Cultivating Repair on Historic Landscapes: Co-Creating an Environmental Justice Learning Model

Faculty Mentors

Dr. Troy Wipongwii and Dr. Sara Bon Harper

Project Description

Initiated by and in collaboration with the Council of Descendant Advisors, W&M students will develop and host a youth summer program at Highland centered on introspective relations to land and food justice. 

Historic plantations have been painful places for generations of enslaved and free African Americans and Indigenous people. Racial injustices continue well beyond the end of legal slavery and contribute to multi-generational alienation from rural and agricultural landscapes that otherwise might enhance wellbeing and community belonging.  

Framed and led by James Monroe’s Highland’s Council of Descendant Advisors, this project addresses this disconnection by engaging community members and undergraduate students in an exploration of the ecological and cultural components of local food systems.  

Drawing on William & Mary’s research and teaching strengths, the Institute for Integrative Conservation (IIC), faculty, students, and descendant community members will co-develop a learning model to be applied and tested at Highland, a component of William & Mary’s Office of Strategic Cultural Partnerships. This proposed humanities-centered learning model will bridge disciplines, communities, and knowledge forms to demonstrate how histories, cultures, and ecology are interrelated. he learning model outcomes include ameliorating participants’ relationships with historically painful landscapes and providing some repair of generational harm. The result will inspire community members—young and old—to develop new ecological relationships previously displaced by plantation violence.   

Highland and the Institute for Integrative Conservation, both integral components of William & Mary, propose continuing community-focused environmental justice work initiated by the Council of Descendant Advisors (highland.org/descendant-advisors/) whose ancestors were tied to Highland either during slavery or after the Civil War. The Council’s long-term vision is to use the historic plantation landscape as a space for healing and new growth with a focus on younger generations.  

W&M students will work with the Council to develop and host a youth summer program at Highland centered on introspective relations to land and food justice from the critical lens of plantation legacies and food systems and led by Black farmers and/or growers of color. 

Number of Students

2

Prerequisites and Required Skills:

Background in food systems, ecology, environmental justice, sociology, and sustainable agriculture would all be beneficial but not required.

Travel Required

Students will travel throughout the spring and summer to Highland, outside of Charlottesville. Students will camp at Highland several times through the summer when leading summer programs and when meeting with partners.

Project ID - Format

25-006-25 - CRP Year