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ABSTRACT
I propose the concept of public futurity as a framework for studying how communities renegotiate collective identity in times of crisis. Public futurity, which I define as the process by which groups imagine and deliberate about their shared future, demonstrates how collective identity is maintained, negotiated, and transformed over time. I theorize how futurity is experienced collectively, drawing from scholarship on Black, queer, and disability futurity to show that appeals to futurity recognize not only the possibility of change, but the impossibility of sustaining an untenable present. I apply the concept of public futurity to an analysis of public deliberation about the fate of the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) oil refinery. A series of meetings organized by Philadelphia's Refinery Advisory Committee became highly contested, with mostly Black residents arguing that the site should benefit the local public and mostly white former workers fighting to keep the refinery open. Tracking how residents and former workers leveraged futurity differently in their arguments, I demonstrate how residents revealed the impossibility of the refinery's continued survival. I argue that a key process of public futurity is contending with the liminality of collective identity, and that undoing is necessary for transformation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Scholarship on rhetoric and futurity includes: Kelly Happe, “Utopia and Crisis,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 53, no. 3 (2020): 272–8; Matthew Houdek and Kendall Phillips, “Rhetoric and the Temporal Turn: Race, Gender, Temporalities,” Women’s Studies in Communication 43, no. 4 (2020): 369–83; Lore/etta LeMaster and Amber Johnson, “Speculative Fiction, Criticality, and Futurity: An Introduction,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 18, no. 3 (2021): 280–2; Ersula Ore and Matthew Houdek, “Lynching in Times of Suffocation: Toward a Spatiotemporal Politics of Breathing,” Women’s Studies in Communication 43, no. 4 (2020): 443–58; Candice Rai, Democracy’s Lot: Rhetoric, Publics, and the Places of Invention (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2016); and Haley Schneider, “Deliberative Topoi and the Pull of the Future: Bridging Disparate Visions of Dresden Elbe Valley,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 49, no. 5 (2019): 495–516.
2 Max Marin, “South Philly Refinery’s Long History of Fires, Explosions, Deaths and Injuries,” Billy Penn, June 21, 2019, https://billypenn.com/2019/06/21/south-philly-refinerys-long-history-of-fires-explosions-deaths-and-injuries/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
3 Catalina Jaramillo, “With South Philadelphia Refinery in Bankruptcy Proceedings, Neighbors See an Opportunity for Cleaner Air,” WHYY, January 31, 2018, https://whyy.org/articles/south-philadelphia-refinery-bankruptcy-proceedings-neighbors-see-opportunity-cleaner-air/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
4 Jaramillo, “Bankruptcy Proceedings.”
5 Jaramillo, “Bankruptcy Proceedings.”
6 Dorceta Taylor, Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 35–7.
7 Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) Refinery Fire and Explosions, https://www.csb.gov/philadelphia-energy-solutions-pes-refinery-fire-and-explosions-/ (accessed September 4, 2023); Andrew Maykuth, “Bankrupt Philadelphia Energy Solutions Blames ‘Mislabeled’ Pipe for Big Blast That Led to Refinery’s Closure,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 3, 2021, https://www.inquirer.com/business/energy/bankrupt-pes-philadelphia-refinery-sues-supplier-babcock-for-explosion-20210303.html (accessed September 4, 2023).
8 Susan Phillips, “Faulty, Old Pipe Caused PES Refinery Explosion, Sending Bus-Size Piece of Debris Flying across the Schuylkill,” WHYY, October 16, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/faulty-old-pipe-caused-pes-refinery-explosion-sending-a-bus-size-piece-of-debris-flying-across-schuylkill/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
9 Phillips, “Faulty, Old Pipe.”
10 Gerard A. Hauser, Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres, new ed. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2022), 31.
11 Rai, Democracy’s Lot, 10.
12 Greg Dickinson, Carole Blair, and Brian L. Ott, Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2010), 6.
13 Laurie Gries, Still Life with Rhetoric: A New Materialist Approach for Visual Rhetorics (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2015), 79.
14 Debra Hawhee, “Looking into Aristotle’s Eyes: Toward a Theory of Rhetorical Vision,” Advances in the History of Rhetoric 14, no. 1 (2011): 140.
15 Robert Asen, “Imagining in the Public Sphere,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 35, no. 4 (2002): 348.
16 José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 20.
17 Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 20.
18 James Crosswhite, Deep Rhetoric: Philosophy, Reason, Violence, Justice, Wisdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 223.
19 François Hartog, “Chronos, Kairos, Krisis: The Genesis of Western Time,” History & Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History 60, no. 3 (2021): 429.
20 Stuart Hall and Bill Schwarz, “State and Society, 1880–1930,” in The Hard Road to Renewal, ed. Stuart Hall (New York: Verso, 1988), 96.
21 Samantha Senda-Cook et al., “Engaging Complex Temporalities in Environmental Rhetoric,” Frontiers in Communication (2023): 2, https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1176887 (accessed November 3, 2023).
22 Brian L. Ott and Eric Aoki, “Popular Imagination and Identity Politics: Reading the Future in Star Trek: The Next Generation,” Western Journal of Communication 65, no. 4 (2001): 394.
23 Alison Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 10.
24 Kara Keeling, Queer Times, Black Futures (New York: New York University Press, 2019), 2.
25 Ore and Houdek, “Lynching in Times of Suffocation,” 447.
26 Keeling, Queer Times, Black Futures, 34.
27 Keeling, Queer Times, Black Futures, 41.
28 Ashley R. Hall, “Slippin’ in and out of Frame: An Afrafuturist Feminist Orientation to Black Women and American Citizenship,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 106, no. 3 (2020): 344.
29 Hall, “Afrafuturist Feminist Orientation,” 349, emphasis in original.
30 Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 27.
31 The World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 39.
32 Jeremy L. Caradona, Sustainability: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 10.
33 Caradona, Sustainability, 90.
34 Dimitrinka Atanasova, “Moving Society to a Sustainable Future: The Framing of Sustainability in a Constructive Media Outlet,” Environmental Communication 13, no. 5 (2019): 711.
35 Audre Lorde, “Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (New York: Penguin Books, 2020), 30.
36 Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (New York: Penguin Books, 2020), 101.
37 Lester C. Olson, “Liabilities of Language: Audre Lorde Reclaiming Difference,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 84, no. 4 (1998): 457.
38 Keeling, Queer Times, Black Futures, ix, emphasis in original.
39 Tamika L. Carey, “Necessary Adjustments: Black Women’s Rhetorical Impatience,” Rhetoric Review 39, no. 3 (2020): 273.
40 Ore and Houdek, “Lynching,” 448.
41 Jessica DiNapoli, “Exclusive: Philadelphia Oil Refinery Taps Debt Restructuring Advisor—Sources,” Reuters, August 1, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philadelphiaenergydebtrestructuring/exclusive-philadelphia-oil-refinery-taps-debt-restructuring-adviser-sources-idUSKBN1AH58J (accessed September 4, 2023).
42 Heather M. Zoller, “The Social Construction of Occupational Health and Safety: Barriers to Environmental–Labor Health Coalitions,” New Solutions 19, no. 3 (2009): 289.
43 Oona Goodin-Smith and Joseph A. Gambardello, “Philadelphia Oil Refinery to Close: What You Need to Know,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 28, 2019, https://www.inquirer.com/business/philadelphia-refinery-fire-oil-energy-solutions-close-20190626.html (accessed September 4, 2023).
44 Victoria St. Martin, “A Vast Refinery Site in Philadelphia Is Being Redeveloped and Called ‘The Bellwether District.’ But for Black Residents Nearby, Justice Awaits,” Inside Climate News, July 4, 2022, https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04072022/philadelphia-refinery-health-black-residents/ (accessed October 6, 2023).
