Colonialism, Racism, and Environmental Justice lecture 6

intro

• capitalism expansion is a key role for the push for colonial conquest

• she highlights how racism intersects w capitalism and colonial degradation

• colonial conquest was motivated by capitalists need to grow but also legitimated by white supremacy

New Imperialism

• Late 19th-early 20th century

• Global North imperial powers expand colonial territories on an unprecedented scale in search of

  • resources and land (e.g., for cash crop agriculture)

  • cheap labor

• Second industrial revolution increases demand for both by increasing productive capacity, thereby creating increased demand for raw materials and new markets

  • both were motivated by 2 industrial rev

  • increases productive capacity of alrdy developed states

  • imperial powers competed for colonial territory for raw materials

New Imperialism & Socio-Ecological Crises

• Soil erosion

  • Colonial policies promote cash crops for export (i.e., monocultural farming aimed at mass production for exportation)

    • focus is on mass prod of one crop

  • More land farmed more uniformly and more aggressively

  • Market also incentivizes cash crop agriculture and encourages farmers to produce as much as possible as quickly as possible

    • econ prod increased pressure and pushed farmers to produce as quickly as possible w/o considering material impact

  • In the long run, this erodes soil (i.e., first global environmental crisis)

    • not suited for the local env

    • by eroding soil colonial agr created the first global econ crisis

      • we see a transenv aspect to this

      • this crisis was also a social crisis where colonial ag pushed for a single export crop and local population went hungry

      • manmade famines tracked colonial conquest

• Starvation

  • Cash crops for export prioritized over food crops for local consumption

  • Leading to a) decreased dietary variation and nutrition b) severe human made famines in colonized areas

  • Likened by some researchers to “late Victorian holocaust”

    • env and social crisis go togeather

Colonialism-Environmental Harm Link

• both crisis became a function of colonialism btw social erosion and colonial agr

• Soil erosion was understood at the time to be a consequence of colonial conquest and agricultural practices

• Soil erosion was a “disease to which any civilization founded on the European model seems liable when it attempts to grow outside [of] Europe”

• Soil erosion was a “warning that Nature is in full revolt against the sudden incursion of an exotic civilization – Europe – into her ordered domains”

  • social erosion was a physical expression of the earth’s rejection of colonial conquest

“The White Man’s Burden”

• encouraging the us colonial control over phillapenes

• Imperial view that the white race is morally obliged to civilize the rest of the world and facilitate its development through colonialism

• Soil erosion framed as another “white man’s burden” (i.e., burden of development that white colonizers must manage despite having created)

  • burden fell to the white man

  • even tho they caused the problem through colonialism they framed themselves to fix both of these

    • not evidence of empires failing but it was imperial power to resolve

• Recognition that colonialism creates socio-ecological crises alongside claim that these can be fixed with more colonialism

  • similar to eco moderalism but diff where crisis can be solved with more colonialism

Colonialism and White Supremacy

• White supremacy was essential, according to Holleman, to new imperialism

• It provided a “justificatory” pretext for colonial conquest (i.e., alleged “superiority” means whites have an obligation to intervene around the world)

  • to bring them up to speed

  • colonial domination was then appropriate

  • it authorized colonialization and demanded it in a moral or ethical sense

• Holleman argues environmental colonialism was shaped by both

  • material compulsions of capital accumulation

  • immaterial ideology of white supremacy

  • i.e., capitalistic economic growth could be pursued via colonialism because racism provided a legitimating pretext for intervention

    • have sanction to the doctrine to the divine right of white people to steal

    • the quest for econ growth by capitalism took the form of colonialization

Example: US Dust Bowl Background

• Early 1870s: US ends recognition of native tribal sovereignty

• 1887: Dawes Act authorizes federal government to privatize land held in common by native tribes

  • aimed to push property rights within these reservations and subdivide what used to be communal lands in these reservations

  • communal property was too socialist in this way

  • selfishness was the bedrock where western ideology was constructed upon

• Privatization opens large tracts of “unassigned” land to settlers and economic actors (75% of previously indigenous land are designated as “unassigned” and opened up)

  • left land open for citizens and paved the way for massive land grabs

  • it violently imposed priv of tribal lands across the entire country

  • in the end ¾ of indigenous was designated as priv and unassigned and opened up to settlers

