Voices Unbound Amplifying Perspectives of Disenfranchised Communities to Provoke Environmental Change
A considerable gap exists among the discourses of those who implement environmental policies and the underrepresented communities that disproportionately experience environmental issues. In order to address this, this project asked people throughout Pierce County to document environmental challenges that are impacting them and their community by using enviro-postcards.
These enviro-postcards were distributed to communities and asked what environmental challenges are most important to you and how are you coping with or surviving these challenges?
Concurrently, the project piloted a podcast series to amplify community voices.
Podcast Series
What do people think about environmental challenges and what do they do every day to survive those challenges?
We explore these questions and more in our podcast series: Enviro-Amplify.
Over seven months between 2019 and 2020, we stood in the street, behind booths, in the sunshine and the rain, asking passers by to fill out a postcard to answer these two questions. We chose places where we wouldn’t necessarily find the sorts of people who already had a voice: outside the State Fair, in senior centers, amongst those experiencing homelessness, in parks, outside an ice skating rink, and in local outdoor markets. We collected over 1000 postcards before the coronavirus outbreak took over everyone’s consciousness. Now, we invite you to listen in as we present selections of the postcards we collected and discuss our experiences!
Research Team
Robin Evans-Agnew
School of Nursing, Healthcare Leadership, UW Tacoma
Christopher Schell
School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Tacoma
In the News
‘Voices Unbound’ Seminar Looks at Disenfranchised Communities, Puget Sound Institute
Want to know more?
Contact the team at voicesunbounduwt@gmail.com
