New publication – “Wikipedia and the Outsider Within: Black Feminism and Social Inequality in Knowledge Sharing”

Posted in Research & writing, Teaching by

I’m pleased to share a new paper I co-authored with Howard University alumni Sophia Hussein, Mariam Trent, and Lundyn Davis. The paper describes a 2018 course assignment in which we contributed to Wikipedia through the programming offered by Wiki Education. We use paper to describe the assignment for others, and also to offer observations on Wikipedia itself. The paper takes advantage of delay between the course assignment and publication to describe not only the students’ contributions 2018 to Wikipedia, but also what happened to their writing after five years of editing by other Wikipedia editors. I’ve pasted the abstract below, and you can read the entire article here.

I’ve been running Wikipedia assignments since 2017, and continue to find them valuable pedagogical tools. While the assignment described in this paper mostly had the students adding and editing text on Wikipedia, in the last few years I’ve also started to have the students focus more on adding pictures to Wikipedia articles. I had a chance to share some of the image-based work with the ASU Digital Humanities network at a coffee-hour event yesterday, and look forward to writing about it in the future.

I’ve run the assignment in my Food/Agriculture/Justice and Environment/Justice classes in Sociology as well as Justice Studies, at both Howard University and Arizona State. For those of you interested in learning more about running Wikipedia assignments in your classroom, consider attending one of Wiki Education’s regular introductory webinars.

Authors (from left) Mariam Trent, Lundyn Davis, Sophia Hussein and Tracy Perkins present their research at Howard University Research Week. April 11, 2019.

Wikipedia and the Outsider Within: Black Feminism and Social Inequality in Knowledge Sharing

By Tracy Perkins, Sophia Hussein and Lundyn Davis. In Civic Sociology.

This paper examines the politics of knowledge on Wikipedia through a Black feminist lens, with particular attention to Patricia Hill Collins’s concept of Black women as “the outsider within” in intellectual spaces. We present an assignment in which a class of predominantly Black, female undergraduate students were tasked with analyzing and then improving content on Wikipedia. Wikipedia strives to be unbiased through a transparent writing and editing process that draws on reliable, published sources. These protocols regularly help catch and fix hoaxes and content vandalism. Nonetheless, we build on existing scholarship to show that Wikipedia has other kinds of biases that result in racist and sexist knowledge gaps, euphemisms, stereotypes, and misrepresentation. These problems are a result of (1) the personal experiences and opinions of Wikipedia editors, who are predominantly white and male; (2) the requirement for subjects to be deemed “noteworthy” through citing multiple sources that meet Wikipedia’s standards of reliability; and (3) gatekeeping practices by the existing editors. As a result, we argue that Wikipedia can not only extend but also exacerbate pro–white male biases present in the source materials that Wikipedia draws on. We note the potential for more diverse editors to improve Wikipedia content, but we also offer cautionary observations on this strategy. Last, we suggest that college instructors can teach students to better understand racialized and gendered knowledge processes through assignments to contribute to Wikipedia that are paired with supportive readings.

Avi Kwa Ame National Monument and the Ward Valley Archive

Posted in Environmental justice, Participation, public sociology & campus-community collaboration, Photography, Research & writing by

Today President Biden signed the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument into law, which protects over 500,000 acres of land in Southern Nevada. The National Monument is named after and extends protections around an adjacent mountain called Avi Kwa Ame in the Mojave* language (Spirit Mountain in English). The national monument designation protects the plants and wildlife of the area; it also protects Native American culture.

Avi Kwa Me mountain and the lands that surround it have profound spiritual and cultural significance in the cultures of many local peoples, including the Fort Mojave, Cocopah, Chemehevi, Quechan‌‌ and the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT). The mountain and surrounding landscape is also sacred to other southwestern tribes that regularly traveled through the area.

The creation of the new national monument extends preservation work already done in the area. One such effort is the ongoing environmental remediation of the ground water underneath the Topock site. PG&E contaminated the groundwater there in the 1950s and 1960s by dumping hexavalent chromium. Later, the decontamination process threatened to further disrupt the Topock site, about two thirds of which had already been destroyed since the 1880s. The Fort Mojave and other tribes are engaged in a lengthy oversight process to facilitate environmental remediation of the groundwater with as little disruption to the site as possible.

Another related campaign is the long fight against a low-level nuclear waste landfill once proposed for Ward Valley, which is in the Mojave Desert just south of the new national monument. The Fort Mojave, Chemehuevi, Cocopah, Quechan and Colorado River Indian Tribes and their allies in other tribes and in the anti-nuclear, anti-toxics and environmental justice movements, successfully fought off the construction of this landfill between the late 1980s and the early 2000s. The proposed nuclear waste landfill threatened the endangered and sacred desert tortoise, had the potential to contaminate the Colorado River (which supplies drinking water to millions), and would have desecrated a landscape used for food, medicine, song and spirituality. The fight was long, and involved community organizing, lawsuits, spiritual practices, international solidarity work, and direct action. Perhaps the most dramatic of these tactics was a 113-day tribal-led occupation of the federally owned land where the landfill was to be built. Some activists occupied the site even longer, living there in tents for years.

