AGYEMAN, Julian K. 1958-

PERSONAL:

Born November 20, 1958. Education: University of Durham, B.Sc., 1980; Middlesex University, M.A., 1987; University of London, Ph.D., 1996.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University, 97 Talbot Ave., Medford, MA 02155. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Tufts University, Medford, MA, tenured faculty member. Member of Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Resources and Massachusetts Environmental Justice Advisory Committee.

MEMBER:

Royal Society of Arts (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Book Award finalist, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), 2006, for Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Bob Evans) Local Environmental Policies and Strategies, Longman, Harlow (New York, NY), 1994.

People, Plants, and Places, Southgate Publishers (Sandford, Crediton, Devon, England), 1995.

(Editor, with Robert D. Bullard and Bob Evans) Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2003.

Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice, New York University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

(Editor, with Sarah Neal) The New Countryside? Ethnicity, Nation, and Exclusion in Contemporary Rural Britain, Policy Press (Bristol, England), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Environmental Planning and Sustainability, edited by Bob Evans and S. Buckingham-Hatfield, Wiley (London, England), 1996; Education for Sustainability, edited by J. Huckle and S. Sterling, Earthscan (London, England), 1996; Cultural Diversity: Developing Museum Audiences in Britain, edited by E. Hooper-Greenbill, Leicester University Press (Leicester, England), 1997; Contested Countryside Cultures, edited by P. Cloke and J. Little, Routledge (London, England), 1997; Environmental Citizenship, edited by A. Dobson and D. Bell, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2006, and Handbook of Sustainable Development, edited by G. Atkinson, S. Dietz, and E. Neumayer, Edward Elgar (London, England). Contributor to academic journals, including Local Government Policy Making, Environmental Education Research, Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Australian Journal of Environmental Education, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, Geoforum, Space and Polity, Environmental Politics, Policy and Management Review, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Geographical Journal, and Built Environment.

SIDELIGHTS:

Julian K. Agyeman told CA: "My motive in being an academic and writer is, quite simply to change the world. I want my books to inspire possibilities, to unleash human potential. My past, present and future research, in effect my life's work, asks three questions: how can we improve the quality of people's lives now and into the future? How do we do this in a just and equitable manner? How do we do all this while living within the capacity of the planet's ecosystems? As an academic and a scholar, writing is our currency, it's part of how we communicate our ideas, how we persuade people and how we progress in our profession. For me writing is pleasurable, but for some it isn't. For me it is like being an artist. I have an idea; I play with my concepts and words (my paint); I rip up my idea and start again and eventually I begin to see a paper taking shape. Major influences on my work are many and varied as my research is, as an environmental social scientist, very transdisciplinary. I therefore utilize different knowledges in the sciences and social sciences such as biology and ecology and sociology and anthropology. One of the most surprising things I have learned in writing is that you can think you're good at writing, at conveying messages, and then an editor comes along who suggests another way of writing your ideas, and you growl and snarl, but when you read it written in the new way, it reads so much better than your text did! This happened to me with the Introduction to Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice. What I'm saying is that we academics and writers need to eat humble pie on many occasions!"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, October, 2003, David R. Orvos, review of Just Sustainabilities: Development in an Unequal World, p. 79.

Journal of the American Planning Association, spring, 2004, Kim Knowles-Yanez, review of Just Sustainabilities, p. 239.

Reference and Research Book News, February, 2006, review of Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice.