Mapping For Change

Welcome to Mapping for Change

This initiative aims to map the landscape of environmental injustice, and document how people and communities in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough are organizing against it to inform the conversation of what building back better—or differently, with an attention to equity and justice—might mean on these lands.

The project will document how racialization and class are implicated in the experience of environmental harm in this region. Dynamics of environmental injustice may be at play in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough, and strive to systematically map this injustice, and resistance to it.

What is environmental (in)justice?

Environmental injustice is defined as the phenomenon in which racialized and poor communities experience disproportionate exposure to environmental burdens (i.e., living next to environmentally polluting facilities) and fewer environmental benefits (i.e., access to green space). It is identified in Canada that settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and inequality have produced and perpetuate environmental harm in Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) communities, from the siting of hazardous facilities to lack of clean drinking water

But why Nogojiwanong/Peterborough?

Nogojiwanong/Peterborough is a community defined by deep inequities with a long legacy of industrial environmental harm, which renders it an important site of research. .

The city of Nogojiwanong/Peterborough has a legacy of environmental harm. Dubbed “Electric City”, General Electric was once the city’s biggest employer, employing tens of thousands of people in its 125-year history in Peterborough. The environmental and health costs of these jobs have been borne by working class employees, who have fought a decades-long battle with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board to be compensated for cancers they say are a result of their work at the plant.

Across Peterborough County, racialized people make up 4.4% of the population and Indigenous peoples (including those living in Curve Lake and Hiawatha First Nations) make up 6.3% of the population. This project seeks to understand their experiences. Is it the case these racialized and Indigenous communities experience disproportionate environmental burdens? How do class and gender fit into this frame?