After reading Eva’s post, I too had the similar struggle of finding resources of conflicting view. For me I had, and still get caught up in my own dichotomies that I unintentionally create when constructing an argument to explain a phenomenon. It is this mindset that can be very limiting when trying to explore an issue from a variety of lens and perspectives.
My concentration actually centered around environmental movements and explored various tactics to engage people to garner support for their cause. Taking various courses such as Visual Anthropology, Environmental Sociology, Political Economy of Food, and the Philosophy of the Environment helped me really explore environmental movements not just in the context of the United States, Europe, etc., but also of the “Global South”. It is interesting perspective to consider to see environmentalism not focused on preservationism and conservationism where National Parks, refuges etc. are established to protect the biophysical world, but actually focus on social justice, and how environmental issues exacerbate these conditions. Perhaps an eye-opening was a reading about how preservationist policies displacing indigenous communities in the Yosemite Park, and in parts of Africa called Conservation Refugees by Mark Dowie. This is known as environmental imperialism, where policies that would normally seem like a no-brainer to protect the biophysical environment, but actually were extremely exclusionary in who was in that vision and even went into the extreme of displacing people in those areas. Dowie argues that the reason for these areas that were chosen to be refuges or biodiverse because of the indigenous people in those areas taking care of these areas. He wanted a more inclusive solution where indigenous voices should be considered when decisions to create these refuges that could potentially interfere with their way of life. It is worth mentioning that this isn’t the right view, but a differing perspective that should always be considered when looking for solutions.
This brings me back to Eva’s idea of looking at “clean air related, conservation related, etc policies within Portland that have excluded minorities (ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, etc)”. I believe that it is important to look at these policies not just with the lens of “how are these policies are excluding minorities”, but also consider other aspects of those policies where maybe they might actually might be benefitting those communities. It is important during research to not come in with assumptions, as they might actually impact your argument in a negative way. It is also important to look at your argument of the importance inclusive environmental movements, and let your research and impact whether or not inclusive environmental movements are important. The challenge when doing projects like this is not letting your personal bias impact the direction of your solutions project, but rather letting the research and exploration to create the story.