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Nik Heynen

@nik-heynen.bsky.social
314 followers 197 following 40 posts

Geographer, University of Georgia | Spelman College | UGA's Cornelia Walker Bailey Program on Land, Sea and Agriculture | Shell to Shore | Birkley Heynen Environmental Foundation linktr.ee/cornbreadheynen

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Reposted by Nik Heynen
Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Zero new NSF grants in sociology, anthropology, political science and economics. The agenda of this US govt is to stop documenting the society in which we live while they are destroying it. We will find other ways to track and explain our times and fight to restore our research funding.
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
“"For Cornelia, that seed was a strategy. For Maurice, it’s a legacy to be nurtured. And for everyone else in Hogg Hummock, it’s a reminder that as long as the red pea grows, Sapelo is not just remembered but alive."
southernliving.com
This Rare Georgia Red Pea Is Helping Protect A Historic Geechee Community
The Sapelo Island red pea has a significance that goes beyond the plate. Maurice Bailey, following in the footsteps of his late mother and activist Cornelia Walker Bailey, believes that as long as the...
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Marianna Pavlovskaya (she/her) @mpavlovskaya.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Much gratitude to reviewers Priscilla Ferreira, @nik-heynen.bsky.social Nik Heynen, Eric Sarmiento, and Luke Bergmann for their engaging commentaries! It was great honor to participate in this conversation. #SolidarityCities Published by the @uminnpress.bsky.social.
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Marianna Pavlovskaya (she/her) @mpavlovskaya.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Excited that The AAG Review of Books by @geographers.bsky.social just published our book forum Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/283E6.... Reviewers Priscilla Ferreira, @nik-heynen.bsky.social, Eric Sarmiento, and Luke Bergmann.
tandfonline.com
Solidarity Cities: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation
Published in The AAG Review of Books (Ahead of Print, 2026)
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Excited to share the results of an American Association of Geographers taskforce on "Public and Engaged Scholarship in Geography" I participated in. I am grateful to AAG Past President @RebeccaLave for inviting me. The AAG has created this website to host our findings: www.aag.org/program/publ...
aag.org
Public and Engaged Scholarship in Geography - AAG
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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 16/04/2026
As the planet gets warmer and the rains fall harder, the future of flood control is looking less like a wall and something more like a park. Eric Klinenberg considers infrastructure that doesn’t just displace water but soaks it in. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/dzBOHH
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
Can Sponge Cities Save Us from the Coming Floods?
As the planet gets warmer and the rains fall harder, the future of flood control is looking less like a wall and something more like a park.
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Dominic Boyer @dominicboyer.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
New episode of the Cultures of Energy podcast! We talk energy democracy and the politics of dealing with recalcitrant utilities together w/ Nikki Luke! Listen & enjoy to this, the 250th episode of this humble podcast. @cymene.bsky.social @culanth.bsky.social @4sweb.bsky.social tinyurl.com/4nxnanfn
tinyurl.com
Cultures of Energy: 250 - Energy Democracy (feat. Nikki Luke)
Dominic and Cymene celebrate the 250th episode of the podcast with tales of steamy avian encounter. And then (16:14) we welcome Nikki Luke to the podcast, author of the brand-new book (MIT Press, 20...
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Nikki Luke @nikki-luke.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
How do electricity and regulation of this vital infrastructure contribute to inequality in Atlanta? How have consumer, EJ, and labor movements strived over generations to democratize the utility? I consider these questions in my book Electric Life out today open access with @mitpress.bsky.social
Book cover of pink book titled Electric Life: Utility Regulation and the Fight for Energy Democracy
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Our fourth episode features Ernest McIntosh Sr. who has long known the value of hard work. In this episode, Ernest speaks about his connection with the Georgia coast, his experiences working on the water, and the significance that Georgia's oceans still hold in his life.
theshellcast.buzzsprout.com
"An Oar And An Anchor" Ernest McIntosh Sr. - Shell to Shore presents: the SHELLCAST
Shell to Shore Presents: the SHELLCAST! Episode 4!Welcome back to ShellCast, a new podcast from the Shell to Shore team about oysters and shoreline conservation. Our fourth episode features Ernes...
