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PETER STEMPEL
RACIAL JUSTICE, ANTI-DISCRIMINATION, AND DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES
RE-NARRATION OF
HISTORY TO IMPROVE
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
IN COASTAL RESILIENCE
AND PLANNING
INTRODUCTION
Coastal managers and other experts rely on
public engagement to inform plans for coastal
resilience and bolster the perceived legitimacy
of planning processes [1]. These seemingly neutral
practices frequently perpetuate and exacerbate
injustice because experts fail to recognize some
stories of past occupation by African American
or Indigenous persons as legitimate or ‘see’ them
at all due to altered narratives of the past and the
preferences of the dominant culture [2]. This project
sought to redress these failures by involving
justice-oriented historians at the outset of coastal
resilience projects to inform and challenge
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perceptions of “public memory.”
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Public memories are the circulating narratives
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of a place reflected in monuments, markers, place
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names, street signs, and the stories we tell. Whether
or not your story is reflected in a marker, or whether
the story on that marker is ‘seen,’ often depends
upon who you are [3, 4] (Figure 1). Like Ralph Ellison’s
protagonist in “Invisible Man,” persons who are
physically present may nonetheless be socially
invisible to some community members, local
governments, and experts [5].
METHODS
Alanna Casey and Michael Thurston, two scholars
with expertise in the changing interpretation of public
memory and recent historical scholarship related to
the “canalscapes” of Eastern Virginia, were embed-
ded in a design studio focused on coastal resilience
in Hampton, Virginia, USA. Hampton stands at the
nexus of Indigenous, Colonial, and African American
histories. It was the subject of an international coastal
resilience design competition sponsored by the
Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF).
Historians and students worked together in the studio
to construct a social ecological Hampton that went
beyond public memory and widely documented
histories to reconstruct the intertwined human and
ecological history of the last 10,000 years, with specific
emphasis on aspects of the history that may be
ephemeral or lost in the context of public memory
(Figure 2). Ecological spaces hold strong meanings
in both African American and Indigenous cultures
in this region. Witness trees, for instance, such as
the Algernon Oak, have continued to stand since the
first arrival of Africans on the North American continent.
The Great Dismal Swamp became home to indepen-
dent communities of indigenous persons and formerly
enslaved people who used the difficult-to-navigate
Associate Professor of
Landscape Architecture
wetlands as protection [5]. Oysters gathered near
shore sustained formerly enslaved people migrating
REFERENCED WORKS
north in the wake of the Union Army’s advances in 1. Molino, G.D., M.A. Kenney, and A.E. Sutton-Grier,
Stakeholder-defined scientific needs for coastal
the Civil War. The students found consistent ties
between ecology and social history, and uncovered resilience decisions in the Northeast U.S. Marine
Policy, 2020. 118: p. 103987.
evidence of different forms of the city not acknowl-
edged in contemporary planning. 2. Gibson, J., M.D. Hendricks, and J.C. Wells, From
This work then underpinned a range of interventions
engagement to empowerment: how heritage pro-
fessionals can incorporate participatory methods
by students that considered how the re-narration
in disaster recovery to better serve socially vulner-
of history might change approaches to coastal
able groups. International Journal of Heritage
resilience. Students reconsidered past decisions
and interpretations, acknowledged the claims of
Studies, 2019. 25(6): p. 596-610.
indigenous persons who had their land expropriated, 3. Hardy, R.D., R.A. Milligan, and N. Heynen, Racial
and considered how a past that has been erased coastal formation: The environmental injustice of
from public memory should shape the future. This colorblind adaptation planning for sea-level rise.
work formed the foundation of Penn State’s entry Geoforum, 2017. 87: p. 62-72.
into the CERF competition. The competition entry 4. Moore, A., Public Memory, Place, and Justice:
deliberately deviated from the competition’s emphasis Learning to See Manisses, in New England
on metrics for evaluating coastal resilience projects, Estuarine Research Society. 2020.
focusing instead on the outcomes of re-narrating 5. Nevius, M.P., New histories of marronage in the
history. The team used the CERF competition as a Anglo-Atlantic world and early North America.
platform to communicate the concept of re-narration History Compass, 2020. 18(5): p. e12613.
to the international conference audience. Penn State’s
project earned second place in the competition.
OUTCOMES
Re-narration has become a regular technique in my
classroom and practice more broadly. This requires
working with scholars and underrepresented commu-
nities to tell unseen stories so that they can be heard,
and not lost in the dominant narrative. This work
has led to additional research collaborations with
the National Park Service in the Hampton, VA area,
an Institutes of Energy and Environment Seed Grant,
and subsequent interdisciplinary research and grant
applications that explore how to more effectively Figure 1. Settlers Rock on Manisses (Block Island, RI) is an
engage persons who are excluded from dominant example of how the material culture of public memory tells the
story of colonial settlement without mention of the Manissean
narratives of public memory and account for social
Tribe, or their continued presence on the island. Scholars at
vulnerability that often undermines representation
the University of Rhode Island are actively working with tribal
and participation. Most recently, we have incorporated
members to re-narrate history, and challenge the way public
aspects of this work into a $4 million multi-institution memory warps governance and decision making (Original
proposal to do a comparative resilience study in Image: Wikimedia Commons, altered by Peter Stempel).
Rhode Island and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
PARTICIPANTS
Students
Mak (Minh Anh Kieu), 4th year; Emily Bernhardt,
4th year; Madison Borsos, 4th year; Zimeng Chen,
3rd year; Bryce Craig, 3rd year; Jiani Dai, 3rd year;
Seth Esterly, 3rd year; Nina (Christina) Flores, grad;
Katherine (Qiannan) Guo, 4th year; Selena Hinojos,
grad; Jack (Won Byoung) Kang, 4th year; Alex Keim,
grad; Emily Miller, 3rd year; Lauren Taylor, 4th year;
Jake (John) Tiernan, 5th year
Figure 2. A diagram comparing the ecological condition and
Faculty and Outside Experts the occupation of the landscape by student Madison Borsos.
The form of the landscape is closely related to the exploitation
Peter Stempel, Studio Professor., Competition Team Faculty
of natural resources and people, and the changing scale of
Jessica Fegley, Studio Teaching Assistant
economic activity. (Illustration: Madison Borsos)
Andy Cole, Competition Team Co-Faculty
Caitlin Grady, Faculty Contributor
Michael Thurston, Outside Expert – History
Alanna Casey, Outside Expert – Interpretation
Vivek Shrikrishnan, Expert Consultant –
Deep Uncertainty
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ALEC SPANGLER + LAUREN SOSA

Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Assistant Teaching Professor of Landscape Architecture

RACIAL JUSTICE, ANTI-DISCRIMINATION, AND DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES

EXPANSIVE REPRESENTATION: The Question

We took on this project because we recognized a tricky question arising out
AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR of intro-level visualization classes, in conjunction with DEI discussions in the
Department of Landscape Architecture: how can one balance the need to
LANDSCAPE GRAPHIC PRECEDENT teach graphics fundamentals with an imperative to decolonize our field?

FROM THE ENVIRONMENTAL

Professional Ethics
JUSTICE MOVEMENT The American Society of Landscape Architects’ (ASLA) vision of “healthy,
beautiful, and resilient places for all” can be used as a general stand-in for
Authors: Lauren Sosa, Alec Spangler the stated ethics of landscape architecture institutions. We posit that landscape
Research Assistants: Mahsa Adib, Emmy Titcombe architecture can benefit from a more expansive set of precedents than what
is typically drawn from professional practice, including social movements
that have as their aim positive landscape change.

INTRODUCTION
Overview
This research has sought to expand and challenge traditional approaches to visual
representation standards within landscape architecture by stripping away inherent
euro-centric/colonial biases and emphasizing the communication forms within the
environmental justice movements. Our research protocol relied on a framework of
critical race theory and semiotics to guide an ethnographic content analysis (ECA)
of contemporary and historical images produced within the environmental justice
movement. We have found that approaching these visual products with awareness
and with the shared goal of equity for these landscapes has emphasized the
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FRAMEWORK
Critical Race Theory
Decolonizing the research process requires the researchers to decolonize
their own biases.
Because attempts at objectivity and value-neutral approaches are unhelpful in
challenging uneven power dynamics, all researchers and research assistants (both
individually and collectively) critically questioned their positionality with the shared
goal of elevating the goals, voices, and imagery from Black, Indigenous, and Other
People and Communities of Color.

