L5 - colonialism, racism and env justice Flashcards
intro / recap
rewatch first part
(recap)
Holleman (today): sharper focus on relation capitalist expansionism and env
- same logic, but undermining its own process less central in Holleman’s story)
- colonial conquest with ensuing env harms is motivated by capitalist compulsion to grow + legitimated by white supremacy (belief in racial superiority)
new imperialism
late C19-early C20
global north imperial powers (US and European) expand colonial territories on an unprecedented scale (massive land grabs) in search of:
- resources and land (e.g. for cash crop agricult)
- cheap labor
both objectives were motivated by the second industrial revolution of the 1800s
second industrial revolution increases demand for both by increasing productive capacity, thereby creating increased demand for raw materials and new markets -> imperial powers competed for colonial territory where raw materials were abundant and could be claimed at low/no cost
new imperialism and socio-ecological crises
Soil erosion
- Colonial policies promote cash crops for export (i.e., monocultural farming aimed at mass production for exportation)
- type of cash crop depended on place (e.g. wheat, tobacco)
- 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 = massive production to export one crop
- market pressures reinforce these incentives: once plugged in the global econ, farmers are incentivized to produce as much as possible as quickly as possible without regard long-run material impact
- In the long run, this erodes soil (i.e., first global environmental crisis)
Starvation
Holleman: first global env crisis
- Cash crops for export prioritized over food crops for local consumption
- Leading to a) decreased dietary variation and nutrition b) severe humanmade famines in colonized areas
- Likened by some researchers to “late Victorian holocaust”
(Holleman doesn’t mention Fraser but she does have a trans-environmental element: it was a social crises and an environmental crisis)
(for Holleman (like Fraser) env crises and social crises can go together)
colonialism-environmental harm link
Soil erosion was understood at the time to be a consequence of colonial conquest and agricultural practices
- world powers sought to impose on nature, nature didn’t appreciate this -> soil erosion as nature’s expression of distaste for colonial expansion
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”
soil erosion became an instance of the white man’s burden
“the white man’s burden”
imperial view that the white race is morally obliged to civilize the rest of the world and facilitate its development through colonialism
- originates from poem (Kipling) about US responsibility/burden to civilize the Philippines
Soil erosion framed as another “white man’s burden” (i.e., burden of development that white colonizers must manage despite having created)
- inter-connected social problem of famine and soil erosion = caused by colonizers, but still they thought they had to fix it
Recognition that colonialism creates socio-ecological crises alongside claim that these can be fixed with more colonialism
- it was not their failing it was a new logistical/technological problem to be resolved (so kind of similar logic to eco-modernism: colonialism creates the crises but more of it can fix it)
colonialism and white supremacy
White supremacy was essential, according to Holleman, to new imperialism:
It provided a “justificatory”/legitimacy pretext for colonial conquest (i.e., alleged “superiority” means whites have an obligation to intervene around the world)
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
= env colonialism must be understood in both material development of capitalism, but also in relation with immaterial ideology of white supremacy
(WEB Du Bois: doctrine of the divine right of white men to steal)
(Holleman: ideological commitment seems to give legitimacy/justification to incursion of European powers in non-European parts of the world, this is also beneficial to capitalism. So white supremacist notion of white man’s burden authorizes expansionism and therefore also supports capitalist growth)
example : US dust bowl - background
Early 1870s: US ends recognition of native tribal sovereignty
(outset new imperialist era)
- settler-colonialism: indigenous populations pushed further and further west, by late C19 mostly confined to tribal reservations
1887: Dawes Act authorizes federal government to privatize land held in common by native tribes = violently imposed
- communal land was seen as too socialist (Dawes)
- selfishness as bedrock for civilizational dev (Dawes)
Privatization opens large tracts of “unassigned” land to settlers and economic actors (75% of previously indigenous land are designated as “unassigned” and opened up)
Settlers of newly privatized land are often economically disadvantaged
- where poor/dispossessed
White supremacy plus domestic New Imperial land grabs function as a “release valve” for class antagonism
- displaces class frictions by redirecting it: the poor didn’t fight the wealthy, they were relocated and enrolled in mission to spread white civilization (gave them sense of superiority)
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
- cash crop production much more volatile (global market fluctuations) + constant (always some debt to pay of and some money to be made)
- crops planted while land needs to rest, expansion of herds while the should be made smaller
-> soil erosion
Example: 1930s US Dust Bowl
Environment of Southern Plains can’t sustain cash crop agricultural practices
Empire, capitalism, and racism come to a head in the soil erosion of the 1930s US Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl = period of severe dust storms and drought (in US prairies)
Not a domestic-regional problem (of localized breakdown)(that could be solved by knowledge and tech)
But an instance of the first global
environmental crisis (i.e., soil erosion) driven by imperialism, white supremacy, and capitalism
- it was an instance of a wider problem
contemporary implications: Holleman
how is this case (historical cases in general) relevant today?
