Here's an opportunity for students to gain community-oriented research skills and hands-on experience with urban agriculture while working for pandemic resilience, food security, and climate justice this summer at the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center in Albany, New York. This program is being offered as an AmeriCorps VISTA program through Siena College.
The program runs from June 6th through July 29th and pays a $2055 living stipend. Upon completion, there is a $1311.11 educational award (or $245.00 cash award). This is a full-time (35 hours a week) volunteer fellowship position. Room and board is not provided. Accepted Fellows will be responsible for locating their own summer housing. For more information, please email: sk@radixcenter.org
Just Urban Transitions - Critical Engagement at the Intersection of Food, Climate, Ecology, Health, Race, and Equity
The Radix Ecological Sustainability Center is an urban ecological literacy and just sustainabilities advocacy non-profit in the South End of Albany, New York (www.radixcenter.org). We strive for social justice, equity, and ecological regeneration by educating and empowering local community members with the resources, tools, skills, and knowledge for doing this work. We maintain a one-acre urban farm with demonstrations of gardens, composting, microlivestock, rainwater harvesting, renewable energy, beekeeping, and more, and strive to have these systems replicated in a decentralized network throughout the city. More broadly, we support and advocate for environmental justice causes in the region.
This AmeriCorps project focuses on building community resilience and justice in the South End by increasing local food security and mutual support networks amidst the ongoing challenges of systemic racism, inequality, climate chaos, and the ongoing pandemic. On the direct service end, program participants will be engaged primarily in the maintenance of summer gardens and in surplus food redistribution/composting, street tree watering, and river remediation. Additional responsibilities include staffing local farmers' markets and supporting our general operations. Generally, we meet Monday through Thursday including Thursday evenings. Morning hours will be completed on multiple gardening sites and afternoon hours will vary between research, collective writing tasks, youth mentorship, facilitating group discussions, field trips, literature reviews, leading community presentations, conducting and transcribing interviews, and organizing open houses.
On the research side of the program, we apply a social justice analysis to urban ecology. Fellows will conduct ongoing participant observations, informal interviews, document daily fieldnotes, and submit weekly analytic memos. IRB: Human Subject Research CITI training and PAR consent forms must be completed at least two weeks prior to the start date of the program, with the goal of collectively submitting a final project write-up to an academic journal for publication.
Using a sociological framework, we explore the emergent concept of “urban ecosystem justice.” With it, we ask questions of how social issues of class and race, access, equity, and fairness apply to both the biophysical dimensions of urban ecosystems such as soils, watersheds, biodiversity, waste cycles and climate as well as to issues of social sustainability and resource equity. In doing so, we will examine whether it is possible to meet the material needs of city residents while simultaneously regenerating urban socio-ecological health. Further questions include whether urban ecosystem benefits can be distributed equally amongst a populace without further aggravating “green gentrification”, “disaster capitalism”, or “urban ecological securitization.” The program will synthesize the social critiques of urban political ecology and environmental justice with the concepts of adaptive governance, urban commons, just sustainabilities, and resilience science.
AmeriCorps fellows will additionally engage in aspects of the Radix summer EcoJustice Associate summer youth employment program including facilitating a four-week urban agriculture/environmental justice-themed program for high school-aged Albany youth, taking on teaching roles in the ecojustice youth curriculum, and engaging in physical gardening activities. Using YPAR (youth participatory action research) method fellows will engage youth in documenting ecological conditions in Albany’s South End culminating in the creation and presentation of visual, recorded, and written information to benefit the local community and create positive social change.
It is essential that applicants have a commitment to principles of racial justice, gender equity, and be experienced working in diverse communities. Furthermore, applicants should be comfortable working outdoors in hot summer weather conditions with plants, soils, compost, and animals. The ideal applicant will be capable of working both in groups and individually. We strongly encourage BIPOC candidates, people identifying as LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, and people with working-class backgrounds to apply.
Interested applicants should send a letter of interest to Scott Kellogg at sk@radixcenter.org by April 8th.
Program Director Bios:
Scott Kellogg, Ph.D. is the co-founder and Educational Director of the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center. Scott teaches graduate-level Environmental Education at Bard College and Urban Policy at SUNY Albany. He is the author of "Urban Ecosystem Justice: Strategies for Equitable Sustainability and Ecological Literacy in the City" (Routledge, 2021).
Griffin Lacy is an instructor and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the State University of New York at Albany. Griffin's research interests include gender, sexuality, qualitative methods, social sustainability, environmental justice, gender identity, and youth.
