Environmental Racism and Power Mapping the State

Keywords: environmental racism, industrial capitalism, power mapping, state, migrants
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

EPA-designated Environmental Justice communities must negotiate the complex relationship between race, nature, capital, and the state. The political designation provides government funds for cleanup and revitalization of toxic sites but often does not address broader concerns for residents. This paper examines residents’ efforts to organize against industrial sites emitting ethylene oxide within their broader calls for environmental justice in Waukegan, Illinois. It argues that through power mapping the state migrant residents developed knowledge about the racial state’s involvement in environmental racism and sought to organize and mobilize other residents affected by economic exploitation, limited access to healthcare, and political marginalization. I first illustrate how Waukegan’s industrial economy was dependent on the devaluation of people, land, and labor (Pulido 2016). I then discuss the disruptions to livelihoods and health, and how some residents were politicized around environmental racism. I argue that while power mapping the neoliberal state may not fundamentally challenge the state as an ally, the embodied experience of working with/against politics catalyzes some residents to imagine environmental justice beyond the confines of the nation-state (Pulido and De Lara 2018).