Navigating complexities of community engagement in urban environmental stewardship through Milwaukee’s WaterMarks project

Keywords: community geography, community engagement, university-community partnerships, environmental stewardship, environmental justice
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 53

Abstract

Our cities face significant challenges such as environmental degradation, rapid urbanization, and related health risks. In many cities, residents are taking actions to make a difference in the natural and social environments of their communities. WaterMarks, a public art initiative based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, invites Milwaukee residents and neighborhoods to explore their connections to the social and natural environment through public art, collaborating with scientists, artists, and community. This project will install series of markers at selected vulnerable neighborhoods in Milwaukee, calling attention to unique points of interest in Milwaukee’s “water story”. Different modes of engaging residents to their water systems take place at each marker site, such as neighborhood walks led by artists and scientists, workshops, selecting letters for markers led by neighborhood project teams, and contributing to digital content for marker installations. The ultimate goal is that all markers act as a city-scale network and reflect the water story of Milwaukee. A community-university working group is being convened for this and to sustain programming around markers. This paper looks at complexities that emerge in engaging communities and how they are navigated in three aspects of this project; 1. Forming of neighborhood project teams 2. Engagement in project activities 3. Forming of community-university working group. It also develops a conceptual framework for community engagement connecting community geography and environmental justice.