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Antipode @antipodeonline.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Join us at the @geographers.bsky.social annual meeting on March 18th for the Antipode Lecture, “Knowing the World through the Politics of Invitation and Trespass: Letters to Mrs. Cornelia” by @nik-heynen.bsky.social antipodeonline.org/2026/03/11/2...
antipodeonline.org
The 2026 Antipode AAG Lecture—“Knowing the World through the Politics of Invitation and Trespass: Letters to Mrs. Cornelia” - Antipode Online
Prof. Nik HeynenDepartment of Geography, University of Georgia If you will be attending the AAG annual meeting in San Francisco, CA, please join us (either in-person or virtually) for the 2026 Antipod...
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Verso Books @versobooks.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
For decades, @davidharvey.org has been teaching Marx's work. This new book opens up the mental universe of that work for a general reader.
youtu.be
THE STORY OF CAPITAL by David Harvey | What Everyone Should Know About How Capital Works
In The Story of Capital, the world's foremost Marxist geographer and economist takes us by the hand on a tour of contemporary capitalism. Over the decades, David Harvey has won the acclaim of…
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
New chapter drop: "White Masculinist Pasts→Black Feminist Futures: Lessons from Spelman College’s Victory Garden as Black World-Making" by Whitney Barr and Nik Heynen in the important new book edited by @alisonhopealkon.bsky.social and @julianagyeman.bsky.social mitpress.mit.edu/978026255369...
mitpress.mit.edu
Nurturing Food Justice
Amid the intersecting crises of climate change and inequalities, Nurturing Food Justice offers an unflinching and inspiring take on the ways communities are ...
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Looks like I’m getting into the podcast game. If you are interested in coastal issues, oysters, restoration, and other related things, Shell to Shore’s new Shell Cast might be for you. First episode features Pete Malinowski talking about his work with the Billion Oyster Project based in NYC.
open.spotify.com
"That's What It's All About" Pete Malinowski
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Stephen Ramos @sjramos.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Folk Engineering: Planning Southern Regionalism.Out now: uncpress.org/978146969011...
uncpress.org
Folk Engineering
During the interwar years, the discourse of regional planning profoundly reformulated the spatiality of race and place in the United States. In the South, Ji...
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
The Honey Drippers were a band of Black high school kids from Queens brought together by Georgia-born songwriter Roy C. Hammond. When all record labels were scared to put this anti-Nixon jam out, Hammond released it himself. It’s been sampled by many hip hop artists. Rest in Power Mr. Hammond.
youtu.be
Impeach the President
YouTube video by The Honey Drippers - Topic
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
New Black owned bookstore alert in ATL: “This year, it felt necessary,” Hallmon said. “When books are banned, and stories are erased, especially Black and brown stories, we have to build safety within our community.”
theatlantavoice.com
Village Books brings community and culture to downtown Atlanta
Village Books on Mitchell Street, opened by Dr. Lakeysha Hallmon, offers a diverse selection of Black authors and fosters community and cultural connection.
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
“Our defeat was always implicit in the victory of others; our wealth has always generated our poverty by nourishing the prosperity of others—the empires and their native overseers.” -Eduardo Galeano
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 29/12/2025
“There’s a famous quote from author Tony Cade Bambara that often gets repeated in activist circles, that it’s the role of the artist to “make the revolution irresistible.” For over six decades, Emory Douglas has been showing creatives how to do just that.”
kqed.org
‘Emory Douglas: In Our Lifetime’ Shows the Evolution of a Revolutionary Artist | KQED
The Black Panther Party artist’s new exhibit in San Francisco features works from the past 15 years.
