Amplifying Desire-Centered Research Beyond Deficits and Fatigue: A Case Study of Environmental Justice ArcGIS StoryMaps in Colorado

Environmental justice (EJ) mapping tools are an increasingly popular way for governments to use data to measure, prioritize, and hold accountable patterns of environmental injustice. In 2022, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) launched Colorado EnviroScreen, including a collaboration between the CDPHE and members of a university class on the Foundations of Environmental Justice. This partnership, named the Colorado Environmental Justice Storytelling Project, piloted a series of ArcGIS StoryMaps to accompany the quantitative data. In this summary, we establish digital storytelling as an important contribution of the public humanities to EJ research and practice, which complements quantitative spatial mapping and counters deficit models of communication. Then, we share the rationale, platform, and design for this pilot project with the state government, as well as possibilities and challenges of the ethics of interviewing both well-known and lesser known communities disproportionately impacted by environmental injustices by underscoring the significance of addressing both narrative fatigue and amplifying lesser engaged voices. Overall, we conclude with a call for more support for EJ digital storytelling to ideally foster government and public engagement in state decision making.