Which environmental and data justice projects inspire you? In these fraught times, new modes of activism, research, and partnership are called for to enable justice, equity and shared livable futures. How can we interweave justice work across domains to create research and data infrastructures designed for justice? To that end, we are seeking to hold public conversations about how data justice and environmental justice can learn from one another. Both of these movements wrestle with the reach of data into more and more areas of life. They confront a set of issues including:
- Surveillance
- Consent
- Monitoring
- Ownership
- Access
- Flawed and incomplete data (e.g. industry-produced data)
- Legitimacy (e.g. community-generated data)
As EDGI members, we have been exploring ways to bring environmental justice and data justice together in a framework we’ve been calling “Environmental Data Justice.” Our emphasis is on how responding to Environmental Justice calls for data collection and increased surveillance through data without undermining consent and community control. We wonder how communities can modify, adapt, and support environmental data to best serve their goals for social justice (Dillon et al. 2017).
We are inspired by the rise of many amazing data justice projects, from Data 4 Black Lives, Indigenous data sovereignty projects including the Māori Data Sovereignty Network, to community technology initiatives including the Detroit Digital Justice Coalition. Some of these inspiring projects are examples of environmental data justice in practice, such as FracTracker Alliance and Public Lab.
So, what do the full range of these projects look like? What techniques, methods, and visions have (environmental) data justice projects created?
To understand how projects and organizations are using technology and data in their struggles for justice, we have been making a list of inspiring projects. What projects are missing? What projects inspire you?
(Environmental) Data Justice organizations and project examples
Please note: submissions will be reviewed before being made public.
We invite you to add to and circulate this crowd-sourced list. Our hope is to continue to think together on this topic! We invite you to join us in the new year as we kick off a series of online conversations centered around justice-seeking projects at the intersection of environment and data.