GRASSROOTS MOBILIZATIONS IN THE SOUTHWEST FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to characterize activities of an Albuquerque based organization called the SouthWest Organizing Project. Aligning with other people of color, Chicanos in the Southwest connect to a national and international movement for environmental and economic justice to tackle the negative impacts of global restructuring. This paper presents issues and strategies regarding the expansion of Intel Corporation, the poisoning in high tech employment, anti-NAFTA position, inadequate infrastructure, and the placement of a courthouse in a long-standing community. Armed with knowledge, oppositional consciousness, principled strategies, and a politics of engagement, environmental justice activists are inserting themselves into questions of international economic integration, local economic development, neighborhood change including issues of gentrification, infrastructure, tax abatements, natural resource management, zoing, and an array of development issues.

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