1 - Tell us a bit about yourself, your background, and your path to higher education.
I grew up in Berkeley, California, 5th generation Californians, although I was born in Alaska as my dad, a medical doctor, was working for the Native Health Service there. I had a comfortable middle-class upbringing but it was never about material accumulation, it was always about the beautiful natural things in many ways. So the influences I had growing up were very anti materialist. Our family was very concerned about the environment and spent a lot of time in the wilderness, the mountains and did a lot of outdoor activities.
I went to college on the East coast at Dartmouth College which was a bit of a shock as it was a very conservative, elitist Ivy League Institution. As a student I got very involved in anti-apartheid work (this was the 80’s) and learned a lot more about the system of racial oppression in South Africa, and the US government support for that in the ways that all of our investments from universities and other institutions that helped back-up the apartheid regime. I was one of those students who pressured the administration to divest from companies that were profiting from racial oppression in South Africa.
We were ultimately successful, both in terms of getting Dartmouth to divest and the broader global movement that led to the 1st Democratic elections in South Africa in 1994. It was an amazing experience as a student, to be part of something so great that was connected to a global movement and change.
When I left College, I thought I was never going back to the University as I felt that the university was an isolated institution disconnected from broader movements and issues for social change. And I had just had enough of higher education.
I worked for 5 years for a couple of different nonprofit organizations, one of which ultimately led me to working in South Africa from 1991 to 1994. I did technical assistance and computer training for the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions at a time when it was moving from a politics of resistance to politics of consolidation and labor struggle. I also worked for a nonprofit organization on land reform and agricultural issues.
There had been a process of a negotiated settlement in South Africa which resulted in political democratization but continued economic segregation. The economy wasn't touched, and essentially many of the original goals of the Liberation movement in South Africa ended up being compromised in this negotiated process. Despite being an incredibly strong internal organized anti-apartheid movement connected to this global movement of support, how could you hope for anything more influential, and yet why would these compromises happen in this context?
That led me to go back to graduate school to really grapple with these set of issues, both about how do I get the skills and capacities to make a difference in people's lives around housing, jobs, transportation and infra-structure, but also to try and understand the broader political economy of that moment in the mid 1990’s.
I got a degree in city and regional planning at Berkeley. During that time I met a professor Manuel Castells, who is the leading global theorist and researcher on the Information society and Information economy. I ended up learning tremendously from him and decided to continue to do a PhD focused on changing labor markets and work patterns in Silicon Valley. Essentially a set of debates about the future of work, and how technology is changing that. I had a passion for those issues, I was concerned about them, but I didn't know at that point whether I wanted to pursue an academic career or not.
I had another South African professor and a mentor, Jill Hart, whom I had a long talk with during a walk.
She had a really wise advice that if I'm considering being in academia outside of academia, it's much easier to go from academia out then to go from out of academia in.
I decided to give it a try, applied for professorship jobs and got a job in the geography department at Penn State University. I was there for 6 years, and then I went to UC Davis where I was for 9 years before coming to UC Santa Cruz in 2015. The Everett program was what brought me to UC Santa Cruz, and the Dean of Social Sciences Division Katherinne Mitchell, asked me to launch what's now become the Institute for Social Transformation.
2 - With a strong background in activism and fighting inequality, can you give us a bit more of the history of these experiences and how they guided you to where you are today?
Two things were really important for my learning: One was to spend time with some indigenous communities in Kenya with the Samburu people via a foreign study program. I both learned their deep knowledge and relationship with their own environment and the ways that Western environmentalists were creating new game parks in Kenya, actively removing them from their land. I could see in that moment (mid 80s) what happened in our country over hundreds of years previously.
It was really important for me having grown up in a white, middle-class, environmental family, where the environment was defined as wilderness. We were not addressing the consumption, fossil fuels and all the things that were going on in the lifestyle we were living in urban cities in California. Native peoples were erased from the landscape growing up.
