An Environmental Justice Lens on Indianapolis's Urban Ecosystem

Abstract

What happens when an urban university and a nonprofit organization dedicated to community empowerment explore the history of environmental justice in their city? How does cocreation of knowledge contribute to the city’s sustainability as an urban landscape and an ecosystem of advocates, activists, and affected communities? This chapter presents the experience of developing Indianapolis’s contribution to the international collaboration “Climates of Inequality: Stories of Environmental Justice,” led by the Humanities Action Lab (HAL). IUPUI students and faculty worked with the Kheprw Institute (KI) staff and other community partners to engage public audiences in the legacies of environmental injustices in Central Indiana. The team focused on inequity and environmental justice along Indianapolis’s waterways and developed companion exhibits, digital humanities projects, and public programs for HAL’s traveling exhibit and website. Designed to amplify the voices of Indianapolis’s affected communities, the project invited diverse audiences to engage with the history and consequences of environmental justice, build empathy with affected communities, and take action for a more sustainable city. This chapter explores the process and pedagogy of community-engaged collaboration and reflects on how this cocurated project illuminates different dimensions of the city as ecosystem.