Decolonial enviromental justice: from the middle east and north africa to north america
DEJMENA—Decolonial Environmental Justice: from Middle East and North Africa to North America aims to provide a reading of environmental justice at the crosscut of indigeneity and feminist decoloniality. Drawing on local activists’ and indigenous communities’ struggles with environmental (in)justice, particularly land and water protection, across the Levant (Palestinian farmers in the South of the West Bank), North Africa (Amazigh communities in South-Western Morocco), and North America (Native Americans of the Lacota people in the Midwestern region of the US), this project aims to provide a novel and a much urgent grounding of the locally global impact and value of decolonial feminist environmentalism. DEJ-MENA is—to my knowledge—the first study that combines a decolonial feminist approach to the question of Environmental Justice (EJ) across these multiple locales of indigeneity. By creating a timely comparative understanding of decolonial EJ, DEJMENA will contribute to clarify the way in which evolving global EJ schemes—of which the EU is a major player—are connected to the restoration of indigenous rights in multiple locales. More specifically, it aims to contribute to major areas of EU policy and action (EU Climate action and the European Green New Deal; EU International Action on Climate Change). The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has proved further the urgent need for more expansive theorising, research and action on EJ with indigenous communities by showing their huge vulnerability,  yet revealing the value of their ecologies. To accomplish this goal, DEJMENA will be undertaken in collaboration with three major academic institutions, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (UNIVE), Colombia University (CU), and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and under the guidance and supervision of the most apt and internationally established scholars, Profs Matteo Legrenzi and Lila Abu-Lughod, and Dr Michael Mason.