Just Transition

In recent years, much has been made of the need for a transition to renewable energy, and indeed, there is notable public support for solar and wind energy across the U.S. Meanwhile, the climate movement has placed significant pressure on the federal government to take swift action, and interdisciplinary scholars are calling attention to the causes and consequences of a slow renewable energy transition. 

As the recent literature within critical environmental social science has shown, this transition continues to be painfully slow. We have become interested in both inland and coastal wind energy as a strategic axis along which we might reveal the dynamics of the politics of the energy transition. The SEA Lab has begun to select comparative field sites in the U.S.A., and we hope to be able to develop a transnational dimension in the future as well.

Three interlocking research questions undergird our interest in this issue. How can this transition be made justly, i.e., with consideration for issues of race, class, and past imperial practices? Additionally, what are the public opinion implications - is civil society ready and willing to make the transition, and if not, what social mechanisms may be stalling this process? Finally, what are the financial arrangements that are meant to facilitate the transition? Specifically, we ask how does this connect with the recent concern among critical sociologists about the financialization of the economy? As such, this project operates at the nexus of environmental sociology, political economy, and the sociology of race and racism.

Critical approaches to Community Action

Volunteering and other forms of community action are often defined in altruistic terms. And yet, it is important that we recognize that power dynamics are embedded in volunteer-service recipient relationships, and this is especially true when volunteers are operating out of privileged positions (e.g., white, middle-class, housed). Through projects based in St. Louis, Missouri and Coastal Carolina, members of the SEA Lab are calling attention to the tenuous relationship between community action and racial and class privilege.

This is not to say volunteers, activists, and nonprofit or NGO professionals operating from positions of privilege are not well-meaning or ill-informed. Many strongly believe that racism and other forms of inequality are systemic, and of course, these actors generally expect to improve the communities in which they serve. These groups can undoubtedly “do good.” While community engagement efforts are at least partially drive by a desire to serve marginalized populations, often conceptualized as charity, social justice, or development, SEA Lab researchers have investigate how how community service is complicated by racial ideologies, class stigma, and even touristic impulses. Our work shows how community action, when engaged in without being critical and reflexive, can reproduce marginality even while if the intention is to alleviate inequalities that have been rightfully identified.

Ocean Equity

Recent oceans sustainability, coastal community development, and ocean governance discourse has commonly invoked notions of “equity” and “ocean equity.” But, to what end? While the attention to equity should be perceived as a positive development for these fields, the supposedly equitable approaches to oceanic production and consumption promoted by many policy makers and other stakeholders remain rooted in market and traditional conservationist logics. Contrastingly, the SEA Lab posits that borrowing from environmental justice frameworks productively clarifies what are, at present, conceptually fuzzy notions of equity. Specifically, critical environmental justice scholarship provides a fruitful foundation for effective community-led development and sustainability practices. Therefore, for ocean governance organizations, equity should be understood (1) as a commitment to community populations that have been marginalized and/or experienced disproportionate social and environmental burdens, (2) as a commitment to a process of community participation, and (3) as a commitment to disentangle development organizations from systems of oppression and privilege.