• Settlers of newly privatized land are often economically disadvantaged

  • the siezure of native lands served another addiional function where it helped neutralize class and redirecting class frictions

• White supremacy plus domestic New Imperial land grabs function as a “release valve” for class antagonism

• Ensuing settler colonialism into Southern Plains region is organized around environmentally destructive cash crop agriculture where market logic – not environmental health – dictates how land and resources are used

  • econ unrest between rich and poor could be decreased

  • this project was not env sustainable

  • this system of agriculture couldnt be prosperous

  • problems:

    • its very volitile —> market fluctuations

    • constant—> always money to be made and debt to be paid

  • consequence:

    • fields are planted when it better to rest them

Example: 1930s US Dust Bowl

• Environment of Southern Plains can’t sustain cash crop agricultural practices

  • period of dust storms and sever drought that devastated the lives of ppl

• Empire, capitalism, and racism come to a head in the soil erosion of the 1930s US Dust Bowl

  • it was not a domestic regional problem, instead it was just one manifestation of Dust Bowl: period of severe dust storms and drought

• Not a domestic-regional problem

• But an instance of the first global environmental crisis (i.e., soil erosion) driven by imperialism, white supremacy, and capitalism

Contemporary Implications: Holleman

• Soil erosion and desertification are likely to reemerge with climate change

• Learning the wrong lessons from past soil erosion means we’re likely to mishandle new, climate-driven forms

• Standard Dust Bowl lesson: soil erosion and desertification were caused by poor knowledge and inadequate tech and were resolved through better knowledge and tech

• Holleman argues this isn’t the right lesson: soil erosion and desertification weren’t just a knowledge-tech problem in the past (i.e., because they were caused by imperialism, white supremacy, and capitalism) and won’t be just a knowledge-tech problem in the future

  • this positions wealthy countries over positive of ecologial improvements

  • its not a structural problem but knowledge and tech problem —> this misses the mark. It wasnt just this it was a toxic combination of imperalism, white supremacy, and capitalism

  • without broader changes it will likely persist

• Colonialism might be over, but colonially endures in how the Global North calculates cost of climate action (i.e., sacrifices faraway peoples & places because changing its own relation to the environment is too inconvenient)

  • they refer how ppl knowledge power can be shaped by colonialism been through post colonial society

  • he suggests that this endures when we think abt env action

    • we awk that what we dont do will have serious consequences inc in the global south, but fail to take action

      • this is inherently colonialism

      • because changing our own ways is inconvenient

Environmental Racism

• 1970s: scholars study distribution of environmental harms across society

• In racialized societies , allocation of environmental b ads/costs and good s/benefits can track race

• E.g., in the US, non-white populations are more likely to live and work in environmentally degraded places

  • black and latino were more likely where they degraded spaces

• Environmental racism: sacrifice of racial minorities’ environmental health and well- being for the sake of racial majority’ s health and well-being

  • env goods was provided to whites and costs to colors

  • for ex: white communities were well off with waste facilities in communities of color

    • this extended beyond poor v rich (econ), it was also race

• Logic of sacrifice links environmental colonialism and environmental racism

  • env racism refers to policies that materially and differentially affect indv and groups based on colors

    • public and private

• Just as Global North sacrifices Global South’ s environmental well-being for its own ( Ho lleman), racial majority with in North may sacrifice racial minority ’s environmental well-bein g for its own ( Bullard

  • env racism is colonial and designated spaces as sacrifice zones to be env degraded.

  • later studies took these analysis one step further and argues that env racism is not as mallicious ind acts but also social structures

Environment and White Privilege

• White privilege: benefits and advantages that accrue in highly racialized societies to white people simply due to whiteness

• Different from overt racism because not intentional

  • because whiteness is not problementized in racial societies. its can go unnoticed but it doesnt mean its not there

  • just keeping status quo = racism effect

• Can occur even when no one means to be racist (e.g., in a context where social structures reproduce white privilege, just maintaining the status quo will benefit whites)

  • no one needs to mean to be racist for the outcome to be

• White privilege means environmental racism (i.e., environmental sacrifice of racial minority for racial majority) can be unintentional