The people who won the Ward Valley battle have hosted annual ceremonies to commemorate the land occupation that was part of their winning strategy, to practice spiritual rites, and to pass on the story of their victory to the next generation. Their 25th anniversary ceremonies last month brought people from near and far together again at the site in the desert where, thanks to their efforts, there is no a hazardous waste landfill. It was a wonderful opportunity to publicly launch the Ward Valley Archive, which hosts over 1300 (and counting!) digitized campaign documents from privately held activist files. The Fort Mojave Tribe also printed an abbreviated campaign timeline for display, and distributed the digitized archival files to leaders from the other four core tribes involved in the campaign.

When we want to honor those who came before us, it’s common to say that we “stand on the shoulders of giants.” Today’s creation of the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument indeed stands on the shoulders of giants – of tireless activists like those who dedicated their lives to protecting the land at Ward Valley, and in doing so arduously built public understanding for Native American life and claims to the land.

For more on the Ward Valley campaign, see the links page at the Ward Valley Archive, listen to this interview with former Fort Mojave Tribal Chair Nora McDowell, or look at some of the photos below.

* The Mojave people of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe spell their name with a ‘j.’ The Mohave people of the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) spell their name with an ‘h.’ To make the above text easy to read, I have used the j spelling here when referencing either the language or the people. Either term is an anglicized version of the name they call themselves: Pipa Aha Macav, or in English, The People by the River.

Photos from the 25th Anniversary Ceremonies of the Ward Valley Occupation

Ward Valley, CA. February 18th, 2023. Photograph by Tracy Perkins.

At the 25th anniversary of the end of the Ward Valley occupation. February 18th, 2023. Photograph by Tracy Perkins.

Dancing. February 18th, 2023. Photograph by Tracy Perkins.

An abbreviated campaign timeline. February 18th, 2023. Photograph by Tracy Perkins.

Digitized archival files prepped and ready to share. February 16th, 2023. Photograph by Tracy Perkins.

Links roundup: Recent book-related writing, speaking and publishing

Posted in Environmental justice, Research & writing by

I’ve had some nice opportunities to share thoughts about my book, or content related to it, in the last few months. Please see below for an essay, a radio interview, and a book excerpt.

Video: Discussing my book with Laura Pulido

Last Friday I had the distinct pleasure of discussing my recently published book, Evolution of a Movement: Four Decades of California Environmental Justice Activism, with scholar Laura Pulido. It was a wonderful way to launch the book into the world. You can watch the complete recording above. It clocks in at just under an hour and a half (introductions, then a reading, then discussion with Dr. Pulido, then discussion in response to audience questions).

The event took place at ASU, with Dr. Pulido zooming in from the University of Oregon and Michael McQuarrie serving as moderator. Together with my home unit, the School of Social Transformation, the event was co-sponsored by the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, the School of Transborder Studies, the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service, and the Center for Work and Democracy. Thank you to everyone who made the event possible.

New Publication on Salinas Valley Roadside Agricultural Art

Posted in Agriculture, Photography, Research & writing, Visual communications by

I’m pleased to share that Boom California recently published an new piece of mine, Roadside Art in the “Salad Bowl of the World:” How Agricultural Ideology Obscures Racial Capitalism and Inhibits Labor Reform. The essay grows out of my move to Santa Cruz, CA to to pursue my PhD in 2008. Ranging south from Santa Cruz through the Salinas Valley for research and for pleasure, I started noticing unique, larger than life billboard cut-out murals featuring farmworkers and farmers along the agricultural byways. When possible, I stopped to take photos of the work in the hopes of someday doing something with it.

Many years later, this essay is the result. It analyses the art as a form of agricultural ideology that, I argue, inhibits much needed labor reforms by either obscuring the role of California’s vast Latinx agricultural labor force or, alternately, depicting them as content in their work.

Although I have long incorporated my own photography into my research, this was my first time analyzing visual culture created by others. It is a line of work I intend to continue developing.

It was also a pleasure to return to Boom, which published my photo essay with Julie Sze, “Images from the Central Valley,” in their inaugural edition in 2011. Boom tries to thread the needle of doing public-facing scholarship that still “counts” in the evaluations that faculty undergo within their institutions by creating a free, online, magazine-like publication that still puts its manuscripts through peer review. It is a model I wish more publishers would adopt.

Billboard mural of “field man” Bob Lyman holding sliced head of lettuce. Vernon Morris provides scale. Photo by Tracy Perkins. Mural by John Cerney.

