Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Environmental sociology, while dedicating significant scholarship to issues of environmental racism and environmental justice, remains a predominately white subdiscipline that has not enjoyed general relevance across sociology. One of the drivers of the dominance of white perspectives in the subdiscipline is the lack of a core theoretical pillar that anchors the importance of racism to structuring inequitable environments. W.E.B. Du Bois not only offered a foundational approach to sociological inquiry, but also a deeply material perspective on the maintenance of racial inequities. Du Bois's approach to sociology lays the path for a liberatory approach that documents the scope of a problem, interrogates its drivers, and works with affected communities and allied resources to develop alternative models with transformative outcomes. This paper argues that an environmental understanding was original to Du Bois's methodology as demonstrated through his concept of the total environment. He connected inequitable environments to the legacy of racial capitalism, which he saw as driven by anti-Blackness. His solution was to advance Black solidarity and community cooperatives through Pan-Africanism. Du Bois' framework establishes an approach to conducting emancipatory environmental sociology that provides theoretical and methodological legitimacy for engaging in partnership with marginalized communities to advance their goals towards liberation.
Source: Environmental Sociology
Author: Jennifer S. Carrera
Institution: Michigan State University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4381166990