Catch Up

As an environmental studies professor dealing with affect in the classroom, Sarah Ray writes that "making affect a focus of our work together helps students connect their inner lives to the broader context of politics and its possibilities." For me, this idea of making the personal political is the essence of what is both emotionally painful and spiritually liberating about the educational storyboard of Environmental Studies. The frame-by-frame breakdown of the ENST model has been a bit like this for me:

1. Co-create 'safe' spaces where we can navigate difficult dialogue together
2. Deconstruct assumptions we may have about the world and our positioning within it
3. Analyze power dynamics and how they inform dominant social and environmental narratives within society
4. Build a sense of personal and collective agency and use a critical environmental justice framework to reach toward alternative, inclusive solutions to contemporary problems

I'd say the majority of discomfort for students arises within the 'deconstruction' part of this model. In the 'Power, Privilege and the Environment' class, we read articles where some students may have thought "this case study shatters my assumptions of ___," while others were thinking "this case study describes my childhood." There is a BIG difference between these experiences in the classroom, but as someone who's found myself on both ends of these revelations, I would argue that the two pack both an emotional punch and the potential for transformative liberation. The time scale and vividness of these feelings, of course, are different from person to person and with circumstance.

 This 'deconstruction' of ourselves and our assumptions is essential in an Environmental Studies education because it's a critical prerequisite for doing any kind of work around environmental justice.* Like bell hooks, I believe there is massive potential for liberation in reading and discussing theory because it allows us to identify with strangers and discontinue seeing our experiences as isolated. It's also true that actively deconstructing our assumptions can be excruciating, especially when those assumptions prove to be harmful in a number of ways. Who can we turn to in these moments? Sarah Ray and bell hooks note that "teachers are not therapists" and I agree that expecting professors to fill that role for students is unfair and inappropriate. For this reason, I feel that strengthening the relationships and accountability between environmental studies students is essential for navigating the affect produced in the classroom. To do this, I think classrooms conducting difficult dialogue should strive for brave spaces, opposed to safe spaces.*

I think a primary tension of the initial 'deconstructing' phase of environmental studies is the different affective arcs of students across lines of race, gender, sexuality, class, etc which have separated our notions of reality prior to discussing them over the course of ENST. Because of the politically sheltered experiences of many white students to the nuances of structural racism, we (white folx) often have more assumptions to 'deconstruct.' I've noticed that white folx, in general, aren't expected to have multi-cultural literacy in the same way that many people of color are expected to. This is one reason why white folx have difficulty identifying what exactly 'whiteness' is because they've internalized it as the 'default' American, the norm, or merely the absence of other racial characteristics.

In an interview with Krista Tippett, Ta-Nehisi Coates explains, “If you’re black in this world...nobody slows down for you. Nobody’s gonna hold your hand and explain The Brady Bunch to you. Catch up." Coates points to the rigid double-standard between what we expect one another to understand. It's important to refrain from repeating a tendency of centering whiteness and white experiences in the classroom if we hope to eliminate racial hegemonic structures in a real way. Deconstructing harmful ideologies and particularly white-male privilege is an absolute requirement for white people in environmental studies looking to enact change in the world, but what about those of us coming into the program already having done much of that work and/or are not white bodied? How can we utilize everyone's ideas and positionalities effectively so that we can all experience growth?

Since there are infinite resources for students to continue this journey of deconstructing their own privilege, I feel it's inappropriate for them to expect their professor to be the primary crutch for their emotional experiences. I also feel that increasing emphasis on creating productive, brave spaces, in the classroom will help more students become comfortable with feeling uncomfortable - for we must learn how to hold ourselves and each other accountable as our emotional journey oscillates between anger, joy, humility, hopelessness and agency.

Why we can all benefit from dismantling our privileges:

“For men to 'enjoy' the benefits of patriarchal masculinity, their capacities for vulnerability and care must be eviscerated, replaced by a violent and disconnected way of being built upon shame and woundedness. For white people to become white, they have to internalize entitlement and a hostility to difference, hiding from the ways their lives depend on institutionalized violence and exploitation.

Excerpt from Joyful Militancy (51)

*I am beginning to see environmental justice and social justice as non-separate forms of justice

*Brave spaces, as Adrienne Maree Brown puts it, are a more realistic alternative to safe spaces. "There is no such thing as a safe space," Brown says, pointing out that all of us carry our scars of trauma everywhere we go. I would also add that safe spaces imply that no one will ever feel hurt or uncomfortable there, which not only seems an unrealistic expectation but also fruitless, if we acknowledge Sarah Ray's assertion that "tension is productive." On the contrary, Brave spaces are about co-creating spaces of care and accountability.