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Description:
Until recently, mainstream American environmentalism
has been a predominantly white, middle-class movement,
essentially ignoring the class, race, and gender dimensions
of environmental politics. In this provocative collection
of original essays, the environmental dimensions of
the Chicana/o experience are explicitly expressed and
debated. Employing a variety of genres ranging from
poetry to autobiography to theoretical and empirical
essays, the voices in this collection speak to the most
significant issues of environmentalism and social justice,
recognizing throughout the need for a pluralism of Chicana/o
philosophies. The contributors provide an excellent
basis for understanding how multiple Chicana/o views
on the environment play out in the context of dominant
social, political and economic views. Chicano Culture,
Ecology, Politics examines a number of Chicana/o
ecological perspectives. How can the ethics of reciprocity
present in Chicana/o agropastoral life be protected
and applied on a broader scale? How can the dominant
society, whose economic structure is invested in "placeless
mobility," take note of the harm caused to land-based
cultures, take responsibility for it, and take heed
before it is too late? Will the larger society be "ecologically
housebroken" before it destroys its home? Grounded
in actual political struggles waged by Chicana/o communities
over issues of environmental destruction, cultural genocide,
and socioeconomic domination, this volume provides an
important series of snapshots of Chicana/o history.
Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics illuminates
the bridges that exist—and must be understood—between
race, ethnicity, class, gender, politics, and ecology.
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