Also at that time, the environmental justice movement in the US was really taking off, the People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit happened. The key part of that movement was understanding that our environment is where we live, where we work, where we play, where we pray. It's our neighborhoods and the air we breathe, the water, the food we eat and drink.
I was really inspired by that work, and it forced me to change my understanding of what we mean by sustainability and the environment, to about our living environment and understanding us as the human species, as not somehow separate from the environment which is deeply rooted in a Western environmental tradition. But really to see us as integrated and as part of it, and really trying to learn from traditional indigenous understandings and beliefs, as they have continued to evolve and sustain to today.
3 - As a Professor of environmental studies and sociology, the Director of the Institute for Social Transformation and the Everett Program for Technology and Social Change and also Dorothy E. Everett Chair in Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship at the UC Santa Cruz, your plate is quite full. What is the most challenging and rewarding part of your work across these roles?
The most rewarding I would say is working with students, the next generation of change makers. The joy of working in the Everett program is that it's not just in a classroom, it is really about being involved in social change work directly, rooted in an educational philosophy that recognizes social learning and social engagement.
Often we think of learning as a psychological and a mind-based process. But there's a whole tradition of social learning which is much more about how people become more involved in communities of practice and get integrated in them in different ways. In traditional education, the banking model of education, where the professor is the expert and students are the empty vessels that are supposed to absorb and learn what the expert shares, what our institutions do in that context is acculturate to hierarchy and not question it nor challenge it. But social learning is really all about engagement.
In the Everett program we talk about heads, hands and hearts, where students are engaged in learning with the reading and some of the critical social science analysis, but they do hands-on work with technology and
partnership with community partners. It is also really about helping them understand their values, their passions and their motivations, and how they bring that in teamwork and in collaboration with others who have different experiences and sometimes different values, and how to embrace that difference, celebrate diversity and have difficult conversations.
The second really rewarding part of the work I do is engaged with community leaders that are in the front lines of addressing some of the most critical environmental, social, and economic issues of our time.
I think research is really important, but I'm also very aware that change comes from political processes, social processes, and social movements. We are in a situation where we need to be challenging dominant institutions and structures in our society, and we can play some role in that in the university. But it is in partnership with these real leaders in communities and social movements. This gives me hope, every day.
The most challenging are these huge issues we're trying to deal with: climate change, multiracial democracy and economic justice. There's no end to the challenges of trying to address all of that. Also what is most frustrating for me is when I come across inflexible, bureaucratic or administrative obstacles. When there are hindrances put on moving work forward that just seem administrative or bureaucratic, it can be very draining.
4 - What does sustainability mean to you?
Well, I mean, in terms of a formal definition, sustainability is about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations.
In the core of that, is meeting the needs of the present and all people. Equity is deeply embedded in that meeting the needs of the present also requires addressing the historic harms that we still live in and live with today. And really trying to heal from and repair those harms.
Human needs are very important, but they are very much in relationship to all other living things and the planet as a whole. That's something that I really take from our native brothers and sisters. We have to understand us as being in relationship to all creatures, and doing that in the context of not compromising the needs of the future.
I'm a huge believer in the potential for technological change also. While recognizing some of the potential harms of new technologies, it is important to always try to look for new opportunities. For instance, artificial intelligence. A lot of people in my circles are worried about it destroying jobs, replacing people and there is all the discrimination that is embedded in algorithms in various different ways. And all of that's true and I'm working with my students to use that effectively in ways to be smarter. One example that really points to the potential power of artificial intelligence is helping students to do academic research.
There are several websites for AI now, but one I use for research is called Elicit. Elicit is trained on academic research and you can ask for instance: “What do we know about the structural causes of poverty?” It will pull a bunch of the most cited articles and summarize what they say about structural causes of poverty, and put out an abstract of sorts. I stress to the students that they need to verify the articles themselves, because it's not intelligent, it doesn't know what it's saying and can actually have falsehoods embedded in it. At least it's trained on accurate research, and these natural language processing algorithms are so powerful in pulling together these billions and billions of words and sentences about an issue or question, and link it all together.