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Julian Agyeman @julianagyeman.bsky.social · 26/12/2025
“An expansive follow-up to the field-defining Cultivating Food Justice, this edited volume provides an overview of food justice scholar-activism, redefining the field and looking to future theoretical and political futures.” Available now for preorder! mitpress.mit.edu/978026255369...
mitpress.mit.edu
Nurturing Food Justice
Amid the intersecting crises of climate change and inequalities, Nurturing Food Justice offers an unflinching and inspiring take on the ways communities are ...
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
In very good company here in @proghumgeog.bsky.social with Pavithra Vasudevan and Laura Pulido reflecting on the importance of Laura’s 2000 “Rethinking Environmental Racism” published in Annals of @geographers.bsky.social
journals.sagepub.com
Classics in human geography revisited: Laura Pulido’s “Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California” (Annals of the Association of American Geographers...
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Antipode @antipodeonline.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Apply now -- deadline December 20th
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Bram Büscher @brambuscher.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Please consider joining our 2026 Political Ecology spring school! Planetary Political Ecologies: Environmental disasters, conflicts and possibilities in & beyond capitalism ▶️ 13-17 April 2026 ▶️ Wageningen With Annah Zhu, Erik Swyngedouw, Sumit Vij & others! wass.crs.wur.nl/courses/deta...
wass.crs.wur.nl
WASS Courses
Prof. Bram Büscher (Wageningen University) Prof. Robert Fletcher (Wageningen University) Prof. Erik Swyngedouw (Manchester University) Dr. Annah Zhu (Wageningen University)  Dr. Sumit Vij (Wageningen University)
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Lindsay Naylor @lbnaylor.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
@geographers.bsky.social - if this is true there is almost no external social science funding left in the U.S. for graduate students.
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Antipode @antipodeonline.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Apply now — Antipode’s 10th Institute for the Geographies of Justice, “Organizing and Solidarity in a Polycrisis”, deadline 20 December 2025 antipodeonline.org/2025/11/13/a...
antipodeonline.org
Apply now—Antipode’s 10th Institute for the Geographies of Justice, “Organizing and Solidarity in a Polycrisis” - Antipode Online
Toronto, Ontario, Canadathe traditional territory of the Huron Wendat, the Seneca and the Mississaugas of the Credit June 1st – 5th, 2026 The contemporary global landscape is increasingly defined by w...
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Snippet from the work we are doing on the Georgia coast.
youtu.be
Creating Living Shorelines in Georgia: Mission Possible
YouTube video by The Nature Conservancy
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Antipode @antipodeonline.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Announcing Antipode’s 10th Institute for the Geographies of Justice (IGJ), "Organizing and Solidarity in a Polycrisis", Toronto, 1-5 June 2026 antipodeonline.org/institute-fo... -- submit your application by 20 December 2025
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Jamie Peck @jamiepeck.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Pls share: Applications open for Summer Institute in Economic Geography, Toronto, 5-10 July 2026 Featuring: Lars Coenen, Karen Lai, Devika Narayan and Stefan Ouma Early career economic geographers (broadly defined) are welcome to apply. Stipends available. www.econgeog.net/Toronto2026
econgeog.net
Toronto 2026 | Summer Institute in Economic Geography
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Taught Ntozake Shange’s “If I can Cook / You Know God Can” and “Bocas: A Daughter’s Geography” today. Felt worth sharing for folks who might not yet know this poem or haven’t read it in a while.
blackagendareport.com
POEM: Bocas: A Daughter's Geography, Ntozake Shange, 1983 | Black Agenda Report
Ntozake Shange reminds us that whether we come from Haiti, Savannah, Luanda, or Palestine, we may not speak the same language, but “we fight the same old men.”
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In These Times @inthesetimes.com · 22/09/2025
“Fascism is not new. It wears a new dress, buys new boots—but it can only reproduce fear, denial, and the loss of will to fight.” Toni Morrison’s timeless warning on fascism & censorship still rings out today. inthesetimes.com/article/toni...