  • here env material benefits are paid for by others

Environmental Injustice

• That environmental-material benefits enjoyed by some are paid for at others’ environmental material expense is unjust

• Ecologically unequal exchange (EUE): structural relationships between more and less powerful groups can lead to the uneven, unfair, and unequal distribution of environmental flows, good and bad

• EUE can play out at the international level (e.g., between Global North and Global South, per Givens et al.) or within single countries

Givens: EUE and Environmental Injustice

• Injustice

  • The Global North takes more environmental goods or resources from the Global South (i.e., tap)

  • The Global North dumps more environmental bads or waste in the Global South (i.e., sink)

• Environmental load displacement

  • Global North physically or spatially relocates environmental bads to South (e.g., shipping of waste, offshoring environmentally taxing industry)

    • spacially as a sink for waste and physically relocates waste of its own practices

  • Global North temporally relocates environmental bads to South (i.e., future generations in general will be obliged to bear the burden of environmental harms that they didn’t create and this phenomenon will be magnified in South)

    • Temporal: relocates bad of env to future generation

• Above dynamics may be overlooked without a global perspective (e.g., Netherlands Fallacy)

  • may not be very obvious

  • where improved levels didnt happen w offloading

  • if it domestic it can be undetected

  • calls for env justice need to have a global perspective in mind

Givens: Ecological Debt

• Ecological debt: unequally and unjustly treating the Global South as an environmental tap and sink (EUE), the Global North developed by incurring a material debt to the Global South

  • global n has a debt to global s

  • how to correct for this?

• ”Paying off” this debt could mean:

  • Global North mitigating its emissions

    • help avoid unfair dis of env bads generated

  • Global North helping Global South to achieve comparable development, ideally in a now less environmentally taxing way

Two Call Backs

• Ecologically unequal exchange connected to colonialism and coloniality

  • env colonialism

• Fraser

  • Environmental cost of fixing metabolic rift in the North was borne by the South (e.g., 19th century guano-nitrates trade and the War of the Pacific)

  • Environmental good of soil repair in the North was achieved via the imposition of environmental (alongside social and political) bads in the South Fraser

• Holleman

  • Historical environmental cost of growing capital in the North was borne by the South

  • Today the environmental cost of climate inaction in the North is borne by the South

Distributive Environmental Justice (EJ)

• IF environmental injustice = unfair distribution of environmental goods/benefits and bads/costs

• THEN environmental justice (EJ) = fair distribution of environmental goods/benefits and bads/costs

• Distributive EJ asks whether environmental goods and bads are allocated fairly and, if not, calls for fair re-allocation

• Informed by unfairness of ecologically unequal exchange •

• Linked to legacies of environmental colonialism and racism

Critique of Distributive EJ: 1

• Universalizes what is a particular view of the environment

• Views nature as a collection of inert material to be divided

  • wat abt indigenous world views?

  • how abt nature as a identity in itself

• But some peoples and cultures may see nature very differently (e.g., as a force, entity, or being of its own, including one that humans have duties toward)

  • why frame it as a question of distribution then?

    • asking ppl to relate to nature in some different way to speak it in a distributive way may lead to a loss in translation

    • what abt ppl who dont think nature as just material?

• Obliging all to “speak” the language of distributive environmental justice may mean that some justice claims are “lost in translation,” which may be an injustice in itself

Critique of Distributive EJ: 2

• Why should there be so many environmental bads that need to be fairly allocated to begin with?

  • shouldnt we focus more on the env bads. doesn’t interrogate the root cause

• Distributive EJ doesn’t dig deep enough into and interrogate the root causes behind the existence of environmental bads

• More robust EJ would entail environmentally sustainable forms of production and consumption that either minimize or eliminate negative distributive concerns

  • it would be abt organizating life so there isnt that much env bads to begin with

  • we should consume and produce w/o destroying the env

conclusion

• we see how racism plays a role with white supremacy, capitalism made the first global en crisis (global erosion)

• we see how it intersects w env degradation and env minorities vs env majority may amount ot a contemporary expression of colonialists

• the N shows injustice through unequal exchange where goods from from S to N and bads go from N to S

• they call for a rebalance but this has some critiques