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How Environmental Lawyers Cope with Challenges in Nonprofit Legal Centers
Get PDFAmidst our environmental crisis, environmental lawyers at nonprofit legal centers (NPLCs) play an important role in advocating for, revising, and enforcing the environmental laws which shape human behavior as it relates to environmental health. With a goal of protecting the environment and public interest through the law, these lawyers deal with few resources and personal environmental concerns in addition to all the common challenges of lawyering such as long hours and general stress. Due to their unique position in protecting the future of our environment’s health, it is essential that environmental lawyers at NPLCs can sustain their motivations to do their work.
To gain insight into how they sustain this stamina, I interviewed 12 lawyers with experience working at community legal centers or public interest legal practices in Australia. The focus questions, ‘What are the difficulties of being an environmental lawyer at a NPLC?’, and ‘How do environmental lawyers who work at NPLCs stay motivated and cope with such difficulties, if they do?’ guided my research.
The responses revealed emerging themes in common challenges, motivators, and coping mechanisms that environmental lawyers at NPLCs experience. Generally, lack of funding, unjust degradation of nature and communities, and environmental laws geared for development rather than environmental protection caused interviewees to feel a lack of ability to make real change. Despite these challenges, it was helping clients and communities, gaining personal satisfaction, and fulfilling personal passions that motivated them most to stick with their jobs. Additionally, working with a supportive group of passionate and dedicated environmental activists kept interviewee’s spirits high while the structure of the NPLCs allowed for a noncompetitive yet productive atmosphere. In addition to coworker support, participants best coped with the challenges of their jobs by aiming to separate their work life and personal life by spending time with loved ones, exercising mind and body, and spending time in nature. Overall, the data exposed a general resilience in environmental lawyers and their preference for working in the nonprofit space because, generally, it best aligned their values with their work.
Keywords: Environmental lawyer, community legal center, public interest legal practice, nonprofit
The Islam of Europe: Challenges of Governance
Get PDFAs practicing Muslims become an increasingly large share of the population in Western European countries, governments encounter the challenge of preserving liberal democratic societies in the face of a force often considered to be in direct opposition to the values of those societies. This paper discusses the challenges of the governance of Islam in Western Europe and evaluates the validity of the perceived threat of Islam to European values. Through analysis of scholarly work and interviews with experts in relevant professional and academic fields, this paper identifies three myths about Islam that contribute to this perceived threat: Islam is anti-democratic, anti-modern, and cannot function in a secular society. This paper attempts to deconstruct the manufactured binary between East and West that paints Islam and Europe as oppositional forces by highlighting the many common values and ideas shared by both worlds
Productivity, Competition, and Empowerment? The Experience of Pondicherry Fisherwomen in the Context of Neoliberal Development
Get PDFThe subject of this study is female fisherwomen from the fishing village of Veerampattinam in Tamil Nadu who have experienced impacts of neoliberal economics in India. Neoliberalism is here defined as a political economic movement that determines the viability of both an individual and a government based on its economic productivity. Populations reliant on traditional livelihoods are not as efficient as mechanized sectors of their industry, and therefore they are often separated from easy access to their livelihoods by neoliberal policies. This is especially true for women, who are frequently left behind in neoliberalism because their work is considered less valuable on the basis of their gender. What is the experience of women in the context of neoliberal development, and how do women in Pondicherry fishing villages define political freedom? This object of this study is to explore the experience of fisherwomen, and how that experience has been impacted by neoliberalism. Once identifying their experience, this study seeks to begin to understand the ways in which women’s definition of political freedom contradicts the neoliberal definition. The study finds that neoliberalism has caused shifts in government behavior, individual thought and action, and connection of women to traditional livelihood. However, women believe in collective responsibility, community unity, and empowerment beyond economic empowerment, which pose contradictions to neoliberal theory
Woven Narratives from Tsum Valley: Reconfiguring Local
Get PDFTsum Valley is on the border between Nepal and Tibet. It exists as a border land and a trekking trail and a home. Despite its label as a “Hidden Himalayan Valley,” Tsum is currently undergoing changes that make it increasingly connected to the globalized world. I set out to study and learn weaving in Tsum. I dispersed within my account of learning the craft with scenes from everyday life to better understand how weaving and production of the chu pa fits into work, family, economy and community. For my study I stayed in one home in Lamaguan, Upper Tsum to understand how much a small family unit and local community could be redefining the space between what is considered old, new; local, foreign. In the end, I wanted to present an account of what I saw and what my typical day was like. I fought the impulse to label what I saw in Tsum, therefore I do not provide any analysis. In the end, I have a collection of stories, information, instructions, and a diary all wrapped up in one account of life from within my adopted family
Over a Cup of Tea and Koko Sāmoa
Get PDFThe Fa’aSāmoa, a concept that incorporated culture, tradition, and heritage all specific to Sāmoa, impacts the daily life of Sāmoans. Agriculture and farming also have a role in everyday life, as they impact food security, the economy, and have ties to cultural events. This paper recognizes the importance of the Fa’aSāmoa and agriculture separately and then observes how the Fa’aSāmoa impacts agriculture and is incorporated into agricultural development. Through interviews with local Sāmoans and the use of historical particularism, the cultural side of agriculture and farming is better understood and its importance in society is analyzed through customary land and chiefly titles, farming practices, the impact of colonization and globalization, the role of education, resilience to climate change, and gender roles. The Fa’aSāmoa can be argued to have either a positive or negative effect on agricultural development, but its role cannot be understated. (143
Renegado: Immigrant Identities and Aspirations of White Muslim Converts in Morocco
Get PDFIf one turns over enough stones in Morocco, they will come across hundreds of Western converts to Islam, most of whom are white. Some are obvious: one might spot a blue-eyed Belgian wearing a jellaba on a train to Fes or a Danish woman in a hijab running a bakery in central Casablanca. Others might be mistaken for tourists, like an American woman with her hair pulled back into a ponytail seated in the corner of a high-end café in Rabat. These converts are immigrants, and most chose to live in Morocco as a form of hijra, or migration for religious purposes.
