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Equity & Difference

Just Sustainabilities: Re-imagining e/quality, Living Within Limits

Tues. Feb. 28, 2017      7:30 p.m.

Kane Hall 120

This lecture has reached capacity. As a courtesy, the Graduate School will offer standby seating on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 6:45 pm in Kane Hall. Any reserved seats not taken by 7:15 pm will be offered to our guests in the standby line.

Julian Agyeman, professor of urban and environment policy and planning, Tufts University

Professor Julian Agyeman outlines the concept of “just sustainabilities” — the need to ensure a better quality of life for all in a just and equitable manner within the limits of supporting ecosystems. Integrating social needs and welfare offers us a more “just,” rounded, and equity-focused definition of sustainability and sustainable development, while not negating the very real environmental threats we face. Examples range from just sustainabilities focusing on ideas about “fair shares” resource distribution globally; planning for intercultural cities; achieving well-being and happiness; the potential in the new sharing economy and the concept of “spatial justice.”

Admission: FREE (advance registration required)

This lecture is supported by the Walker-Ames endowment.


Julian Agyeman, Ph.D. FRSA FRGS, is a professor of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University in Medford, MA. As an ecologist/biogeographer turned environmental social scientist, he has both a science and social science background, which helps frame his perspectives, research and scholarship. He thrives at the borders and intersections of a wide range of knowledges, disciplines and methodologies which he utilizes in creative and original ways in his research.

He was co-founder in 1988, and chair until 1994, of the Black Environment Network (BEN). He was co-founder in 1996, and is now editor-in-chief of Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability and was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA) in the same year.

He is series editor of “Just Sustainabilities: Policy, Planning and Practice,” published by Zed Books and co-editor of the series “Routledge Equity, Justice and the Sustainable City.” He is also contributing editor to “Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development” and a member of the editorial board of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education. In addition, he is an affiliate at the Civitas Athenaeum Laboratory at KTH—Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, a studio associate at “The Studio at the Edge of the World,” University of Tasmania Creative Exchange Institute and a senior scholar at The Center for Humans and Nature, Chicago.

His publications, which number over 160, include books, peer reviewed articles, book chapters, published conference presentations, published reports, book reviews, newspaper articles, op-eds and articles in professional magazines and journals. His books include “Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World” (co-edited with Robert D. Bullard and Bob Evans: MIT Press 2003), “Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice” (NYU Press 2005), “Environmental Inequalities Beyond Borders: Local Perspectives on Global Injustices” (co-edited with JoAnn Carmin: MIT Press 2011), “Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class and Sustainability” (co-edited with Alison Hope Alkon: MIT Press 2011), “Introducing Just Sustainabilities: Policy, Planning and Practice” (Zed Books 2013) and “Incomplete Streets: Processes, Practices, and Possibilities” (co-edited with Stephen Zavestoski: Routledge 2014) and “Sharing Cities: A Case for Truly Smart and Sustainable Cities” (co-authored with Duncan McLaren: MIT Press 2015).


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For more information, contact the UW Alumni Association at 206-543-0540 or uwalumni@uw.edu.