Rubin Patterson – författare

Insufficient attention has been given to the environment in Africana studies within the academy. In Greening Africana Studies, Rubin Patterson initiates an important conversation explaining why and how the gap between these two disciplines can and should be bridged. His comprehensive book calls for a green African transnationalism and focuses on the mission and major paradigms that identify the respective curriculum, research interests, and practices.  In his original work, Patterson demonstrates the ways in which black communities are harmed by local environmental degradation and global climate change. He shows that many local unwanted land use sites (LULUs), such as brownfields and toxic release inventory facilities, are disproportionately located in close proximity to neighborhoods of color, but also to colleges and universities with Africana studies programs. Arguing that such communities are not aggressively engaging in environmental issues, Greening Africana Studies also provides examples of how Africana studies students as well as members of black communities can prepare for green careers.

Insufficient attention has been given to the environment in Africana studies within the academy. In Greening Africana Studies, Rubin Patterson initiates an important conversation explaining why and how the gap between these two disciplines can and should be bridged. His comprehensive book calls for a green African transnationalism and focuses on the mission and major paradigms that identify the respective curriculum, research interests, and practices.  In his original work, Patterson demonstrates the ways in which black communities are harmed by local environmental degradation and global climate change. He shows that many local unwanted land use sites (LULUs), such as brownfields and toxic release inventory facilities, are disproportionately located in close proximity to neighborhoods of color, but also to colleges and universities with Africana studies programs. Arguing that such communities are not aggressively engaging in environmental issues, Greening Africana Studies also provides examples of how Africana studies students as well as members of black communities can prepare for green careers.

The African American experience since the 19th century has included the resettlement of people from slavery to freedom, agriculture to industry, South to North, and rural to urban centres. This book is a documentary history of this process over more than 200 years in Toledo, Ohio. The volume includes articles from the Toledo Blade and local Black press, excerpts of doctoral and masters theses, and other specialist and popular writings from and about Toledo itself.

In this book, discussions on African brain circulation and transnational society provide new insights and point to fertile research and policy agendas. Today, a globally important dilemma concerns citizens who either depart from their homeland to enhance their life chances in a rich society - but possibly contribute to a brain drain for their homeland - or stay home and work - but possibly contribute to a brain waste since conditions at home will not allow them to contribute commensurately with their capability. Increasingly, scholars on the subject of global South-to-West emigrants argue that it is not just a possibility of a brain drain occurring when citizens emigrate or brain waste occurring when they stay home, but rather a brain gain when they emigrate strategically and contribute to development in the homeland.