Jayme Walenta

• Ph.D. Geography, University of British Columbia
• Lecturer at Ernst & Young

In this article, we explore rights of nature (RoN) as an emerging rights-based environmental governance that intends to reframe nature from property to an entity with a right to exist unharmed. Its proponents claim this is a paradigm shift that reworks the imbalanced human–nature hierarchy. We interrogate this claim using data collected from more t...

Achieving net-zero targets and climate stabilization will require better accounting for the immense amount of carbon naturally stored belowground. We propose ‘carbon parks’ as a conservation tool and financial instrument to protect and value carbon-rich ecosystems.

As part of a special section on academic knowledge production in an age of climate disruption, this article engages with broad academic discussions on the intersection of conference travel and climate action. Specifically, we undertake a carbon footprint assessment of the travel emissions associated with the American Association of Geographers (AAG...

The key measurement standard used by the private sector to measure the carbon emission impact of an organization is the corporate carbon footprint. Known as the GHG Protocol, this standard was created in 2001 through a multi-stakeholder collaboration and is now used by thousands of companies globally. This article discusses the origins of the Proto...

This article intervenes in research on rising rates of food insecurity among undergraduates at U.S. universities. We find that the University of Texas undergraduate experience with food mirrors that of many other large U.S. universities, where about half of the student population experience either marginal or very low food security. Like others bef...

This article builds on and extends geographic calls for creative methodologies and critical geographic pedagogies, by tracing the formation of the zine, "Across the Street: An Environmental Justice Zine about Kids, Industry, and Health". Central to a study of toxic poisoning in the East Cesar Chavez neighborhood of Austin, Texas, one of five histor...

This chapter extends theorizations of the corporation through the diverse economies project, a project that makes visible the multiplicitous economic practices operating outside the strict capitalocentric script. To do this, I take up the topic of Enron Corporation’s downfall and aftermath by promoting diverse corporate subjectivities in the form o...

With the retreat of the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, the campaign to enroll corporations and other private sector actors into the climate governing arena has accelerated. The tools used by such actors in addressing climate change are similarly expanding. While carbon footprints and carbon offsets have been previously underscored...

Courtroom ethnographies are very rare in English-, German-, and Spanish-language legal geography. Yet courtrooms are dense spaces through which legal subjects, spaces, and instruments are performed, created, disciplined, and managed. In this article, we develop a feminist geographic ethnography of the court. This approach attends to the affective,...

This article argues for a more sustained use of courtroom ethnography by geographers as a means to research legal phenomena, especially in matters of court trials. To do this, I begin by referencing two main threads of courtroom ethnography conducted in disciplines outside geography, specifically the spaces of the courthouse and courtrooms and the...

Corporate carbon footprint assessments have been employed by hundreds of the world's largest corporations in effort to take seriously the role of climate change for a company's operations. These assessments differ from personal footprints in that to produce credible and transparent calculations, companies follow established reporting guidelines. Th...

In following the work of Wals (2012) we contend that the future of sustainable education necessitates a deep and reflexive engagement with three elements, (1) stakeholder engagement and activism, (2) critical perspectives, and (3) applied experiences. We arrive here by way of reflections centered on a project based learning course in the Environmen...

This paper evaluates the foodscape of Texas A&M University’s main campus in an effort to understand rates of food security as linked to food access at a tier one University. To do this, we employ two methodological approaches. An ArcGIS analysis documents the physical attributes associated with the foodscape, including food nutritional content and...

This paper queries the concept of corporate personhood by investigating how metaphors of the body were deployed in court testimony during Enron's corporate fraud trial in 2006. Two distinct metaphors are discussed as they relate to representations of the corporation: the portrayal of Enron as an organic body in ill health and death, and the metonym...

Business leaders and researchers are quick to point out that companies that engage in sustainability practices have higher stock market valuations. In effect, sustainability initiatives, including those aimed at combating climate change, are perceived to be linked to good business practice. The carbon neutral certification is a tool designed to imp...

This article explores how the corporate body and its desire for capital scripts workers' bodies through heterosexual desire. I draw on the case of Enron, the Texas-based energy company currently embroiled in legal action for fraudulent accounting practices. These practices are tied to a corporate culture that, in the desire for revenue accumulation...