Illustrated cover with two women in front of a window, one thoughtful and the other with a defiant look. Text: "Toni Morrison on Fascism and Censorship."Text describing June Jordan and Toni Morrison's involvement in a group of Black women writers in NYC, addressing oppression and liberation.Illustration of a hand writing in a notebook, which appears to be on fire, set against a red background. The image is overlaid on fiery flames, conveying urgency and intensity. Text below discusses the erosion of public spaces and services, highlighting the struggle for freedom and resistance against silence.Text titled "Peril" by Toni Morrison discusses authoritarian regimes suppressing dissenting writers through control, censorship, and fear. In the background, blurred barbed wire conveys restriction and oppression. The tone is critical and thought-provoking.
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
“Setting forms of identity, such as race, against class as fundamentally opposed bases of politics misrepresents how building working-class power works on the ground, both today and throughout history.”
hammerandhope.org
The False Choice Between Identity Politics and Economic Populism
A left that ignores the differences within the working class will never build power.
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
Proposals to “repair” or “restore” the planet therefore must answer the questions: Which ecosystems—and whose—will we repair and restore? Which—and whose—flourishings will we enable? What planet are we making, and for whom? @alybatt.bsky.social
dissentmagazine.org
The Value of Nature - Dissent Magazine
Why have some gifts of nature remained free?
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
In the tradition of “can’t stop, won’t stop”…. ”In these cities, climate justice is more than a policy priority – it’s a survival strategy…. As federal funding evaporates, many cities are strengthening ties with frontline organizations — the local experts who’ve been leading the fight for decades.”
rollingstone.com
As Trump Guts Climate Justice Work, Coastal Cities Are Pushing Back
Federal support for climate resilience and environmental justice is collapsing. Cities across the country are stepping up.
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
“Memphis history is full of destructive alliances between local government and major industry, forcing working-class Black neighborhoods to accept ecological and corporal violence in order to boost the region's economy…But AI data centers also represent a troubling new frontier…..”
scalawagmagazine.org
Musk’s Memphis xAI data center and the making of a ‘Digital Delta’ – Scalawag
The fight over xAI’s Colossus highlights a close alliance between Trump-style fascism and big tech in the South.
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
“We’ve asked…the CEOs of banks like Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, insurance companies like Chubb and AIG — we’ve asked them to come to our communities, breathe the air, drink the water and get a taste of what we live every day. And they’ve refused to come. So we brought our community here to them.”
democracynow.org
“Toxic Air”: Meet the Mother-Daughter Duo Fighting Pollution in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley”
We’re joined by a mother-daughter duo from Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” Roishetta and Kamea Ozane are part of a group of environmental activists on a national tour to confront the financial backers of ...
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
"They call us terrorists. We are being terrorised! Our doors are kicked open at four in the morning and our families dragged off to prison, never to be seen again....We are the ones who suffer all these horrors. They are the terrorists." #Apartheid then, Apartheid now.
leguesswho.com
Unearthed: An exclusive interview with Abdullah Ibrahim published by The Wire in 1984
Abdullah Ibrahim performs at Le Guess Who? 2022 on Sunday, 13 November.
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Important thinking going on at Clark Atlanta University this Fall. “Through A Du Boisian Lens: Informing Public Policy Through Empirical Social Research”.
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
Interesting #abolitionist connections to #energy geography here: “….whaling’s role in funding abolition and providing economic opportunities for free Black Americans is undeniable. It was, in many ways, a bridge between the world of forced labor and the energy-driven economy of the modern age.”
theconversation.com
Abolition wasn’t fueled by just moral or economic concerns – the booming whaling industry also helped sink slavery
New research shows that when the whaling industry in the US produced more products, the proportion of slaves also declined in the 1700s and 1800s.
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 29/07/2025
The Gullah Geechee, descendants from enslaved West Africans who were forced to work in the Carolina Lowcountry, are struggling to preserve sacred traditions as wealthy northerners swallow up valuable property around Hilton Head Island. nyti.ms/4mmAwdW
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Guardian US @us.theguardian.com · 29/07/2025
The Lowcountry Food Bank has provided culturally relevant foods like okra, squash and yams to the Gullah Geechee people in South Carolina for 20 years.
theguardian.com
The US food bank keeping Gullah Geechee farming traditions alive: ‘Our local food is like no other’
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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
No effective abolitionist and certainly no enslaved person walked up to a total stranger expressing dismay over the passage of the fugitive slave act to say, “well this is a racist country, what did you expect.” People kept organizing and building hope through collective resistance and rebellion.
