[URBANTH-L]Campus Anthros & Sustainability

mckennab at umd.umich.edu mckennab at umd.umich.edu
Wed Sep 10 13:45:54 EDT 2008


Word has it that some universities have warned "green campus"  
sustainability leaders NOT to critique the black corporate forces of  
the university. Some are upset at these behind the scenes assaults on  
their "academic freedom," but the sustainability professors have their  
administrative orders and keep quiet. MORE than that, they often  
enforce discipline against those who want to challenge local capital.  
In other words, the liberals conveniently do the work of capital.

Is your campus secure?

Three discordant movements, yet conjoined, are raging for domination.

1. Green sustainability environmentalists
2. Black monied corporatists
3. Brown-shirted forces of "homeland security."

Who shall reign in power and influence? What alliances are in  
formation? What ecologies will result?

Who gets the most monies? How does each define "health." Where are  
anthropologists in this dangerous mix?

How far can "green academy" anthropologists go without risking careers?

Is environmental security different from homeland security different  
from biosecurity?

There is a volume coming out in October that includes address part of  
this question. Several anthropologists weigh in: Biosecurity  
Interventions: Global Health and Security in Question (Lakoff and  
Collier, eds.)
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14606-7/biosecurity-interventions

snip>
In recent years, new disease threats—such as SARS, avian flu, mad cow  
disease, and drug-resistant strains of malaria and tuberculosis—have  
garnered media attention and galvanized political response. Proposals  
for new approaches to "securing health" against these threats have  
come not only from public health and medicine but also from such  
fields as emergency management, national security, and global  
humanitarianism.

This volume provides a map of this complex and rapidly transforming  
terrain. The editors focus on how experts, public officials, and  
health practitioners work to define what it means to "secure health"  
through concrete practices such as global humanitarian logistics,  
pandemic preparedness measures, vaccination campaigns, and attempts to  
regulate potentially dangerous new biotechnologies.
<unsnip

How do anthropologists involved in "greening the academy" fit in this tempest?






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