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relevance and potentially positive relationship between landscape architecture
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and environmental justice. Milner (2007) offers a series of questions researchers can use as a guide into
a “process of racial and cultural awareness, consciousness, and positionality”
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Environmental Justice with explicit recognition of:

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We relied on Dr. Robert Bullard’s (2001) work on environmental justice to inform

our understanding of the problems in the current systems and clarify the goals
of the environmental movement. Currently, “[t]he dominant paradigm exists
to manage, regulate, and distribute risks. As a result, the current system has
(1) institutionalized unequal enforcement, (2) traded human health for profit,
(3) placed the burden of proof on the "victims" and not the polluting industry,
(4) legitimated human exposure to harmful chemicals, pesticides, and hazardous
substances, (5) promoted "risky" technologies such as incinerators, (6) exploited
the vulnerability of economically and politically disenfranchised communities,
(7) subsidized ecological destruction, (8) created an industry around risk
assessment, (9) delayed cleanup actions, and (10) failed to develop pollution
prevention as the overarching and dominant strategy (p 155).”
To challenge the dominant paradigm, Dr. Bullard (2001) proposes an
environmental justice framework based on the following principles:
1. the ingrained nature of race and racism in society
2. the importance of narrative, counter narrative, and the naming of one’s own reality
3. the centrality of motivating factors
Before beginning the research and at checkpoints throughout, the Research Team
considered these three factors in “Reflections on Self,” “Reflections on Self in Relation
to Others,” and “Shifting from Self to System.”
Ethnographic Content Analysis
We relied on Altheide’s (1987) ethnographic content analysis (ECA) as a counter
to the more traditional quantitative content analysis (QCA) (Table 1). ECA’s distinctive
characteristic is its reflexivity and highly interactive exchanges among the investigator,
concepts, data collection, and analysis. Like other forms of ethnographic research,
ECA enables a more complete and nuanced understanding of the meaning behind
forms of communication.

1. The environmental justice framework incorporates the principle of the TABLE 1: Quantitative (QCA) and Ethnographic (ECA) Content Analysis
"right" of all individuals to be protected from environmental degradation. QCA ECA
2. The environmental justice framework adopts a public health model of
Research Goal Verification Discovery; Verification
prevention (elimination of the threat before harm occurs) as the preferred
strategy. Reflexive Research Design Seldom Always
3. The environmental justice framework shifts the burden of proof to
Emphasis Reliability Validity
polluters/dischargers who do harm, discriminate, or who do not give equal
protection to racial and ethnic minorities, and other "protected" classes. Progression from Data Collection, Serial Reflexive; Circular
Analysis, Interpretation
4. The environmental justice framework would allow disparate impact and
statistical weight, as opposed to "intent," to infer discrimination. Primary Researcher Involvement Data Analysis + Interpretation All Phases
5. The environmental justice framework redresses disproportionate impact
Sample Random or Stratified Purposive and Theoretical
through "targeted" action and resources.
Pre-Structured Categories All Some

Data Entry Points Once Multiple

Narrative Description + Comments Seldom Always

Concepts Emerge During Research Seldom Always

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ALEC SPANGLER + LAUREN SOSA

Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Assistant Teaching Professor of Landscape Architecture

RACIAL JUSTICE, ANTI-DISCRIMINATION, AND DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES

EXPANSIVE REPRESENTATION: Figure 1. Semiotic analysis tool adapted from Raaphorst and Peirce

AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR

LANDSCAPE GRAPHIC PRECEDENT
FROM THE ENVIRONMENTAL
JUSTICE MOVEMENT
Authors: Lauren Sosa, Alec Spangler
Research Assistants: Mahsa Adib, Emmy Titcombe

Visual Categorization: 3 Stages of Semiotic Inquiry

A key premise of this study is that the visual artifacts of the environmental justice
movement can be analyzed as landscape design graphics, and that analysis rests on
the assumption that the visual artifacts are part of an intentional process of landscape
change. There is scholarly precedent for overlapping the categories of activism
and design: use of the terms “Design Activism” and “Design as Activism” suggests
that aspects of activism and social movements not formally associated with design
professions may be analyzed as forms of design (Thorpe, 2008; Markussen, 2013).