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Inquest @inquest.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
"How do different political blocs emerge in different places to influence carceral developments?" @lydiajean.bsky.social with Ruth WIlson Gilmore, ‪@craiggilmore.bsky.social & Judah Schept in Part 1 of their new carceral geography series. inquest.org/uneven-e...
inquest.org
Uneven Expansions - Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Craig Gilmore, Judah Schept, & Lydia Pelot-Hobbs - Inquest
In the fight to abolish prisons, it’s vital to attend simultaneously to the scale of U.S. mass incarceration and how it manifests differently in specific regions.
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Akira Drake Rodriguez @akirarodriguez.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
I have a chapter in the New Planning Histories edited volume. Lots of great chapters covering a range of topics and cities! link.springer.com/book/9789819...
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
“The #South got something to say.” André 3000 (very teachable) “The term ‘the Dirty South’ developed as a means to define hip hop music emerging from the Southeastern United States and was quickly understood as an abbreviation for the history and development of Black culture in the South.”
youtu.be
The Dirty South
YouTube video by Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
Toni Morrison (1981) for political ecologists: "I must confess, though, that I sometimes lose interest in the characters and get much more interested in the trees and animals....my editor says 'Would you stop this beauty business.' And I say 'Wait, wait until I tell you about these ants.'"
newrepublic.com
‘The Language Must Not Sweat’
A conversation with Toni Morrison.
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Boston Review @bostonreview.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
“She wrote from her experience in a woman’s body and a dark skin, though never solely ‘as’ or ‘for.’ Sharply critical of chauvinism of all kinds, she was too aware of democracy’s failures to let herself embrace false integrations.” Adrienne Rich on June Jordan, born on this day in 1936:
bostonreview.net
The Witness Takes a Stand - Boston Review
June Jordan wrote from her experience in a woman’s body and a dark skin, though never solely “as” or “for.”
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Finally got to listen to @demonicgrounds.bsky.social on @blkstudies-podcast.bsky.social and it was great. Highly recommended. Also a good reminder that it’s time for me to re-read “The Bluest Eye” (and “Song of Solomon” too).
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Thinking about existing policy to be used to enact #reparations? Not long ago @nikki-luke.bsky.social and I were asked to boil down the main points from a chapter we wrote for @nextcity.org. The result was this op-ed titled "How Cities Are Experimenting With Reparations in Urban Policy”.
nextcity.org
How Cities Are Experimenting With Reparations in Urban Policy
Op-ed: Land banking in Atlanta and community solar in New Orleans offer a roadmap for embedding reparative politics in city policies.
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
Seems like a good time to revisit Mab Segrest. “Memoir of a Race Traitor” became a classic text of white antiracist practice. bell hooks called it a “courageous and daring [example of] the reality that political solidarity, forged in struggle, can exist across differences.”
mabsegrest.com
Mab Segrest | Memoir of a Race Traitor
Memoir of a Race Traitor: Fighting Racism in the American South
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
“The lethality of many prisons, jails, and detention centers also lies in the cages' infrastructures, as many are built on toxic wastelands or sites that have already been destroyed by climate change, improper agricultural practices, and climate disasters.”
scalawagmagazine.org
Abolition in the Era of Climate Change – Scalawag
As extreme temperatures and climate disasters rage on, incarcerated folks bear the brunt of the devastation.
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Nik Heynen @nik-heynen.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
#SapeloIsland’s #HoggHummock is one of the last #GullahGeechee island communities, but it's fighting for survival on multiple fronts. Rising #sea levels threaten to #flood the land, while development pressures risk changing the community's character and pushing out residents…. #AJC #SOLO #S2S
youtu.be
Can oyster shells save a sinking island off Georgia's coast?
YouTube video by Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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