This call is intended to foster collaborations between activists (NGOs, think tanks, social movements, or community grassroots organisations, etc.) and the Global Atlas of Environmental Justice project (ejatlas.org). The aims is to support action-research on environmental justice and campaigns or ongoing work in the field, and create public and educational materials dedicated to documenting and unveiling processes of destructive extractivism and dispossession.

About the EJATLAS and ACKnowl-EJ project:

The EJAtlas is an online database and interactive map that documents socio-environmental conflicts, defined as mobilizations by local communities against particular economic activities whereby environmental impacts are a key element of their grievances. It is based on the work of hundreds of collaborators, from the academy, concerned citizens, informal committees, NGOs and other activist groups, who have been documenting environmental and social injustice and supporting communities on the ground for years. It’s been mainly developed under EJOLT, a research project coordinated at ICTA – UAB, and will now continue under the ACKnowl-EJ international project.

The ACKnowl-EJ project (Academic-Activist Co-Produced Knowledge for Environmental Justice) builds on and broadens the Atlas of Environmental Justice. This project emphasizes the transformative potential of citizen movements, ‘participatory’ approaches to environmental politics, and new institutional practices born from diverse knowledge systems, showing how alternatives are often born from resistance. ACKnowl-EJ is a 3 year project funded by the International Social Science Council, coordinated by the Institute of Sciences and Technologies of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Dr. Leah Temper) and Kalpavriksh action group from India (Ashish Kothari).

This call aims to expand the EJATLAs and foster the development of powerful featured maps (see for instance the featured map on Mining Conflicts in Latin America, to support the international day against Chevron Texaco or to denounce the expansion of fracking).  It aims to engage in further experimentation on collaborative research and co-production of knowledge for social change.

Objectives of the call:

  • Foster ongoing or upcoming Environmental Justice (EJ) related campaigns worldwide and contribute to their visibility
  • Contribute to improve the coverage of the EJAtlas geographically and
    thematically
  • Design Featured Maps to support EJ related campaign. The EJAtlas and Acknowl-EJ project will offer support to technically develop them and to disseminate the work developed under this call.

What are the small projects about:

  • Adding cases to the EJAtlas to complete a specific database and create new Featured Maps (see the EJATLAS database form)
  • Producing relevant featured maps.
  • Designing original Featured Maps and searching for relevant GIS data, stories, images or infographics to display on the map.
  • Presenting a plan for research, dissemination, campaigning with the produced map
    The project must be completed before December 2016.
  • 2-4 Small contracts of between 1000-1500 euros will be granted in this round. The amount of the contract will vary according to the proposed project.

Who can present a proposal?

This call is meant for civil society organizations and networks that work on Environmental Justice related struggles around the world. Organizations from any country are invited to present a small project. Applicants must be able to issue an invoice. Proposals can be submitted and developed in English and/or Spanish.
Other languages can be considered, but will need to be translated to English or Spanish.

How can you apply?

Please send your application to ejoltmap@gmail.com with the subject
“political ecology cartography” and the following documents:

Application Form with information on your organization and the project
proposed. (find it here:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzkqnLesuUb6MHBIVmJsRzRGbDg&usp=sharing)

(Optional) Share similar maps or campaigns you have worked on in the
past highlighting the successful aspects in terms of visibility and/or
collaborative process.

Criteria to assess projects

While projects that cover any EJ related issue or regions of the World
can be presented we will particularly value proposals that :

  • Expand and improve the EJAtlas in those issues and areas that are currently under represented or absent or come from
    applicants from under-represented groups, regions, countries and
    institutions.
  • Enhance a collaborative bottom-up process of data collection.
  • Aid new or ongoing EJ campaigns and work.
  • Propose an outcome that is creative, original and politically powerful/robust.
  • Are relevant.

Call timeline

The deadline to present proposals is August 31, 2016.

On September 12, awarded organizations will be contacted.

Projects must be finalized before the end of December 2016.