Visual artifacts that are part of an effort to change institutional and cultural standards
cannot be reliably analyzed according to those same standards without additional
contextualization (Grindon, 2019). We adopted a semiotic analysis tool developed
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by Kevin Raaphorst (2019), which was in turn based on Charles Sanders Peirce’s
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model of a sign as a function of an object, a representation of the object, and the

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interpretation of the representation by an audience (Fig. 1). Raaphorst’s goal was

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to create a framework for visual analysis of landscape graphics that accounts for
circumstances of the graphics’ production and reception (i.e. their social context).

This framework shares ECA's priorities of context-sensitivity, flexibility, and reflexivity,

while adding a useful organizational structure for categorizing and coding data. Our
adopted semiotic analysis tool provides 3 stages of inquiry based on the "Intended
Concept," the "Visualization" itself, and the "Interpreted Concept" (Raaphorst, 2017;
Rose, 2012) (Fig. 1), which allows inventory of the subject in its social context.
Investigating the connections between these stages allows for a higher level of
contextual analysis. For example, analyzing the relationship between the “Intended
Concept” and the “Interpreted Concept” frames the question: How well does the
visualization work?
REFERENCED WORKS
Altheide, D.L. (1987). Reflections: Ethnographic content analysis. Qual Sociol 10, 65–77.
https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00988269
Bullard, Robert D (1989). In Search of the New South: The Black Urban Experience
in the 1970s and 1980s. University of Alabama Press.
Bullard, Robert D. (1987). Invisible Houston: The Black Experience in Boom and Bust.
1st ed, Texas A&M University Press.

Bullard, R. D. (2001). Environmental Justice in the 21st Century: Race Still Matters.
REFLECTION & NEXT STEPS Phylon (1960-), 49(3/4), 151–171.

So far, our research has offered possible answers along two complementary paths:
First, there are important instances landscape change through non-canonical
visualizations. One example is the work of Earlie Hudnall, whose photographs
of Black life in Houston became intertwined with Robert Bullard’s published work
on environmental justice. Second, this expanded field of visualization should
complement traditional drawing conventions, not replace it. Teaching conventions
well and equitably is a way of empowering students. The question becomes how
to disentangle the conventions and basic principles from the power dynamics that
gave rise to them, and to straightforwardly confront this history.
Grindon, Gavin (2009). Disobedient Objects in Bieling, Tom. Design (&) Activism: Perspectives
on Design as Activism and Activism as Design. Mimesis International, pp. 135-157
Markussen, Thomas (2012). The disruptive aesthetics of design activism: enacting design
between art and politics, Design Issues, v. 29 no. 1 pp. 38–50.
Raaphorst, Kevin (2019). More than Meets the Eye: A critical semiotic analysis of landscape
design visualizations, Doctoral thesis, Wageningen University.
Raaphorst et al (2017). The semiotics of landscape design communication: towards a critical
visual research approach in landscape architecture, Landscape Research, 42:1, 120-133.

Moakley, P. (2020). Inside the Cinematography of Moonlight: Images that Inspired James Laxton.
Time Magazine, Vol 196(7). https://time.com/behind-the-visuals-of-moonlight/

Milner, H. R. (2007). Race, Culture, and Researcher Positionality: Working Through Dangers
Seen, Unseen, and Unforeseen. Educational Researcher, 36(7), 388–400.
https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X07309471

Thorpe, Ann (2008). Design as Activism: A Conceptual Tool, paper presented at the
Changing the Change Conference, Turin, Italy, July 10-12.
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ALEC SPANGLER + LAUREN SOSA

Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Assistant Teaching Professor of Landscape Architecture

RACIAL JUSTICE, ANTI-DISCRIMINATION, AND DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES

EXPANSIVE REPRESENTATION:
AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR
LANDSCAPE GRAPHIC PRECEDENT
FROM THE ENVIRONMENTAL
JUSTICE MOVEMENT
Authors: Lauren Sosa, Alec Spangler
Research Assistants: Mahsa Adib, Emmy Titcombe

SAMPLE ANALYSIS: EARLIE HUDNALL AND INVISIBLE HOUSTON

The work of Houston-based photographer Earlie Hudnall has appeared in several
publications tracking the environmental justice movement. One notable example is
the cover image for Dr. Robert Bullard’s (1987) book, Invisible Houston, which described
the unequal investment in Houston’s Black communities compared to the city’s
overall economic expansion. Using this image as a sample illustrates how, as in
ECA research, semiotic coding and analysis of images in social context is not linear.

