had a huge impact on the infrastructure.

Kampala faces a number of challenges, which is typical of urbanised cities in developing countries – aside from improving basic necessities; these challenges also include the lack of infrastructure and population increase. NGOs in Kampala are seemingly filling in some of the gaps in government provisioning such as being involved in service provisioning. The upward trajectory of NGO prevalence seems to demonstrate that NGOs in Kampala will continue to be involved in service provisioning as the city continues to grow and government struggles to fulfil their responsibilities.

Field site visit

The students were divided into eight groups with each working with one of our eight partner development organisations in Kampala. The students spent two weeks visiting their partner organisations and observing first-hand the processes and tools involved in carrying out development projects. Through employing research strategies and appropriate methodology, students utilised various theoretical frameworks and research methods to explore and understand the phenomenon under investigation.

 Field site visits were also organised for all the students to observe development projects in action. One of the field sites visited was a project supported by Shelter and Settlements Alternatives (SSA) called ‘Decent Living Project’. SSA is a Ugandan based NGO involved in advocacy and sharing information for better housing policies, programs and practices towards sustainable improvement of human settlements in Uganda.

Decent living project

Decent Living Project – Kwafako Housing Cooperative

The Decent Living Project, which is one of SSA’s projects, supports its beneficiaries by providing affordable and eco-friendly houses as well as improving the lives of people living in informal settlements in Kampala. One such beneficiary of this project is a group of individuals living with HIV and formerly inhabiting an informal settlement. They came together and formed their own cooperative called the Kwafako Housing Cooperative. The students were introduced to some of the beneficiaries of the housing project and were also briefed about the history of the housing cooperative, which was said to be the idea of one of the beneficiaries known as Madam Betty. She was said to have noticed the lack of help for people living with HIV within her settlement and convinced them to come together and seek help. The cooperative is currently made up of 34 members who are mostly women, except for four males who upon the death of their spouses became members automatically due to the cooperative’s policy which states that once a female member dies, their husbands become members.

Machine used in making the interlocking bricks

SSA supports this community group through advocacy, providing capacity building through workshops. The members of the cooperative group were trained in the art of making the interlocking soil stabilised brick used in constructing their houses. Strategies used by SSA in meeting objectives include transferring affordable, sustainable and environmental housing technology.  For example, the materials used in making the interlocking soil stabilised brick are dug from the same soil found within the housing project environment. This ensures maximum utilisation of land, keep costs at a minimum and affordable whilst also being environmentally friendly. They also encourage making bricks without the need of burning wood which they explained was not environmentally friendly and as such not supported by one of their funders.

The project which has 24 units which are almost completed is said to be also partnering with Water Aid who plan to provide water facilities to the project. Madam Betty stated that they participated in the design of the houses as well as making the bricks and helping with the building construction.

The members of the cooperative demonstrated how the interlocking stone brick technology is made. This gave us the opportunity to observe the process of making the interlocking soil stabilised bricks as well as encouraging deeper understanding of the capacity and hard work involved.

Housing engineer demonstration the process of making the interlocking soil stabilised brick

Apart from the quotidian activities which involved field site visits, collecting data and frequent group meetings, the students prepared presentations of their findings to tutors, peers and the partner organisations.

The above picture shows demonstration of how the bricks are interlocked

Reference:

Golooba-Mutebi, F., & Hickey, S. (2013) ‘Investigating the links between political settlements and inclusive development in Uganda: towards a research agenda’ (No. esid-020-13). BWPI. Manchester: The University of Manchester.

Lambright, G. M. S. (2014), Opposition Politics and Urban Service Delivery in Kampala, Uganda. Development Policy Review, 32: s39–s60. doi: 10.1111/dpr.12068

Matagi, S. V. (2002) ‘Some issues of environmental concern in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda’, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 77(2):121-138

Dr Lilian Schofield is the Graduate Teaching Assistant for the MSc Development Administration and Planning (DAP). She joined the students on the overseas field trip to Kampala.  Each year, the MSc Development Administration and Planning students embark on an international research field trip. In recent years, the MSc DAP students have visited several countries including Ethiopia and Uganda.

While there are a number of debates on its actual beginning, academics and media have embraced the concept of Anthropocene. The Anthropocene presents humankind as the major geological force contributing to environmental change. This representation of humanity as a single agent produces a compelling narrative about the urgency of global collective action to limit dangerous environmental changes, particularly climate change. This narrative has been effectively used by political leaders to build political capital for global negotiations and efforts aimed at introducing global governance measures on environmental issues.

