Public Scholarship

De Gullah/Geechee pun St. Helena Island

For a detailed introduction to this work as written by Queen Quet, Cheiftess and Head of State of the Gullah/Geechee Nation please visit the following website:

https://gullahgeecheenation.com/2020/12/11/de-gullah-geechee-pun-st-helena-island-via-www-sainthelenagullahgeechee-com/

Sharing in the Benefits of a Greening City

Public investments in parks and green infrastructure have historically created wealth for some communities while displacing and disenfranchising others. The legacy of these detrimental impacts have disproportionately hurt Indigenous communities, communities of color, and low-income and working class communities. At the same time, communities that have been underserved by urban greening also bear a disproportionate burden of environmental harms through degraded air and water quality, poorly maintained infrastructure, and lack of access to urban nature.

Recent trends in green investments replicate these historic patterns by harnessing the value of greening to capitalize on real estate, and in turn threatening the ability of marginalized communities to stay in place. Despite green gentrification pressures, our community-based partners have been tirelessly working to improve environmental conditions in their communities, all with economic, environmental, and racial justice at the forefront. In doing so they state definitively that green gentrification does not negate a mandate for access to high quality green infrastructure.

Instead, our partners have asked: What does it look like to envision green spaces as sites through which to build a more equitable and just world? Sharing in the Benefits of a Greening City is a toolkit that comes out of this question.

You can download the entirety of the toolkit here or explore its contents by topic below. If you would like to request a physical copy (or copies) for personal, teaching, or organizing purposes, let us know by emailing create@umn.edu. We are able to provide this resource for free in limited quantities. If you would like to request a larger number of copies, we will work with you to make it happen!

Community Engagement in the Environmental Sciences

Minneapolis, MN

A virtual panel discussion of best practices, approaches and principles for collaboration between environmental sciences and communities that have not historically shaped the research priorities of academic institutions featuring:

Queen Quet; Chieftess and Head of State of the Gullah/Geechee Nation & UMN CLA Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts

Na'Taki Osborne Jelks; Spelman College & West Atlanta Watershed Alliance

Dan Rizza; Climate Central

Kurt Kipfmueller; University of Minnesota

Moderated by Kate Derickson

Land disposession in the Gullah/Geechee Nation

Collaboration between CREATE Scholars and Representative Glenda Simmons Jenkins (Summer 2019), Nassau County, FL

During summer and fall 2019, CREATE Scholars Nfamara K. Dampha and Emma DeVries worked with Gullah/Geechee Nation Representative Glenda Simmons Jenkins to examine historical and ongoing racialized dispossession of Gullah/Geechee lands. You can read more about their collaborative research process in this blog post. This work builds on a longstanding research partnership between Gullah/Geechee Chieftess Queen Quet, Representative Jenkins, and CREATE co-director Kate Derickson, with significant contributions from CREATE Program Coordinator Kaleigh Swift.

Stormwater Retention Ponds in Nassau County: Towards a Mixed-methods Analysis of Pond Impacts on Gullah-Geechee Residents

This report launches a collaborative research process into the economic, cultural, and environmental impacts of stormwater retention ponds (a common side effect of development) on Gullah-Geechee lands in Nassau County, FL. It emerged as a result of initial data gathering through remote geospatial data analysis, policy research, as well as site visits and consultation with community members on a trip to Nassau County in July 2019.

Home Value: Social & Economic Analysis of Black Wealth in Florida

Using a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) approach to assess and quantify the net present values of several homeownership scenarios, this report presents findings on the social and economic value of black (Gullah/Geechee) wealth in homeownership in Nassau County, FL. Data were mainly derived from the American Community Survey, Zillow, and relevant websites. Gullah residents were also consulted through survey administrated during a community meeting held in July 2019. CBA findings estimate total black wealth in Nassau County homeownership at US$1.2 billion by 2050.

This video offers a synopsis of findings from the Home Value report above, assessing Gullah/Geechee land wealth on the eastern coast of the United States in South Carolina and North Florida. Here, Nfamara K. Dampha reflects back important wisdom shared by Gullah/Geechee members on the importance of land to self-determination and identity. In doing so, he contextualizes land loss and explains the mechanism through which the state and corporate interests have systematically expropriated this land.

Gullah/Geechee History and Land Ownership in Nassau County Story Map

Visualizing the intersections of environmental investments and housing access for popular education

Minneapolis, MN

Green gentrification research inevitably touches the day-to-day experience of local history, the emotional charge of changing neighborhoods, and the power of communal storytelling. While addressing environmental and housing justice fears through policy analysis is important, making resources available for political mobilization and community-building at the neighborhood level is another necessary layer of the work. In fall 2019, CREATE partnered with a group of students in a graduate course on Neighborhood Revitalization Theories and Strategies to explore this layer grounded in the ideologies of popular education.

Tasked with generating a framework popular education mapping tool through CREATE’s existing body of work in consultation with neighborhood-level partner organizations, graduate students Kelsey Poljacik, Stefan Hankerson, Rebecca Walker, Alexander Webb, and Aaron Westling produced the following report available for download: Popular Education for Racial and Environmental Justice in Minneapolis.

CREATE PhD student Rebecca Walker and Mapping Prejudice partner Kevin Ehrman-Solberg built upon this groundwork to produce a series of maps that are available both digitally and in physical form. Digital copies can be accessed here. To request borrowing a physical copy please email create@umn.edu.

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