Escalating inequality and accelerating climate change are increasing challenges to just and sustainable livelihoods across the world, but particularly in the greater Caribbean region. The Caribbean Spatial Justice Lab is a transdisciplinary collaborative center for research and design into the constructed environments of the Caribbean.

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The Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico have simultaneously connected and fragmented more than thirty-five islands, countries, and territories that we understand as the greater Caribbean. A complex topography of cultures and languages live in geographic proximity but politically disconnected with many scholars, activists, politicians, and community groups working on issues of spatial justice in relative isolation. Without networks for sharing innovations and challenges, opportunities are missed for regional collaboration and insight based on a plurality of perspectives.

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A research lab that coordinates investigations around the coastal regions of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico would serve as an important resource for universities, local governments, and other organizations in the region. Developing this laboratory at LSU would reinforce and extend our role as a thought leader and contribute to internationalization efforts. Spatial justice research integrates social, technical, ecological, economic, and political aspects and will produce scholarship of international and cross-disciplinary significance. Transdisciplinary and multi-sited research will collect meaningful and hard to get data and facilitate the development of complex case studies. The laboratory model can support interdisciplinary and collaborative graduate student training and contribute to undergraduate project-based learning. Research findings and research-based designs will be disseminated through events, courses, exhibitions, and publications and through on-going work with communities and local governments. 

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The CSJL would serve as a hub connecting humanistic and scientific research with design and serve as a model for transdisciplinary spatial justice research.