45 Jaramillo, “Bankruptcy Proceedings”; St Martin, “A Vast Refinery Site.”
46 Taylor, Toxic Communities, 35–7.
47 Philly Thrive, “Past Campaigns,” https://www.phillythrive.org/past_campaigns (accessed October 6, 2023).
48 Jaramillo, “Bankruptcy Proceedings.”
49 Jaramillo, “Bankruptcy Proceedings.”
50 Joseph Otis Minott, “The 1,000 Refinery Workers That Were Laid off Deserve Access to Green Energy Jobs,” WHYY, August 7, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/the-1000-refinery-workers-that-were-laid-off-deserve-access-to-green-energy-jobs/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
51 Brian Abernathy and Adam Thiel, A Close Call and an Uncertain Future: An Assessment of the Past, Present, and Next Steps for Philadelphia’s Largest Refinery, November 2019, https://www.phila.gov/media/20191202091559/refineryreport12219.pdf (accessed September 4, 2023), 4.
52 City of Philadelphia, Refinery Advisory Group, https://www.phila.gov/programs/refinery-advisory-group/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
53 City of Philadelphia, Advisory Group.
54 Abernathy and Thiel, Uncertain Future.
55 “PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19,” PHL GovTV, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMt5FiN6cac (accessed September 4, 2023).
56 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
57 Carey, “Rhetorical Impatience,” 270.
58 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
59 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
60 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
61 Jake Blumgart, “The East Coast’s Largest Refinery Is Closing; Many Say a Greener Future Is Possible for the Site,” WHYY, June 26, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/the-east-coasts-largest-is-closing-and-many-say-a-greener-future-is-possible-for-the-site/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
62 Blumgart, “Greener Future.”
63 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
64 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
65 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
66 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
67 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
68 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
69 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
70 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
71 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
72 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
73 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
74 Ronald Walter Greene, “Rhetorical Capital: Communicative Labor, Money/Speech, and Neo-Liberal Governance,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 4, no. 3 (2007): 329.
75 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19
76 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
77 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
78 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
79 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
80 PES Refinery Fire Public Meeting #1–8/6/19.
81 Catalina Jaramillo, “Community Meeting on the Future of the PES Refinery Was Packed, Loud and Divided,” WHYY, August 21, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/community-meeting-on-the-future-of-pes-refinery-was-packed-loud-and-divided/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
82 Catalina Jaramillo, “Six Months after the Fire, Both Ex-Refinery Workers and PES Struggle to Find New Lives,” WHYY, December 26, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/six-months-after-the-fire-both-ex-refinery-workers-and-pes-struggle-to-find-new-lives/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
83 Jaramillo, “Community Meeting.”
84 Catalina Jaramillo, “Emotions Raw, PES Refinery Workers Fight to Keep Plant Open,” WHYY, August 22, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/emotions-raw-pes-refinery-workers-fight-to-keep-plant-open/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
85 Jaramillo, “Emotions Raw.”
86 “Refinery Fire Public Meeting #2, Story Station,” PHL GovTV, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U55YwM4LVeM.
87 “Refinery Fire Public Meeting #2.”
88 “Refinery Fire Public Meeting #2.”
89 “Refinery Fire Public Meeting #2.”
90 “Refinery Fire Public Meeting #2.”
91 “Refinery Fire Public Meeting #2.”
92 “Refinery Fire Public Meeting #2.”
93 “Refinery Fire Public Meeting #2.”
94 “Refinery Fire Public Meeting #2” (accessed September 4, 2023).
95 Catalina Jaramillo, “Renewable energy producer S.G. Preston interested in buying PES refinery,” WHYY, August 23, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/renewable-energy-producer-s-g-preston-interested-in-buying-pes-refinery/ (accessed November 3, 2023).
96 Catalina Jaramillo, “Former PES refinery CEO Rinaldi says he wants to make renewable fuels at the complex,” WHYY, August 28, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/former-pes-refinery-ceo-rinaldi-says-he-wants-to-make-renewable-fuels-at-the-complex/ (accessed November 3, 2023).
