Environmental Sociology ISSN: (Print) 2325-1042 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rens20 Re-thinking waste: mapping racial geographies of violence on the colonial landscape Ingrid Waldron To cite this article: Ingrid Waldron (2018) Re-thinking waste: mapping racial geographies of violence on the colonial landscape, Environmental Sociology, 4:1, 36-53, DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2018.1429178 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2018.1429178 Published online: 19 Feb 2018. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 33 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rens20 ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY, 2018 VOL. 4, NO. 1, 36–53 https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2018.1429178 Re-thinking waste: mapping racial geographies of violence on the colonial landscape Ingrid Waldron Faculty of Health, School of Nursing, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY There is a perception in Canada that Nova Scotia has had a long and unique history with Received 6 March 2017 racism, and that the province has been more reticent than other provinces to address the Accepted 14 January 2018 structural implications of that history in Mi'kmaw and African Nova Scotian communities. The KEYWORDS failure to acknowledge the unique histories and experiences of Mi'kmaw and African Nova Environmental racism; Scotian communities as historically disadvantaged communities enables Nova Scotia environmental justice; Department of Environment to continue to ignore the ways in which its policy actions Mi'kmaw community; disproportionately impact these communities. In this article, I lay out the limits of the current African Nova Scotian environmental justice narrative in Nova Scotia by highlighting the ways in which race has community; racialization of been decentered within that narrative. However, I also contend that an unwavering focus on space race and other substantive structural issues must be accompanied by an analysis of the marginalized intersectionality of Indigenous and Black bodies and how this informs their spatial location, exposing them to varying levels of environmental risk. The article also calls attention to the transformative human agency of Mi'kmaw and African Nova Scotian com- munities by illuminating their rich and varied legacy of activism against environmental racism historically and in the present day. Introduction United States, refers to environmental policies, prac- tices or directives that disproportionately disadvan- It can be argued that the environmental justice narra- tage individuals, groups or communities tive in Canada and Nova Scotia has long engaged (intentionally or unintentionally) based on race or with a strategic inadvertence approach (Dyson 2016) color (Bullard 2002). However, while a race analysis because it fails to make race explicit, obscuring it has increasingly been the focus of the environmental within discussions on class. This type of approach justice narrative in the US for over 30 years, most mutes the specificity of Mi'kmaw and African Nova environmental activists, organizations and govern- Scotian experiences with racism, and ignores how ment departments and agencies in Canada have environmental policies today are rooted in a legacy engaged in a kind of ‘racial procrastination’, showing of colonialism characterized by forced displacements, considerably more reticence in grappling with struc- land dispossession, extraction of wealth, cultural gen- tural forms of racism underlying environmental policy ocide, social, economic and political marginalization and decision-making (Jacobs 2010; Morgan 2015; and the greater exposure and vulnerability of these Waldron 2015; Waldron 2018). communities to polluting industries and other envir- Therefore, in this article, I assert that the ongoing onmental hazards. Therefore, I agree with Bullard’s significance and saliency of race in white-dominant assertion (Bullard 1993) that decisions about where societies require us to attend to the ways in which to locate a waste facility involve complex interactions race provides a fundamental analytical entry point for among government, as well as legal and commercial understanding the spatial patterning of polluting actors that are informed by historically constituted industries in Nova Scotia. Furthermore, an unwavering racist institutional policies and practices that ulti- focus on race in the environmental racism narrative mately sustain white privilege and protect the social, must be accompanied by an analysis of the margin- economic and political well-being of white people alized intersectionality of Indigenous and racialized and the economic elite (Cutter 1995; Deacon and bodies and make visible the ways in which experi- Baxter 2013; Fryzuk 1996; Pulido 2000; Robinson ences with environmental hazards in these commu- 2000; Waldron 2018). nities are scripted by multiple narratives shaped by Environmental racism, a subset of the larger envir- the intersections of race, culture, income and class. onmental justice movement which originated in the Such an analysis must acknowledge the complex CONTACT Ingrid Waldron [email protected] © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY 37 relationality of these multiple identities that frame This discussion is followed by a historical overview individuals’ social, economic and political lives. In and demographic profiles of Mi'kmaw and African addition, an intersectional analysis requires us to Nova Scotian communities, setting the stage for six think through the historical, material and structural case studies of Mi'kmaw and African Nova Scotian contexts and conditions within which social inequal- communities that demonstrate a legacy of environ- ities are produced, the meanings assigned to them mental racism in Nova Scotia. These communities and the interrogation of white privilege and power include Mi'kmaw communities in Sydney, Pictou (African Nova Scotian Affairs n.d.; Cutter 1995; Deacon Landing First Nation and Sipekne’katik, and African and Baxter 2013; Fryzuk 1996; Haluza-Delay 2007; Nova Scotian communities in Africville, Lincolnville Morgan 2015; Statistics Canada 2011a; Statistics and North and East Preston. These case studies show Canada 2011b; Waldron 2015; Waldron 2018). the spatial patterning of toxic facility siting across the I begin the article by discussing the limits of the province and highlight the proximity of Mi'kmaw and environmental justice narrative in Nova Scotia that African Nova Scotian communities to waste disposal, has far too long decentered race. In so doing, I hope thermal facility and pulp and paper sites (Waldron to redefine parameters of critique around the envir- 2016; Waldron 2018). onmental justice narrative and movement in Nova The paper concludes with a discussion on how Scotia and Canada by opening a discursive space for decolonization (Fanon 1963; Freire 2000; Memmi a more critical dialog on how environmental racism 1965; Waziyatawin and Michael Yellow Bird 2012) manifests within the context of white supremacy, may serve as a useful conceptual framework for white privilege and various forms of structural understanding the transformative human agency inequalities, and by calling attention to the ways in and oppositional politics of Mi'kmaw and African which the environment is experienced in specific Nova Scotian communities that have been at the ways by different bodies who hold varying levels of forefront of anti-colonial, environmental and other power. social justice struggles for decades (Brannen 2014; Drawing on work by Lipsitz (2007), McKittrick Corfu 2016; Hubley 2016; Idle No More 2014; (2011), Razack (2002) and Teelucksingh (2007), the Thomas-Muller 2014). article continues with a socio-spatial analysis of inequality that highlights how racial ideologies Strategic inadvertence and the limitations of shape the constitution and perception of space, how Nova Scotia’s environmental justice narrative race and class identities are spatialized, how spatial configurations of Indigenous and racialized bodies are The environmental justice narrative in Canada and enabled through boundary-making practices sup- Nova Scotia has long engaged with a ‘race by proxy’ ported by policy and law and how the spatialization approach (Dyson 2016) in that it fails to make race of racial and other identities inform the spatial segre- explicit, obscuring it within discussions on class. This gation and containment of Indigenous and racialized type of strategic inadvertence mutes the specificity of bodies in spaces associated with poverty, crime and Mi'kmaw and African Nova Scotian experiences with waste and pollution (Coates 1999; Fryzuk 1996; Jacobs racism and environmental hazards in Nova Scotia. 2010; McKittrick 2011; Morgan 2015; Nelson 2001; Therefore, the province’s failure to understand or Pulido 2000; Razack 2002; Smith 2005; Teelucksingh acknowledge the complex and specific ways in 2007). which race is implicated in environmental policymak- Next, I provide a historical context for elucidating the ing is, perhaps, not surprising. The failure or refusal to many ways in which social structures harm individuals, acknowledge the role that race plays in the spatial preventing them from meeting their basic needs related patterning of industry was illustrated by Environment to employment, income, education and justice (African Minister Margaret Miller’s