Dr. Devon Peña
Environmental justice ethics are often expressed by the statement: "We don't want an equal piece of the same carcinogenic pie." How do we define prosperity in light of this statement?
Three E's Meet the Three R's: From Ecology, Economy, and Equity to Resilience, Resurgence, and Revolution
Devon Peña will discuss the re-imaging of the link among ecology, economy, and equity. This involves three "Rs" counterposed to the three "Es" to account for local place-based cultures: (1) An appeal to an ecology of "resilience" instead of "sustainability." (2) A shift from rational and acquisitive individual actor models to resurgent mutual reliance models of economic relations. (3) A revolution in knowledge/power relations that subverts "equity" notions through the self-organizing and reiterative forms of place-based "autonomy." Professor Peña will discuss the 2002 Lobato v. Taylor Colorado Supreme Court decision and the 2009 Acequia Recognition Law signed by Governor Ritter in April to illustrate the concepts of resilience in ecology, resurgence in economics, and revolution in equity.
Dr. Devon G. Peña is an acequia farmer, internationally-recognized research scholar, and lifelong environmental and food justice activist. Since 1999, he is Professor of American Ethnic Studies, Anthropology, Environmental Studies, and Women Studies at the University of Washington where he led the development of a renowned Ph.D. Program in Environmental Anthropology. Dr. Peña is also the Founder and President of The Acequia Institute of San Acacio, Colorado. The Institute annually funds three graduate Acequia Fellowships to support and promote research on environmental and food justice in acequia and other traditional resource communities. The Institute also provides small farm producer grants to women-led food justice cooperatives. With his sister, Tania P. Hernandez, and his wife, Elaine H. Peña, Devon manages the Institute's 200-acre acequia farm in the San Acacio bottomlands where the family maintains several lines of native heirloom maize, bean, and squash varieties as part of a twenty-five year seed-saving and plant-breeding project.
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When:October 16, 2009, 7:00 p.m., |
Dr. Peña is currently completing work on his next two books: VOCES DE AGUA Y TIERRA: FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OF ACEQUIA FARMING IN THE RIO ARRIBA which is an edited volume with original chapters from farmers, scholars, and critics (forthcoming 2010 from University of Arizona Press) and THE LAST COMMONS: ENDANGERED LANDSCAPES AND DISAPPEARING PEOPLE IN THE POLITICS OF PLACE (also forthcoming from the University of Arizona Press); The Last Commons |
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is a deep ethnography and environmental historyof the largest common lands in the USA, La Sierra de la Culebra in the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant (80,000 acres). Most recently, Professor Peña was invited to deliver testimony before the Colorado State Legislature that was judged critical to the passage of Colorado's new "Acequia Recognition Law." This is a historic piece of legislation that restores the watershed commonwealth form of local self governance to acequia farm communities in southcentral Colorado and declares that acequia customary law is distinct from the Doctrine of Prior Appropriation.Visit Dr. Peña's "Environmental and Food Justice Blog" at: http://ejfood.blogspot.com |
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To learn more about the work of The Acequia Institute: www.acequiainstitute.org
