Sustainability Q&A: Andrea Brower PhD
What is your position and department at Gonzaga University?
I teach in the Environmental Studies Department.
What does sustainability mean to you?
I actually think the concept of sustainability can be pretty problematic for several reasons. One of these is that it tends to be a somewhat narrow and utilitarian concept that is based on underlying ideas of humans as separate from “nature.” I prefer more holistic ways of thinking about humans and societies as always a part of and inseparable from the rest of “nature,” or the web of life. Humans are interconnected with the non-human world, and the ways we organize our societies and lives can be much more or much less regenerative of the rest of nature — this might be a deeper and richer conceptualization of “sustainability.” For example, I’m from Hawai‘i, where Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) cosmologies are rooted in principles like aloha ‘āina — love and connection to the land, literally “that which feeds.” You can contrast this to a more Euro-American and capitalist view of “resources” to be sustained for human use.
Another challenge is that the term sustainability is increasingly used in very shallow ways, often in what you might describe as coopting the original intentions of its use by the environmental movement. You can especially see this in the world of corporate greenwashing. Of course, this just reminds us that ideas and values like sustainability are always political in the broad sense of being a space where different interests come into contest. So even though I’ve flagged a couple of the challenges with the concept of sustainability, this doesn’t mean that it’s not also often a concept that important work is organized around (for example, here at Gonzaga with the Office of Sustainability!). Even in its most utilitarian sense of sustaining resources for human use, that can be a very radical demand in a society that is structured around competitive exploitation of resources for maximizing short-term profit! But “sustainable” can also be a hollow label that Wal-Mart uses to sell more stuff at a higher price. So, part of what I’m saying is that we just need to be critically aware of the different sorts of projects that get lumped under the catch-all of “sustainability”.
The last thing I’ll say (and there is a lot more to say on the topic of “sustainability”!) is that we need to be very cautious of approaches that leave out matters of equity and justice. Sustainability must have justice at its core, and this means asking questions about power and the distribution of benefits and burdens. “Sustaining” forests for carbon credit traders from the global north while multi-generational inhabitants of those forests are dispossessed is not the kind of “sustainability” we should be aiming for (just to give one example that is relevant to current events).
How have you been involved in promoting sustainability on campus?
I just arrived in Spokane and to GU at the beginning of this semester two months ago, so I am not deeply involved in organizing efforts here yet (though I’m starting to go to meetings and protests and to learn more). My teaching is entirely within the context of understanding environmental degradation and environmental injustice in order to do something about it — so you could say that it is a form of “promoting sustainability on campus.” My research and scholarship is also embedded in social movements and I have been very involved in many struggles, including around global trade justice, pesticide use by the chemical / seed industry (Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, etc) in Hawaii, and food sovereignty. As an activist scholar I am deliberate about making my research accessible to audiences outside of academia so I frequently write for media outlets like Huffington Post, Common Dreams, and YES! Magazine. These days I’m most passionate about some work that is in its early seed stages around imagining more equitable, just, democratic, and ecologically regenerative worlds beyond capitalism. And as I said, in all of this I really hope to inspire and empower my students to also be engaged in shaping our world for the better.
What are some things you do in your personal life to live sustainably?
The most important things I do in my personal life are collective. Social change comes about through social movements — groups of people acting together to change social systems, structures, policies, cultural norms, etc. So it is really important to think beyond the individual to the collective when we consider what we do in our lives to bring about sustainability.
Of course I also do things like walk instead of drive, buy pretty much everything second hand (besides the one winter coat that I got for Spokane, I honestly can’t remember the last time I bought a new piece of clothing), and do what I can within the limitations of the market to buy food that is grown agroecologically, by workers who are paid and treated well, and without animal cruelty. My preference is always to support worker cooperatives, unionized workplaces, and the forms of business that generate wealth for communities versus corporate shareholders.
All that said, there are very structural limitations to what I can do at a personal level, which is why I mentioned that I think the more important question is how I engage with others to change those structures.
How could Gonzaga continue to improve its sustainability efforts?
I haven’t been around GU long enough to have a well informed answer to this question, but here are some thoughts off the top of my head. It seems like there are some good ideas already contained in the climate action plan, and the question now is how those move forward to get implemented in a robust way. It’s also pretty obvious that fair, humane, and ecologically sustainable food options on campus are very limited. I know this is something that students have been working on for awhile. I was very excited to find out when I arrived that Angela Davis was coming, and it feels like there is a lot more room and hunger for these kinds of critical conversations on campus and with the wider community. It’s also been pretty clear since my first day on campus that GU has work to do to tackle problems facing minoritized students. I know the question is about sustainability, but as we’re always talking about in my classes, social and environmental injustice are connected and share systemic roots. The issues being brought forward by students of color, Native, undocumented and LGBTQI students on this campus are an essential and core part of what must be considered in regards to environmental justice broadly. And since you got me started, I think it is past time that Gonzaga divested from fossil fuels.
At my last university I was involved with campaigns around a living wage for campus workers — the people who clean our classrooms, bathrooms, and offices, serve us food, keep the grounds so beautiful, and much more. These workers are often invisible in university “communities,” and I’ve been curious to learn more about their working conditions here at GU. Working conditions definitely need to be a central part of sustainability efforts.
How will you continue to promote sustainability after you leave Gonzaga?
I can’t usually predict exactly what I’ll be doing in a year or five years time. I’m on a one year teaching contract at GU so my next adventure and site of activism remains to be determined. We are living in such extreme times in terms of unprecedented inequality, environmental crisis, neofascism and deep structural racism in this country, and I won’t even start on the misogyny and unabashed imperialist drives of the people occupying the White House (not that this is entirely new)… There is no shortage of work to be done, and there are innumerable ways to participate in doing that work!