- Soil erosion and desertification are likely to reemerge with climate change: dust bowls expected to re-emerge on bigger and more sustained scale due to 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 -> solutions need to be bigger
- Colonialism might be over, but coloniality 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)
- coloniality: power, knowledge, sense of self can still be shaped by legacy of colonialism even in post-colonial societies
- we acknowledge that what we do(n’t) do has significant effect on env in global south, but we don’t change anything
audio frgment
(rewatch)
colonial discourse endures today: idea that some places, some people are disposable
coloniality isn’t a thing of the past: we let others bear the cost of our (in)action, we render effects (lives/nature lost) as irrelevant
environmental racism
1970s: scholars study distribution of environmental harms across society
In racialized societies, allocation of environmental bads/costs and goods/benefits can track race
- E.g., in the US, non-white populations are more likely to live and work in env degraded places
- i.e. racially segregated env outcomes
Env racism = sacrifice of racial minorities’ environmental health and well-being for the sake of racial majority’s health and well-being
- can come from private actors (industrial practices) and gov policies
Logic of sacrifice links env colonialism and env racism
Just as Global North sacrifices Global South’ s env well-being for its own ( Holleman ), racial majority with in North may sacrifice racial minority ’s env well-being for its own ( Bullard )
Bullard: early scholar that discovered trend racially segregated env outcomes: in Houston 5/5 city-owned land fields (garbage disposal) were in black areas (not ghetto’s, were middle class neighborhood)
- “US’ own third world”, “colonial mentality in the south”, “manifested in env sacrifice of minority neighborhoods for majority gain”
environment and white privilege
White privilege: benefits and advantages that accrue in highly racialized societies to white people simply due to whiteness
- takes env racism a step further: it is not just individual acts, it is social structures
Different from overt racism because not intentional
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)
White privilege means environmental racism (i.e., environmental sacrifice of racial minority for racial majority) can be unintentional
environmental injustice
(EUE)
(Givens et al. article)
unjust = That environmental-material benefits enjoyed by some are paid for at others’ environmental material expense
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
- env material benefits of some are paid for by others
- (overlaps with basic lens of political ecology (power and marginality))
- (EUE can be seen through both a eco socialist framework (e.g. Fraser), but also from political ecology perspective (focus on power))
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 env injustice (int’l level)
2 injustices:
- 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 displaces env load on the global south in at least two ways:
- Global North PHYSICALLY or SPATIALLY relocates environmental bads to South (e.g., shipping of waste, offshoring environmentally taxing industry)
- Global North TEMPORALLY relocates environmental bads to South (i.e., future generations in general (north and south) will be obliged to bear the burden of environmental harms that they didn’t create and this phenomenon will be magnified in South bc the global south is unjustly treated as sink and tap)
Above dynamics may be overlooked without a global perspective (e.g., Netherlands Fallacy)
- NL fallacy =
(rewatch this: 1625)
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
- north has developed by relocating material gains -> has incurred a debt
”Paying off/down” this debt could mean:
- Global North mitigating its emissions (shrinking the amount of env bads)
- 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 was all about EUE
Fraser:
- env cost of fixing metabolic rift in the North was borne by the South (e.g C19 guano-nitrates trade and the War of the Pacific)
- env good of soil repair in the North was achieved via the imposition of env (alongside social and political) bads in the South
Holleman:
- historical environmental cost of growing capital in the North was borne by the South (higher demand was sustained by colonialism)
- today the env cost of climate inaction in the North is borne by the South (we reproduce patterns of colonialism, behaving in ecologically unequal ways)
distributive EJ
IF environmental injustice is UNFAIR distribution of env goods/benefits and bads/costs,
THEN Distributive EJ (environmental justice) asks whether environmental goods and bads are allocated fairly/equitably and, if not, calls for fair re-allocation
- Informed by unfairness of EUE
- Linked to legacies of env colonialism and racism
(e.g. everyone produces garbage, but not everyone has to live next to garbage dump)
(this is not the only way to think about EJ, but it is often seen/used, intuitively makes sense)
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
- peculiarly western perspective: sees nature as collection of inanimate stuff to be allocated fairly among people
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)
- e.g. indigenous worldviews
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?
Distributive EJ doesn’t dig deep enough into and interrogate the root causes behind the existence of environmental bads
- = critique that distributive EJ doesn’t go far enough in identifying/addressing causes
More robust EJ would entail environmentally sustainable forms of production and consumption that either minimize or eliminate negative distributive concerns
- e.g. not (just) fairly dividing garbage disposal, but reducing the amount of garbage in the first place
- need to consume/produce without destroying the env