Picture Caption 2: World Social Forum 2009: diversity in collective action, Brazil. By: Andrea Rigon

Lovbrand et al. (2015) points out how the merging of social diversity into a single and universal “human agent” produces a ‘post-social ontology’ which fails to analyse unequal social relations. Environmental risk and vulnerability are unequally distributed across the world and so are the responsibilities for ecological destruction and consumption beyond the biosphere carrying capacity.

Deterministic narratives of apocalyptic futures if no action is taken are coupled with the idea of a unified and single global response led by green economy investments and techno-scientific solutions. This is a paralysing and depoliticised narrative which hides winners and losers, conceals social relations and dynamics, and delegates responsibility even further, resulting in a concentration of power in the name of avoiding a global catastrophe. (Some would say entrusting with additional power those institutions and mechanisms that led to the ecological crisis in the first place).

By bringing a social diversity perspective into the analysis of global environmental change – which considers gender, ethnicity, class, age, ability, etc. – it is possible to repoliticise the Anthropocene by shifting the focus on the agency of different groups of women and men, the analysis of power relations, and emphasising the centrality of local politics. Critical social science analysing practices and social relations can deconstruct hegemonic narratives, which silences multiple voices, and identify situated practices and the diversity of ways in which women and men engage with environmental challenges.

Picture Caption 1: Toxic smokes from Dandora dumpsite affects the neighbouring population, Kenya. By: Andrea Rigon

At the same time, the dominant narrative around Anthropocene builds on an epistemology that maintains the nature/humans dichotomy and sees the latter as the masters of nature, separate from it and therefore able to apply a technical fix. Social sciences, and particularly Science and Technology Studies, have criticized this approach, highlighting the social construction of nature and dismantling nature/social boundaries. By highlighting the situated characters of all knowledges, including agroecological, literature on local knowledges in development (Agrawal 1995) has also criticised this distinction. Therefore, a critical engagement with the Anthropocene demands collaboration with other sciences, refuses to see nature as external to society, and calls for a broadening of the “social” in relation to diversity.

By conceiving social and environmental justice as intrinsically inseparable and by working in an interdisciplinary manner, the DPU is well placed to embark on this agenda and open to more collaboration with other sciences. In particular, the expertise of the DPU’s research cluster Diversity, social complexity & planned intervention is highly relevant. For instance, this new research agenda would benefit from previous analysis of the constraints to the participation and voice of groups and individuals and their unequal access to policy-making spaces. Moreover, it could build upon the insights from the work on relational poverty, particularly the idea that people are poor “because of others” and the need for a wider analysis of the political economy and of the processes that create poverty.

Being that the Anthropocene is the central conversation of our time, the question is not whether to embark on this research agenda but how. It is about a reflective and reflexive practice in which we cannot escape a critical view of the impact of our behaviours and life choices. The Anthropocene challenges our academic practice and interrogates the legitimacy of a consumption of nature several times beyond our individual fair share (and often hundreds times the one of the communities we co-produce knowledge with). Our ‘professional expertise’ is used to justify our overconsumption (e.g. uncountable intercontinental flights) in the process of knowledge production, implicitly, and perhaps unintentionally, implying the superiority of our knowledge input.

Andrea Rigon is a lecturer on the MSc Social Development Practice course at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit of University College London. He researches and teaches about social diversity, poverty and inequalities. His recent work analyses how social and political conflicts among different actors shape the implementation of development interventions.

The first experience of a city is a disorientating introduction of smells, sound, temperature and touch. It is primarily sensorial. Before you can get your bearings, your body reacts, attunes, listens, smells, and looks.

I’ve been fascinated about the use of the wall as a tool for communication and transformation, and while I’ve known from previous visits to Accra that there were messages inscribed on the walls, I had never paid close enough attention to them, the walls passing by in a whir of taxi windows, going from place A to B. This time it would be about following the surfaces, not about the destination but the in between.

Accra’s visual landscape is dominated by signage; Ghanaians express and shape their culture through this, as common as the informal flows that dominate the city. Signs stating ‘Do Not Urinate Here’, ‘Post No Bills’ sit alongside adverts for Indomie, Glo and Juvita. School walls are decorated with children playing and learning. Billboards advertise religious services, skin care and weight loss. In and amongst this, businesses paint the front of their shop with illustrations of their services and products.

Figure 1: Signage, Hospital Road

Hash-Tags

On Accra’s main roads in and around the city, messages become slightly more political, more patriotic. On November 7^th 2016, Ghana will have another election, and the surfaces along the streets are covered in posters for party leaders and tags. Ghana is a multi-party system but either the National Democratic Congress or the New Patriotic Party largely dominates it, with any other party finding it difficult to achieve electoral success. However, along these main roads is the repetitive scrawl: #GHANAGOESGREEN #TOTALSUPPORT #NEWREGISTERSTOVOTE or SAVE GHANA. A retort to the current election process and another party, the Convention People’s Party, a socialist political party based on the ideas of the first President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah. After a bit of digging online, I learn that #ghanagoesgreen isn’t based on green party politics, but rather for Ivor Greenstreet, a candidate standing for Presidential Election in 2016.