The original photograph has a different but overlapping sign function from the book
cover design. Both visualizations are illustrations of contrasting urban forms and
express similar values, but the circumstances of their production (which involved
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additional authors) and audiencing are different. The complexity of a visualization’s
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life cycle is itself an argument for its value; it implies that meaningful interactions
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have occurred as the visualization moves through the sign function in multiple
iterations. Without completing a thorough coding, we can begin to hypothesize
answers to 3 main questions of our semiotic analysis tool:

1. Are the methods valued? Documentary photography of urban conditions has

a long history and has been used in landscape architectural contexts to illustrate
challenges and opportunities in the built environment. Hudnall’s original photo and
the modified cover version employ well-known compositional techniques, such as
establishing a clear fore, middle, and background, and signifying meaning through
higher or lower contrast. These are common topics in landscape visualization classes.

2. Is the visualization valued? In addition to the cover of Invisible Houston, Hudnall’s

photograph was used as an interior figure and reused several years later in
the compilation In Search of the New South (Bullard, 1989). Hudnall has shown
similar images (including from the same location in Houston) throughout his long
career, and he is credited with influencing other artists exploring Black experience
(Moakley, 2020).

3. Does the visualization work? The intended concept and the interpreted concept
appear to align. The compositional choices in the original photo and the book
cover design suggest spatial relationships with verifiable connections to the
concept of unequal social investment. The clarity of the photograph enabled the
authors to locate the same vantage point in Google Earth Street View, which
revealed that one side of the street depicted is now a midrise apartment block
and the other is a large parking lot, further evidence that the underlying concept
remains relevant.
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WANDA KNIGHT + PATRICIA KUCKER

Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Penn State Harrisburg;
Professor of Art Education, African American Studies, and Women's, Gender,
Former Interim Director of the Stuckeman School
Professor of Architecture
and Sexuality Studies (UP)

RACIAL JUSTICE, ANTI-DISCRIMINATION, AND DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES

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MICHELLE BAE-DIMITRIADIS
Assistant Professor of Art Education and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

RACIAL JUSTICE, ANTI-DISCRIMINATION, AND DEMOCRATIC PRACTICES

DECOLONIAL GRAPHIC NOVEL:

ANTI-RACIST ECOLOGICAL TALE
FROM MARGIN

DESCRIPTION
This collaborative South Asian tribal refugee youth community-based
research project from 2021-2023 draws on decolonizing-oriented anti-
racist ecological thinking to create graphic novels that comprise several
short stories. Four Karen tribes of teen girls, current residents of Western
New York, participated in the project New Urban Wild Collectives as
collaborative researchers and artists. Taking youth participatory, art-based
research methodologies, this research is grounded in the belief in nature’s
power to harmonize with human life, placing a great value on healing
qualities of nature, and in the refusal of settler colonial imperatives
and racial inequity present in the U.S. ecological landscape. It intends
to make visible undermined and oversighted stories of Indigenous
and anti-race ecology.

The graphic novels The Weeds Story and The Return of Ghetto Land
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are based on their own views and experiences of their relationship with
environment, particularly their critical awareness of the environmentally
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racialized landscape of their urban neighborhoods. Their place-bound

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ecological stories of the past-present-future are a key element of this

critical and artistic journey for the digital graphic novel. The Weeds Story cover image

Taking the subcultural artistic style of anime/manga, our creation of

the digital graphic novel as an informal learning tool uses humor and
a nuanced tone to address liberal, politically-charged content that is often
uncomfortable and tabooed in U.S. formal schooling. In the process, we
identified deep-rooted settler colonial environmental violence and affect,
settler common sense and habits, and histories of colonial earth; named
the masters of broken land; and redressed the legacy of racism. The
graphic novel brings a radical vision for environmental sustainability
and new ethical ecological relations to places from the perspectives
of the minoritized girls of color.
Comic excerpts

A photo strip