ENVS.F24

This course focuses on the ethics and practice of community collaboration and community-based research in the Philadelphia metropolitan region. This semester, we are partnering with a tech justice nonprofit, Philadelphia Community Wireless, who has a number of environmental layers to their work.

The purpose of this course is to 1) collaborate with an environmental organization in the region and work toward a project that is meaningful to them 2). critically investigate the nature of environmental collaboration and 3). learn about the overlaps between technology and environment in theory and practice. We will ask: what is community; how can practitioners of environmental studies practice ethical collaboration, community-based partnership, and environmental stewardship?

We will discuss the ways that different communities practice environmental activism and tech justice, while assessing the models of collaboration that might work best for a world ripe with environmental challenges in the years to come.

ENVS 204 provides grounding in both the theory and practice of community collaboration, exploring thematics such as race, gender, class, and justice. This course also provides training in studying primary sources, especially those related to the history of regional, perennial crops. Students will meet every week for class and perform 2-3 hours of fieldwork during 7 weeks throughout the semester.