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1. Translating Gun Violence into Reckoning with Structural Racism: Intersectional Social Justice Mobilization after the Pulse Shooting in Orlando, Florida.

   Nolan Kline (July 2022, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting)

   On June 12, 2016, a shooter entered the Pulse club in Orlando, Florida, and fatally shot 49 people. Pulse was a barwhere lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and otherwise queer identifying (LGBTQ+) people regularly gathered, and the shooting occurred on Latin night, disproportionally impacting people at the intersection of being LGBTQ+, Black, and Latinx. Afterthe shooting, organizations focusing on LGBTQ+ people of color, including undocumented queer people, emerged and mobilized for improved political protections, economic rights, criminal justice reform, and representation of LGBTQ+ people of color insocial justice organizations. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork that began in 2016, this presentation summarizes findings from an ongoing study examining the impacts of social justice mobilizing after gun violencethat targeted queer people of color. It reports findings from participant observation experiences with LGBTQ+ Latinx organizations and interviews with social justice organization members (n=52), local legislators (n=8), health providers (n=3), law enforcement officers (n=3), and national organization leaders (n=3). Findings highlight how the Pulse shooting sparked an intersectional social justice movement workingto dismantle structural racism, xenophobia,and homophobia from within multiple settings. Using theories of biopolitics and frameworks of legal, political, and queer mobilization, I argue that the movement forged out of the Pulse shooting works to advance what I call “an assertive politics of belonging” that pervades multiple social spaces, including within local and state government, law enforcement agencies, and social justice organizations. Situating this movement in a broader US context of deep political polarization and persistent white supremacy, findings from this study underscore the tensions that emerge in challenging structural racism by asserting claims of belonging for people at the intersection of multiple minoritized identities. 

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2. Practitioner perspectives on climate mobilities in South Florida

   https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad015  

   Mach, Katharine J.; Niemann, Jennifer; Donald, Rosalind; Owley, Jessica; Seeteram, Nadia A.; Siders, A. R.; Cortada, Xavier I.; Nyburg, Alex; Roberti, Adam; Wright, Ian A. (December 2023, Oxford Open Climate Change)

   Abstract Moving away from hazardous areas may be an important adaptive response under intensifying climate change, but to date such movement has been controversial and conducted with limited government or private-sector support. Research has emphasized resident perspectives on mobility, but understanding how professionals view it may open new avenues to shape future outcomes. Based on 76 interviews with professionals involved in climate responses in South Florida, we evaluate perceptions of adaptation goals, the potential role of climate mobilities in pathways supporting those goals, and associated constraints and enablers. The practitioners interviewed anticipate multiple types of climate mobilities will occur in the region, at increasing scales. Interviewees perceive climate mobilities at present, especially migration and gentrification where climate plays some role, as causing distributional inequities and financial and sociocultural disruptions, and they view existing adaptive strategies as best serving those who already have adequate resources, despite practitioners’ personal commitments to social justice goals. Although many practitioners feel prepared for their own, limited roles related to climate mobilities, they judge the region as a whole as being unprepared to support the retreat they see as inevitable, with a need for a more ambitious long-term transition plan. Achieving this need will be difficult, as practitioners indicate that climate mobilities remain hard to talk about politically. Nevertheless, interviewees believe some households are already considering moving in response to climate risks. Discussions of climate mobilities, through interviews and far beyond, may encourage more mindful choices about and engagement in climate-driven transformations. 

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3. Cascading disasters: The impact of hurricane Maria and Covid-19 on post-disaster Puerto Rican migrants’ adaptation and integration in Florida

   https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-022-00390-3  

   Aranda, Elizabeth; Blackwell, Rebecca; Escue, Melanie; Rosa, Alessandra (December 2022, Latino Studies)

   Based on data from 103 surveys of Puerto Rican migrants living in Florida and 54 in-depth interviews with a subgroup of them, we examine how Puerto Ricans who left the archipelago after Hurricane Maria have navigated settlement in their new homes. In this article, we observed and classified our participants’ descriptions of how they managed opportunities and challenges regarding education, employment, and social relations, the traditional benchmarks for the assessment of societal integration. We also observed how our participants described Covid-19’s interaction with these benchmarks. We found that our participants have experienced a series of cascading disasters since 2017—namely, Hurricane Maria, the earthquakes that affected Puerto Rico starting in late 2019, the humanitarian crises that followed both disasters, and now the global pandemic. These disasters, compounded with migration, have resulted in a process of adaptation to Florida in which social and labor-market integration and the ability to nurture social ties have been significantly diminished. 