Figure 2: #GHANAGOESGREEN, Ring Road Central

These hash-tags straddle two existences between public space and cyber space, a tactic used by political parties, musicians and other businesses. While many people do have phones, what part of the demographic accesses the Internet? Do these tags predominantly exist online or offline?

Murals

I met Larry, who co-founded Nima: Muhinmanchi Art (NMA), a grassroots organisation that provides art workshops to youth, beautifying communities through public art and promoting urban renewal through culture. Larry tells me how he sees mural paintings as an opportunity to transform everyday spaces, empowering local communities and how it’s a powerful tool to changing the perception of Nima. Nima, is a dense, vibrant and ethnically diverse residential area in Accra, made popular by a large market. It is a stigmatized area, external perceptions have created prejudice and cultural barriers to the rest of the city, and as a result, it has become a city within a city – with its own authorities, rules and policing, undergoing its own development, driven and enforced by its inhabitants.

Larry is passionate about the power of art as transformative, calling the artists in NMA the Change Maker Painters. I ask him about the mural making process and he explains that it begins with a visibility study, to identify a surface that has the most footfall followed by a conversation with the community; including chiefs, the wall owner and households in the immediate vicinity. He presents what he has noticed about the area or what other people have raised with him – the murals act as a vehicle to talk about issues; child labour, waste, and politics. The murals, are subjects of conversation before, during and after their production, with people stopping to talk and ask questions, and share their own experiences. He tells me about a mural that the NMA did after Accra was devastated by a flood and explosion in 2015 that saw the loss of 150 lives. They decided to paint a mural along Kanda Highway to stress the importance of waste management, one of the main causes found for the flood that had blocked drainage systems. As a result, people clean their drains outside their homes and in their community more frequently than when they are just blocked, creating more preventative methods of avoiding another flood.

I meet with Rufai Zakari, an artist, in his studio in Nima, and I ask him why he has made the transition to murals, “Art contributes to positive change. But also introduces something African into the street art scene. My community, which I promised to help with my profession, needs this. I am a child of that community and I use art to change the perception of it, but also to fight for my country and continent”. In March 2015, he set up with other street artists GrafArt GH, a group of young artists from Ghana with the aim of using art to address issues facing the African continent & also to promote Ghanaian art & culture to the rest of the world. Rufai explains that to him, art is a multidimensional tool, to change peoples view of the area, to beautify, but also as a platform for change and awareness raising.

Art movements in these contexts are therefore less about the individual, about the money, than they are about the collective, the community, so that everyone grows and learns together. These Change Maker Painters, see themselves occupying two roles, one within their own communities, painting the inner bellies of the walls and communal courtyards to address very localised problems, but also more widely in the streets of Accra, drawing attention to who they are, to changing the perception of their community, to showing Ghanaians and the world their art.

Figure 3: Flood & Fire, Kanda Highway

Accra is a creative and dynamic city, its visual landscape a thick tapestry of politics, social, environmental and economic messages. From the religious billboards that dominate much of the main roads, to the upcoming elections, the hash-tags that flicker past moving vehicles, to the Ghanaian flag which is bold and colourful, to the murals in communities and the art festivals in the streets of Accra more widely. There are therefore many ways in which street messages are communicated to the city and its inhabitants, orchestrated by individuals, communities, businesses, artists and politicians. While their intent and agency may vary, the wall is a space for appropriation, discussion and transformation, and as one artist pointed out to me as, “if there are no walls, we will build the wall, to share our message”.

Figure 4: Bird, Jamestown

Many thanks to NMA for opening up their studios and selves to my questions – and personally to Larry, Musah, Rufai and Kamal. I extend also a big thank you to Samoa, for taking me on a tour of Jamestown, exploring the route of Chale Wote. Thank you to Victoria Okoye from African Urbanism, for the contacts, resources & tilapia.

Claire is a DPU MSc Environment & Sustainable Development Alumni. Since graduating in 2012, she continues to research the role of urban street art in re-naturing urban imaginations and experiences. She is a PhD student at the Bartlett School of Architecture exploring street messages in West African urbanism. However, her interests are interdisciplinary; community engagement, urban street art, public interest design, sustainable development, town planning, creative cities, art psychotherapy, mental health, the psychodynamics of public spaces, and their impact on place making in the city. All images taken by Claire Tunnacliffe.

