Archaeology of Environmental Injustice- CHAT Orkney 2016
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 14/12/2016

The relationships between biopolitics and processes of capitalism and industrialization have come under increasing scrutiny by activists in the environmental justice movement. Modern and historic societies demonstrate marked environmental discrimination, particularly against racialized groups and working‐class communities. This has occurred in both rural and urban contexts, as well as landscapes that transition from rural to urban and vice versa, and environmental injustice has often accompanied those transitions. Discriminatory practices resulted in the disempowerment of marginalized populations, loss of land, forcible movement of communities, contamination of natural resources, and sickening of human populations. While environmental injustice has been explored through ethnographic research in recent times and through historical anthropology, few archaeological studies have addressed this type of discrimination. This paper explores environmental injustice from an archaeological perspective, with particular attention to a case study of a 19th‐century company town. There, working class residents who were mostly foreign‐born experienced environmental discrimination in the form of an industrial waste dump known as Slag Beach, which was located adjacent to and within their neighborhood. The paper develops a framework of theory and method for exploring environmental injustice through an archaeological lens, and offers suggestions for potential applications.

Sarah E. Cowie
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno.

Session 1: Defining Rurality
CHAT Annual Conference 2016