97 Catalina Jaramillo, “New Uses, Even Non-Use, Will Complicate Ongoing PES Refinery Cleanup,” WHYY, August 29, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/new-uses-even-non-use-will-complicate-ongoing-pes-refinery-cleanup-dep-says/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
98 Catalina Jaramillo, “City to Issue Recommendations for Developers Eyeing PES Refinery,” WHYY, September 6, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/city-to-issue-recommendations-for-developers-eyeing-pes-refinery/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
99 Jaramillo, “City to Issue Recommendations.”
100 Abernathy and Thiel, Uncertain Future, 34.
101 Abernathy and Thiel, Uncertain Future, 33.
102 Catalina Jaramillo, “Chicago-Based Hilco Redevelopment Partners Buys PES Refinery for $240 Million,” WHYY, January 22, 2020, https://whyy.org/articles/chicago-based-hilco-redevelopment-partners-expected-to-be-new-pes-refinery-owner/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
103 Catalina Jaramillo, “New Owner of PES Refinery Site Has No Plans to Continue Refinery Operations, City Says,” WHYY, January 22, 2020, https://whyy.org/articles/new-owner-of-pes-site-has-no-plans-to-continue-refinery-operations-city-says/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
104 Jaramillo, “New Owner.”
105 Jaramillo, “New Owner.”
106 Andrew Maykuth, “Now Trump Administration Would Like to See Bankrupt Philadelphia Refinery Kept Open,” Philadelphia Inquirer, January 28, 2020, https://www.inquirer.com/business/energy/pes-philadelphia-refinery-auction-white-house-intervention-20200128.html (accessed September 4, 2023).
107 Maykuth, “Trump Administration.”
108 Maykuth, “Trump Administration.”
109 Catalina Jaramillo, “Pro-Refinery Factions Intensify Pressure to Negate PES Sale Agreement,” WHYY, January 30, 2020, https://whyy.org/articles/pro-refinery-factions-intensify-pressure-to-negate-pes-sale-agreement/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
110 Catalina Jaramillo, “Bankruptcy Judge Approves PES Refinery’s Sale to Hilco Redevelopment Partners,” WHYY, February 13, 2020, https://whyy.org/articles/bankruptcy-judge-approves-pes-refinerys-sale-to-developer-assuming-no-new-objections/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
111 Catalina Jaramillo, “‘The Refinery Wasn’t Something That We Loved’: Hilco’s Philly Point Person Is Well Aware—She Grew Up in Point Breeze,” WHYY, August 4, 2020, https://whyy.org/articles/the-refinery-wasnt-something-that-we-loved-hilcos-philly-point-person-is-well-aware-she-grew-up-in-point-breeze/ (accessed September 4, 2023).
112 Laila Kearney and Valerie Volcovici, “Insight: 150 years of spills: Philadelphia refinery cleanup highlights toxic legacy of fossil fuels,” February 16, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/business/150-years-spills-philadelphia-refinery-cleanup-highlights-toxic-legacy-fossil-2021-02-16/ (accessed November 3, 2023).
113 St. Martin, “A Vast Refinery Site.”
114 “South Philly Neighborhoods: Popular Areas and Emerging Development,” Houwzer, September 16, 2022, https://houwzer.com/blog/south-philly (accessed September 4, 2023).
115 “The 9 Best Neighborhoods to Live in Philadelphia in 2022,” Bungalow, April 14, 2022, https://bungalow.com/articles/best-neighborhoods-in-philadelphia-pa#9-grays-ferry (accessed September 4, 2023).
116 Melissa Checker, “Wiped Out by the ‘Greenwave’: Environmental Gentrification and the Paradoxical Politics of Urban Sustainability,” City & Society 23, no. 2 (2011): 212.
117 Keeling, Queer Times, Black Futures, 34.
118 Carey, “Rhetorical Impatience,” 271.
119 Hall and Schwarz, “State and Society,” 96.