Rather than a full anthropological research paper, I have elected to present my ISP as a podcast. Career aspirations and personal preferences aside, the podcast format is particularly well-suited to personal narratives, and consequently well-suited to my research.
This ISP investigates how and why these white converts chose to build their lives in Morocco, and ultimately how their relationships to both their homelands and Morocco developed once they arrived. I conducted interviews with eight white converts from both Europe and North America. Among them were a Belgian military veteran and Salafi convert planning his hijra, two American Sufis who have run language schools in Morocco for decades, and a journalist who was introduced to Islam while in Tangier with his fellow beatniks in the early 1960s. I also spoke with the Moroccan-born and -raised daughter of two American Sufis, two Dutch anthropologists who specialize in the hijra of converts, two Moroccan Islamic studies professors with knowledge of Moroccan attitudes towards converts, and the Moroccan descendant of a Portuguese pirate and convert to Islam in the 18th century. Some elements of the story are drawn from anthropological research on white convert identity and conversion in Morocco, and particularly the presence of pirate converts in Rabat and Sale in the 17th-early 19th centuries. My work draws upon the personal narratives of many of my interviewees – and, in a few cases, the academic work of my interviewees – to illustrate the innumerable complexities and nuances of life as a white convert immigrant in Morocco. When presented together, these narratives reveal white convert immigrants to be both perpetually foreign and privileged by their whiteness, a status that they pass on to their Moroccan-born descendants. Their relationships with their new country appear to be based primarily upon their expectations of Morocco prior to their decision to immigrate, not upon opinions they developed in Morocco
In the Balance: Pathways to Economic Integration for Migrants in Morocco
Get PDFThis paper explores the relationship between migrants seeking socio-economic integration in Morocco, the organizations facilitating that integration, and the Moroccan government, which determines the bounds within which socio-economic integration takes place. A background in government policy on migration and economic integration, as well as previously gathered data on the ways in which migrants integrate into the economy, forms the foundation for the study. Data collection and analysis from three organizations providing programs within Morocco to support migrants\u27 economic integration provides insight into the ways in which policies and migrants\u27 needs influence the programs that NGOs and other community organizations provide in practice
Community in All Education
Get PDFMy internship experience at KIRAN allowed my newly lit interest in holistic education to connect with my lifelong passion for disability rights. Prior to my study abroad experience, I had been interested in alternative education and the role that empowerment plays in student success. I devoted research papers, conversations, and volunteer work to these fields and the organizations that contributed to them. However, I always separated these interests from my passion for disability rights. KIRAN has shown me not only the many ways in which holistic education can coincide with disability rights, but the necessity that it does. From my observations and research, I have come to conclude that a strong sense of community is the ultimate bridge between empowerment and education for students of all abilities. This paper tries to justify this conclusion with detailed descriptions of my work at KIRAN, my research on broaders fields pertaining to child rights, community psychology, and inclusive education, and the perspectives of my wonderful coworkers
Stories from a Place Called Walung
Get PDFThe goal of the project is to explore the relationship between people and the natural landscape through storytelling. I’m interested by elements like: terrain, topography, path, wayfinding, natural disasters, weather, natural resources, flora and fauna. How do these elements manifest in people’s oral history, daily lives, and spatial identity? How are these elements and the environment changing, and how are people adapting to these changes? My approach will be to talk to people at Walung about their interactions with elements of the natural landscape, both current and from the past. I will also document my own observations of these elements. Then, I will try to explore how these elements appear in and shape folk stories. From the stories and experiences people share with me, I will create a collection of short stories that attempt to document narratives of the people of Walung in order to paint a picture of space and place
From Lahure Legacies to Moving Peoples: A Study of Opportunity and Mobility in the Annapurna Hills
Get PDFThis study examines the interplay between the politics of mobility and changing notions of opportunity in the face growing trends of tourism in the southern Annarpurna Conservation Area (ACA) of Nepal. Research was conducted in three villages that have been the sites of rapid change in recent years, both due to the widespread adoption of local trekking economies, and to demographic change engendered by growing trends of outmigration. By adopting a political ecological framework, which challenges common apolitical explanations of exclusion, inaccessibility and unequal distribution of costs and benefits with particular regard to environmental challenges, this paper jointly applies what I will refer to as a “mobility lens” to understand issues of power and inequality through the forms and configurations of (im)mobilities faced by people of varying socioeconomic backgrounds. In particular, this paper will examine the legacies of wealth and political structures present in these communities, which have acted as barriers to both the mobilities and opportunities accessible to lower class and marginalized peoples, and more broadly, to the sustainable development of resources and communities in Nepal’s ruralities. Questions of how migration, in particular, has become an adaptation implement for disadvantaged actors to facilitate new forms of socioeconomic mobility will be addressed