White fragility as an obstacle to anti-racist resilience planning: Opportunities for equity-conscious partnerships

摘要

Despite more than forty years of progress in the development of ecological resilience research since C.S. Holling’s publication of“Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems” in 1973, the vulnerability of low-income communities and communities of color hasonly escalated. Although global climate change in the Anthropocene increases collective vulnerability for the human family, lowincome communities and communities of color, both within cities, and throughout the world are more vulnerable (Anguelovski et al.,2016; Baker, 2012; Bullard and Wright, 2012; Kashem, Wilson, & Zandt, 2016). In the United States, people of color and low-incomecommunities are disproportionally likely to live in environments with poor air and water quality, limited access to healthy food andsoil, in close proximity to toxic waste, in substandard shelter, and in locations more vulnerable to climate change and extremeweather events (Agyeman, 2005; Bullard, Mohai, Saha, & Wright, 2007; Bullard, 2007; Hood, 2005; Wilson, 2018). Even thoughresilience research calls for diverse and inclusive frameworks for adaptive co-management of social-ecological systems (Olsson, Folke,& Berkes, 2004), in many vulnerable neighborhoods, structural racism and classism prevent residents from having a seat at the tablewhen decisions are made about their community (Agyeman, 2010; Bullard et al., 2007; Cole & Foster, 2001). Sexism, heterosexism,ableism, and ageism also limit equitable participation by (and protection of) diverse community members vulnerable to climatechange and environmental injustices (Adamson, Evans, & Stein, 2002).