The last quarter of 2015 marked the adoption of three big international agreements, The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and the Paris Agreement. Thus, the New Year – 2016 begins with great fervour and hope. The resolutions for the international community this year are more or less custom made – how to plan effectively to meet global commitments and achieve local targets. The world together has taken a leap into a promising 2016 to accomplish the ambitious goals set out to make development more sustainable. We have one extra day this year, to take that extra mile, to fulfil our commitments in lowering down global temperatures.

The recently concluded agreement at the 21st Conference of Parties, or COP21, reinforced the need to collectively act towards meeting global emission targets. The global climate agreement signed in Paris, commits to hold the global average temperature to “well below 2°C” above pre-industrial levels and to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. According to climate change experts the world needs to move off fossil fuels by 2050 to achieve the 2 degrees celsius limit.

India, the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide after China and America, is an important player in meeting the target of zero net carbon emissions between 2030 and 2050. India’s stand on common but differential responsibility in the climate politics was also seen in the Paris Conference. Despite this, we acknowledge that it has become imperative for India to take corrective measures and respond to the global call for local action to prevent a climate crisis.

Figure 1: Citizens of Delhi pledging to make their city pollution Free with the sign – Volunteers for the government

Odd and Even Scheme in Delhi

In addition to the Prime Minister’s announcement of cutting carbon emissions by 2030 overall, the Delhi Government’s drive to reduce pollution by introducing new measures in cutting down vehicular emissions comes at an opportune time. While several oppose to the proposed measure of allowing vehicles with odd and even number plates to ply only on alternate days, many intellectuals feel that introduction of such strict laws will help abate pollution which has increased beyond permissible limits in Delhi.

Figure 2: Winter Smog in Delhi. Less than 500 meter visibility even at 10:00 am in the morning

Delhi is the most polluted city in the world. Late last year the levels of Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5[1], the particle known to be most harmful to human health, were found to be 50 percent higher on Delhi roads at rush hour than during ambient air quality readings. Black carbon, a major pollutant, was found to be three times higher in Delhi. The experimental fifteen days of the odd/even formula, which started from 1^st of Jan 2016, have shown obvious reduction in the vehicular traffic from many roads of Delhi. In addition, Delhi Government claims that levels of PM 2.5 have come down by 25-30% from the December 2015 monitored count. Despite these claims, there are many critiques of the scheme. The peak hour air quality readings presented, before and after the implementation of the scheme, are challenged on the basis of this year’s weather pattern, wind speed, temperatures, school holidays, etc.

[1] PM 2.5 refers to particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, which is believed to pose the greatest health risk because it penetrates deeply into lungs.

Figure 3: Peak hour traffic on Delhi Roads during usual days

At such an early stage, it is hard to side with one opinion as there is merit in the argument presented by both sides, for and against. For such initiatives to be successful we not only need a comfortable and reliable public transportation systems but also stronger regulatory mechanisms. Government’s effort should be more on making an imperative shift from private to public transport rather than a forced transformation causing inconvenience to the public. The change needs to be brought over time, thus there is a need to focus on editing people’s choices toward a certain lifestyle. In other words, shifting consumer values from ownership to access.

Drivers of Change

At the same time, Government can adopt simpler drivers of change like introducing higher congestion taxes during peak hours, providing incentives to companies adopting flexible hours for their employees, encouraging car pooling by disallowing single passenger/driver car during office hours, well-connected & comfortable public transport system etc. In most European countries, this drive for choice editing has been termed as “pay-as-you-live” lifestyle, which adopts renting, sharing, gifting as a means to reduce per capita consumption.

Global civilisation has completed a full circle; with reduced resources, decision makers have to now reverse the growth curve. The continual demand for economic growth has always prompted countries to draft lenient environmental policies, much like how the critiques of Paris conference and the environmental activists’ world over, are describing the COP21 agreement. When our solutions to abate climate change or protect the Earth’s finite resources end with either development or growth, the failure is confirmed. We live on a finite planet with finite resources and one cannot envisage development without exploiting resources. Green Growth or Sustainable Development are incompatible as the world runs on a capitalist’s economy promoting higher consumption every year.

The problem we face today may not have a simple solution but a combination of many solutions. Decision makers as well as citizens, globally, have a vital role to play in reducing climate stress & environmental hazards simply by being informed and responsible. A way forward would be to adopt simple, innovative measures which necessarily only promotes lifestyle changes, especially from the rich in both the developing and the developed world.

Daljeet Kaur has a double Master’s degree in Environment and Sustainable Development from the DPU and Environmental Planning from School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. She has worked as a qualified planner and an architect for more than eight years at IPE Global Limited. Her interest lies in urban planning; urban reforms, environmental management; climate change and its mitigation & adaptation; knowledge management. Daljeet currently works as Associate Director, IPE Global an international development consulting group.