Imagining Environmental Justice “Across the Street”: Zine-making as Creative Feminist Geographic Method

Abstract

This article builds on and extends geographic calls for creative methodologies and critical geographic pedagogies, by tracing the formation of the zine, “Across the Street: An Environmental Justice Zine about Kids, Industry, and Health”. Central to a study of toxic poisoning in the East Cesar Chavez neighborhood of Austin, Texas, one of five historic neighborhoods of color in the city, we demonstrate ways to think about, produce and engage with zines as both an instructive geographic method and a form of critical pedagogy. Reflecting on the process of this zine’s production, we argue that zines can be both instructive in the analysis of research and a compelling way to engage students in difficult dialogs in and beyond the classroom. Both practices are central to producing feminist geographical work that is committed to accessible, disruptive, transformative and decolonial knowledge.