The Committee on Racial Inclusion, Equity and Justice (CRIEJ) will assess and challenge ASA’s Section on Environmental Sociology’s racist and exclusionary practices that promote white supremacy and maintain white spaces within the section. The committee will critically address white ignorance and white innocence that exist within and outside of the section. The members of the committee will be guided by an intersectional framework, critical race theory, and Du Boisian emancipatory sociology that center the voices of people who have been marginalized through systemic and historical processes by being open to their experiences, concerns, critiques, and suggestions. We will also work toward tangibly (re)distributing resources within the section so that membership and scholarly work are more accessible to people coming from historically and currently marginalized backgrounds. The committee will challenge the section’s members to critically reflect and take action on both an individual level and as a community on the challenges for racial equity and inclusion and the work necessary to achieve social justice.