Quoted in New York Times

Posted in Environmental justice, public sociology & campus-community collaboration, Teaching by

I was recently quoted in the New York Times. The article is by Alisha Haridasani Gupta and is titled “The Mental Health Benefits of an Inclusive Outdoor Escape: Amid pandemic stress and racial violence, many communities of color have turned to wilderness areas for healing.” The article covers the mental health benefits of time outdoors for people of color. It addresses these in the context of the long history of racism and violence against people of color in outdoor spaces. Gupta quotes a snippet of the conversation we had to introduce readers to the eugenicist history of the US conservation movement:

Awe-inspiring natural spaces in the U.S., like national parks, are also tarnished with racist histories, according to Tracy Perkins, an assistant professor at Arizona State University who studies social inequality and environmental justice. Many environmental conservation efforts starting in the late 1800s were led by eugenicists, like Madison Grant, to create spaces for white people to get fresh air and exercise in order “to preserve the vitality of white race,” she said.

To be abundantly clear, my quote does not describe my beliefs, but rather the beliefs of some eugenicists of the late 1800s and early 1900s in the United States. I’ve assigned this subject recently in my Environment and Justice class, as well as in my class titled The Multiracial American West. I’ve found that while some students are versed in the conversations about John Muir’s racism and ongoing symbolism within the environmental movement, none are aware of the early conservation movement’s connections to eugenics. I have used the following readings introduce the subject to them and further my own learning:

I highly recommend these readings. They provide an important historical reference point for understanding ongoing racism within the environmental movement. They are also vital to understanding contemporary efforts to return access and management rights to the resources and lands within national parks to the indigenous peoples who once lived there, as well as to indigenous land-back campaigns.

 

Today’s the day!

Posted in Climate change, Environmental justice, Research & writing, University life by

My book is officially published today! I’ve received my hardcover and paperback copies from UC Press, two friends have texted me pictures of their copies, and my mom forwarded me an e-mail saying that her copy has been delayed until April 15th. It’s been a long process to get here, and I look forward to seeing the work move out into the world.

I’ve given a few talks on it so far. Last fall, I presented the chapter on California’s climate policy AB 32 at the new University of California Center for Climate Justice run by Tracey Osborne. In February, I got to discuss the book with Martha Matusoka, Michael Méndez, Danielle Purifoy and Jonathan London at the American Association of Geographers’ annual meeting. Next week, I’ll zoom into Michelle Glowa’s graduate seminar on research methods at the California Institute of Integral Studies. My undergraduate students in Environment and Justice here at Arizona State University are also reading it now. I’ve enjoyed these opportunities and hope to have more of them. I’m even more interested know where the book may travel to without me. I hope I’ll get messages in a bottle from unexpected places with signs that the book has been there.

Perkins, Tracy. 2022. Evolution of a Movement: Four Decades of California Environmental Justice Activism. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

Book forum at AAG annual meeting

Posted in Climate change, Environmental justice, Public speaking, Research & writing by

If you are attending the 2022 annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers this weekend, please come by the session on my new book! I’ll be discussing it with a stellar group of environmental justice activist-scholars. The book comes out in a month, so consider it a sneak preview.

Book Forum – Evolution of a Movement: Four Decades of California Environmental Justice Activism

Sunday, Feb. 27th, from 2-:20 pm, Eastern Standard Time.

Chair/moderator: Martha Matusoka

Author: Tracy Perkins

Panelists:

For a 30% discount, order the book at UC Press. Use source code 21W2240 at checkout.

The Ward Valley Nuclear Waste Dump That Never Was

Posted in Environmental justice, Research & writing by

Last weekend I attended the 24th annual commemoration ceremonies of the successful anti-nuclear waste dump campaign in the Mojave Desert’s Ward Valley. This was my fourth time in attendance, and it was beautiful as always. When UC Press asked me to write a blog post linked to my forthcoming book this week, I jumped at the chance to write about Ward Valley:

Today, there is no nuclear waste dump in Ward Valley. This beautiful stretch of California’s Mojave Desert, about 25 miles west of the Colorado River, is instead home to plants, animals, and much of the culture and spirituality of the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe and other tribes of the Southern Colorado River, including the Chemehuevi, the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), the Cocopah and the Quechan. Yet at one point, this land had another likely future — as the location for a shallow, unlined trench to store nuclear waste…

To read the rest, head over to the UC Press blog.

Group photo at the annual Ward Valley commemoration ceremony. February 24, 2018.

ASA presentation: Wikipedia and Black Feminist Thought

Posted in public sociology & campus-community collaboration, Research & writing, Teaching by

Last week I wrote a blog post for ASU’s Center for Gender Equity in Science and Technology (CGEST). It previews the virtual presentation I will be giving with my (former Howard University student) coauthors Sophia Hussein and Lundyn Davis later today at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting (coauthor Mariam Trent will not be joining us). CGEST focuses on women of color in science and technology, so it’s a great place to preview our presentation. Our talk is based on a paper in progress tentatively titled: “Wikipedia and the Outsider Within: Black Feminism and Racialized, Gendered Knowledge Construction Online.” The paper draws on our experience contributing to Wikipedia as part of a 2018 class on the Sociology of Food and Agriculture at Howard University. Check out the blog post, and come on by our virtual talk at 11:30 EDT if you are registered for the conference!

See also this other blog post where I describe the class assignment of contributing to Wikipedia.