My dissertation builds on theories of environmental racism, which have generally focused on the inequitable distribution of pollution or other hazards, to consider how the management of environmental amenities and benefits is exclusionary. I argue that the way nature is cultivated in parks and nature preserves contributes to environmental racism by presuming that science is an neutral and objective way to understand nature. My research shows how this approach leads natural areas programs to inequity as the mere absence or mismanagement of nature, and to sideline community groups who do not have an inherent interest in science.

Data-driven policies are seen as essential for achieving health equity because they offer calculable representations of racial disparities in heath, like rates of COVID-19 infection. In Chicago, local government actors employ metrics like these as stand-ins for racial inequity and intervene to correct them. However, the broader effects of systemic racism in employment and housing are not necessarily being addressed due to the focus on measurable outcomes. I have explored these themes in a project with Professor Claire Decoteau where we use the case of COVID-19 in Chicago to consider why policies that claimed to be acting to produce racial equity largely did so by pitching interventions toward epidemiological statistics rather than providing direct relief to Chicago residents.