Through a focus on Spanish-speaking Catholics, Amanda Baugh will shed light on environmental actors who have been hidden in plain sight. Drawing from ethnographic research conducted across Los Angeles, Baugh demonstrates that minority communities are not merely victims of environmental problems. Instead, many Spanish-speaking Catholics embrace what Baugh calls “la tierra environmentalism,” an embodied ethic of living lightly on the earth that is rooted in a sense of love and respect for God, fellow humans, and the rest of God’s creation. A focus on la tierra environmentalism challenges scholars and activists to rethink who counts as environmental leaders and what counts as environmentalism.

Amanda J. Baugh is Professor and Associate Chair of Religious Studies and Director of the MA Program in Sustainability at California State University, Northridge. She is the author of Falling in Love with Nature: The Values of Latinx Catholic Environmentalism (2024) and God and the Green Divide: Religious Environmentalism in Black and White (2016).

This event is co-sponsored by the Departments of Religious Studies and Chicana and Chicano Studies, the Environmental Studies Program, and the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UCSB.