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4. Exploring Undergraduate Civil Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Infrastructure Inequities: A Pilot Study

   Bolding, C.J.; Ogle, J.; and Rapa, L. (July 2021, 2021 ASEE Annual Meeting)

   As social justice issues facing our nation continue to be placed in the foreground of everyday life, it is important to understand how undergraduate civil engineering students perceive and understand relations between social justice and our infrastructure systems. Additionally, as more civil engineering undergraduate programs increase the emphasis on ethics and equity issues in their curricula, we must also seek to understand students’ awareness of their influence, as civil engineering professionals, to improve infrastructure systems that contribute to injustice and inequity. This paper presents findings from a pilot study conducted as part of an NSF-funded grant implementing cultural and curricular changes in a medium-sized civil engineering department in the southeast. Drawing on frameworks that examine how individuals critically understand systems of oppression, and the justification used to explain these systems this work examined student perceptions of inequities in societal infrastructure systems. The present study was guided by the following research questions: (1) Are undergraduate civil engineering students critically aware of inequities in society’s infrastructure systems? (2) To what degree are undergraduate civil engineering students comfortable challenging the status quo? (3) Is there an association between students’ critical awareness of inequitable infrastructure systems and their agency to promote systemic change as civil engineering professionals? Study data included survey responses to validated scales measuring: critical consciousness, system justification beliefs, social empathy, and sociopolitical control beliefs. New instrumentation was also piloted assessing equity-related perceptions and beliefs about civil engineering and infrastructure systems. Participants were junior and senior undergraduate civil engineering students (n = 21) enrolled in a professional development, community, and strategic change course, with data collected throughout the Fall 2020 semester. Results suggest that students did have awareness of infrastructure inequities and, on average, did not have strong system justification beliefs. However, there was not an association between students’ awareness of inequities and their agency beliefs about promoting systemic change as civil engineers. After presenting study results, we discuss implications of study results and propose directions for future research. 

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5. Which ‘Public’ in Public Health? : LGBTQ+ Black and Latinx Mobilization in the US D uring the COVID - 19 Pandemic

   Nolan Kline (October 2021, Society for the Scientific Study of Science annual meeting)

   During the COVID - 19 pandemic, the United States (US) operated a patchwork response of varying closures and restrictions that depended on individual states. At the federal level, efforts to address COVID - 19 risk focused primarily on elderly populations and largely ignored the disproportionately high risk of COVID - 19 exposure among Black , Latin x, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and otherwise queer - identifying (LGBTQ+) populations . These groups have elevated risk of COVID - 1 9 exposure due to social, political, and economic vulnerabilities that structure poor health. In this paper, I describe how a grassroots racial, sexual, and gender justice organization responded to state failings in meeting the needs of LGBTQ+ Black and Latinx populations during the COVID - 19 pandemic. Drawing from ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in Orlando, Florida, that began in 2016 following the Pulse shooting, I describe how a social justice organization advanced a notion of intersectional belonging in response to the absence of health and social services during the COVID - 19 pandemic. Specifically, I show how one organization, the Contigo Fund, created an LGBTQ+ COVID - 19 relief effort that provided financial assistance to Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ populations when the state of Florida failed to marshal resources for its most marginalized communities . The state’s failure is just one of many ways the state has historically refused to meet the needs of populations with intersecting queer and racial minority identities , reproducing longstanding health and social inequities. Overall, I argue that the Contigo Fund’s response demonstrates how grassroots mobilization can challenge the necropolitcs of state - sponsored neglect and advance health equity 

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