Doctoral Dissertation Research: Black Geographies and Industrial Toxicity in North Carolina

在美国各地，黑人社区生活在充满有毒废物的环境中。这项研究项目通过对北卡罗来纳州铝生产的案例研究，调查了工业化社会中种族和浪费之间的关系。这项研究考察了种族和浪费如何让铝成为现代美国一种重要而有价值的材料。调查人员将分析种族主义如何塑造一个铝公司城镇的工作、社会生活和政治，借鉴这些见解，并支持受影响的贫困居民的努力。这一对美国南部一个小镇的详细的实证和历史研究将有助于对一系列学科的理论理解，包括批判性和女权主义的地缘政治学、历史地理学、环境研究、美国研究和批判性种族研究。协作和以艺术为基础的方法将使研究变得容易获得，并使更多的受众参与环境正义教育。在有毒物质暴露和危险环境的学术研究中，种族经常被认为是理所当然的，被包括在许多变量中，或者是更大的结构性问题的意外副产品。这项研究集中在20世纪资本主义的结构性种族主义上，在这一时期，铝在将美国确立为全球军事和经济强国的过程中发挥了关键作用。该案例研究的重点是北卡罗来纳州的巴丁，这是美国最早的铝冶炼厂之一，也是一个隔离的公司城镇，也是当代环境正义斗争的发生地。本研究采用档案与民族志相结合的方法，考察了巴丁·S百年的历史(1915年至2015年)，考察并贡献了关于浪费、结构性种族主义和环境正义政治的学术贡献。调查人员检查了巴丁的多种废物，从炼铝的化学副产品和未标记的有毒垃圾场，到工人的身体和被浪费的环境资源。才能制造出可用的铝。他们追溯了不同的参与者如何在巴丁的历史中？S的历史谈判，定义和挑战什么被认为是有价值的，什么是被边缘化的废物。这项研究探讨了种族隔离和反黑人种族主义如何随着时间的推移影响了巴丁的社会生活和物质环境，以及它对受影响的社区通过接触有毒物质造成的痛苦和疾病建立政治参与意味着什么。通过对巴丁社区解决污染的谈判的参与者观察，以及对地区环境正义政治中关键利益相关者的采访，这项研究考察了当今美国种族和环境正义的潜力。

Across the U.S., Black communities live in environments burdened by toxic wastes. This research project investigates the relationship between race and waste in industrialized societies, through a case study of aluminum production in North Carolina. The study examines how race and waste have allowed aluminum to become a vital and valuable material in the modern U.S. The investigators will analyze how racism has shaped work, social life and politics in an aluminum company town, drawing on the insights and supporting the efforts of impacted underprivileged residents. This detailed empirical and historical study of a small town in the American South will contribute theoretical understanding to a wide range of disciplines, including critical and feminist geopolitics, historical geography, environmental studies, American Studies, and critical race studies. Collaborative and arts-based methods will make research accessible and engage broader audiences in environmental justice education. In scholarship on toxic exposure and hazardous environments, race is frequently taken for granted, included as one variable among many or an unintended by-product of larger structural issues. This research centralizes structural racism in 20th century capitalism, a period in which aluminum played a key role in establishing the U.S. as a global military and economic power. The case study focuses on Badin, North Carolina, one of the first aluminum smelters in the U.S and a segregated company town that is the site of a contemporary environmental justice struggle. Using a combination of archival and ethnographic methods to examine 100 years of Badin?s history (1915-2015), this research investigates and contributes to scholarship on waste, structural racism, and environmental justice politics. The investigators examine multiple wastes in Badin, from the chemical by-products of aluminum smelting and the unmarked toxic dumps, to the bodies of workers and environmental resources that are ?wasted? in order to make usable aluminum. They trace how different actors over the course of Badin?s history negotiated, defined and challenged what was considered valuable and what was marginalized as waste. The study explores how segregation and anti-Black racism have impacted the social life and the physical environment in Badin over time and what it means for affected communities to build political participation through suffering and illness caused by toxic exposure. Through participant-observation of Badin community negotiations to redress contamination, and drawing on interviews with key stakeholders in regional environmental justice politics, the study examines the potential for racial and environmental justice in the U.S. today.