Dr. Sylvia Hood Washington
About Dr. Sylvia Hood Washington
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Laudato Si and its Implication for All Life
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Books by Dr. Sylvia Hood Washington
“Echoes from the Poisoned Well: Global Memories of Environmental Injustice” (2006)
The emerging environmental justice movement has created greater awareness among scholars that communities from all over the world suffer from similar environmental inequalities. This volume takes up the challenge of linking the focussed campaigns and insights from African American campaigns for environmental justice with the perspectives of this global group of environmentally marginalized groups. The editorial team has drawn on Washington's work, on Paul Rosier's study of Native American environmentalism, and on Heather Goodall's work with Indigenous Australians to seek out wider perspectives on the relationships between memories of injustice and demands for environmental justice in the global arena. This collection contributes to environmental historiography by providing "bottom up" environmental histories in a field which so far has mostly emphasized a "top down" perspective, in which the voices of those most heavily burdened by environmental degradation are often ignored. The essays here serve as a modest step in filling this lacuna in environmental history by providing the viewpoints of peoples and of indigenous communities which traditionally have been neglected while linking them to a global context of environmental activism and education. Scholars of environmental justice, as much as the activists in their respective struggle, face challenges in working comparatively to locate the differences between local struggles as well as to celebrate their common ground. In this sense, the chapters in this book represent the opening up of spaces for future conversations rather than any simple ending to the discussion. The contributions, however, reflect growing awareness of that common ground and a rising need to employ linked experiences and strategies in combating environmental injustice on a global scale, in part by mimicking the technology and tools employed by global corporations that endanger the environmental integrity of a diverse set of homelands and ecologies.
“Packing Them In: An Archaeology of Environmental Racism in Chicago, 1865-1954” (2004)
This important new book by Sylvia Washington adds a vital new dimension to our understanding of environmental history in the United States. Washington excavates and tells the stories of Chicago's poor, working class, and ethnic minority neighborhoods―such as Back of the Yards and Bronzeville―that suffered disproportionately negative environmental impacts and consequent pollution related health problems. She provides a new frame for interpreting the social, political, and administrative initiatives of the early 20th century that influenced public health and urban revitalization movements in some of Chicago's most disenfranchised communities. This pioneering work will be essential reading not only for historians, but for urban planners, sociologists, citizen action groups and anyone interested in understanding the precursors to the contemporary environmental justice movement.
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