16 Activity 4.2 – Giving Toxic Heritage a History
Elizabeth Kryder-Reid
Associated Readings
Chapter 11. Fabienne Wateau, Carmem Regina Giongo, Daniela Figueiredo, Johnny Reis, Manuelle Lago. “Unwanted Legacy and Memory of the Milieu: Toxic Materials, Remediation, Habituation (Estarreja, Portugal).”
Chapter 13. Elizabeth Kryder-Reid, Owen Dwyer, Gabriel Filippelli. “Dirty Laundry: The Toxic Heritage of Dry Cleaning in Indianapolis, Indiana.”
Targeted Skills:
Library Research, Archival Research
Directions:
If you were to do searches about environmental issues in your community, you would likely see that much of the discourse about environmental degradation is removed from its historical context. Environmental harms are typically framed in the presentist discourses of science, policy, and economics. They are disconnected from the longstanding historical and cultural systems and structures that created and perpetuate them, and they are also usually removed from the human stories of those affected by environmental burdens over generations.
- Search public sources for stories of environmental harm in your community. Depending on where you live, you can focus on one site or pick multiple sites. Consider the following questions:
- How do the sources present the history of the sites?
- When do their narratives start chronologically?
- Do they include the stories of people who lived near the sites or suffered because of them?
- Do they make connections with the history of the place, such as policies and zoning laws that restricted where people could live or who bore the brunt of public works, such as dams and highways?
- Is your community implicated in the histories of colonialism and the displacement of Indigenous peoples?
Analysis:
- Based on your analysis of the sources about your own community and with the associated readings in mind, how do the narratives about places where you live give that environmental harm a history?
- If they do, whose voices and perspectives are included?
- If not, what voices and perspectives are centered?
- Why do you think the narratives are constructed the way they are?