Coming back to that definition of sustainability, it is not about not changing. It is about evolving in ways that we can develop these new technologies, but with an eye towards not undermining our future. We have to be aware of artificial technology and artificial intelligence technology used for destroying humankind. There is a real concern that they will become smarter than people, and able to control things in ways that we can't control. I think that's more Science fiction than fact, at the moment. But I can see that being something to worry about.
5 - With the release of your new book, co-authored with Manoel Pastor, “Charging Forward: Lithium Valley, Electric Vehicles, and a Just Future” coming out this October, I am sure comes relief and a bit of rest. What is next that you are excited about?
One of the things about when I write books (that is now the 6th book with Manuel Pastor and the 8th overall), is when the book is published, that's just the 1st step. In almost all the projects we've done together that becomes the basis for ongoing engagement with organizations working around those issues.
In this case, the book “Charging Forward” is both about the Imperial Valley of California, one of the poorest regions in the country with a long history of both environmental and labor exploitation, that now has an immense quantity of a critical mineral needed for the electric vehicle revolution and renewable energy and about the dynamics of that region, this global transition, and how we do it in a way that is just an equitable and not just reinforcing systems of extraction and mineral pollution left behind by mining.
The work ahead is figuring out how we use the insights from the book to help ensure that as lithium is being developed in Imperial County, it's done in a way that supports local economic opportunities, protects a local
environment, supports local community organizations, and that ideally, can become a model for how to do it right. There is ongoing engagement with the State of California as well as local community and labor organizations, to try to help make sure as lithium develops over the next 2 to 5 years, that it's done in an equitable and sustainable way. So that's one of the most exciting things I'm looking forward to.
One other thing that is really important and is one of our partners there, is an organization called Alianza Coachella Valley. It is based on the northern part of the Salton Sea and the Eastern Coachella Valley, a largely agricultural region which is very similar to Imperial County. They are trying to create a sustainable development plan for the entire Salton Sea region. The Salton Sea itself has been called California's worst environmental disaster, as for a hundred years now it has accumulated agricultural runoff with pesticides and other fertilizers in the water.
Alianza Coachella is leading a coalition in the region that's trying to integrate environmental regeneration and dust mitigation with community economic development strategies that are then aligned with some of the regional cities’ broader land use and economic development strategies. Specific projects include trying to develop bike paths that connect some of the poor communities of the Eastern Coachella Valley to the Salton Sea, but linking it with design features that make sure there is adequate shade when it's sunny. Also, including places for Food trucks or other small economic enterprises that can help support the community in the area and try to build up the tourism industry in a way that supports local entrepreneurs in that area. This part is not specifically linked to the lithium, but is part of the broader economic development strategies for the region. Is not about having low wage service sector jobs. It is helping with entrepreneurial opportunities and ownership opportunities.
6 - Is there anything else about the work you do that you would like to share?
One of the joys about the work at the Institute for Social Transformation is that I get a chance to interact with faculty across campus, mostly rooted in the social sciences, but really working across all 5 divisions trying to support scholarship on campus.
For instance, there is a series of climate action research projects that are underway at the moment funded by the UC Office of the President. And we're helping to provide administrative support and community engagement assistance for all of those projects. It is another example of collaboration with a bunch of amazing colleagues who are doing great research, and we can help ensure that research is making a difference for some of the local communities in our State.
7 - Lastly, what do you do for fun outside of work?
I continue to be very active outdoors. I am on my bicycle every day, try to get to the climbing gym a couple of nights a week, and get out of town for hiking. That's really where my spiritual home is, out in nature, so I try to balance my crazy work life with being outside.
The bike ride every morning is very important, feeling the breath and heart beating helps to set me up for the rest of the day.
Music is also really important to me. I have played saxophone since I was in elementary school.
I love jazz music and it introduced me to the incredible social history of jazz music rooted in African American communities and connections back to West Africa and Southern Africa. We have this beautiful Jazz performance venue in town that gets amazing acts. I really appreciate that and get out there when I can.
