Life and Death in Louisiana’s Petrochemical Industrial Complex

Abstract

This photo essay traces the historical geography of Norco, Louisiana—heart of Louisiana’s petrochemical industrial complex. Norco, named for the first oil company sited there (the New Orleans Refinery Company), is the quintessential Louisiana petrochemical town, neither exceptional nor provincial, a place that for generations has been a nexus of struggles between racial capitalism’s extractive drive and the demands for collective life encapsulated in slave uprisings and environmental justice activism. Moreover, the fact that by the late 20^th century, petrochemical pollution made the best path forward for residents of the historic Black freedom neighborhood Diamond was by fighting for relocation raises critical questions about the life and death work of just transition from oil capitalism.

该图片文章追溯了Norco的历史地理。做为美国路易斯安那州的石油化工工业中心，Norco是路易斯安那州第一家石油公司（新奥尔良炼油公司）的缩写，也是最典型的石油化工城市，它既不特殊也不偏僻。几代人以来，Norco始终是以下两种斗争的焦点种族资本主义提炼行为，奴隶起义和环境正义激进主义所需求的集体生活。此外，到20世纪末，由于石油化工的污染，争取搬迁成为历史性黑人自由社区Diamond居民的最佳发展道路。这引发了在石油资本主义向正义过渡中，对生死行为的严重质疑。

Este ensayo fotográfico traza la geografía histórica de Norco, Luisiana –– el corazón del complejo petroquímico industrial de aquel estado. Norco, así nombrado por la primera compañía petrolera asentada allí (la New Orleans Refinery Company), es el pueblo petrolero de Luisiana por antonomasia, ni excepcional ni provinciano, un lugar que durante generaciones ha sido una conexión de las luchas entre el ímpeto extraccionista del capitalismo racial y los reclamos colectivos de vida compendiados en las revueltas de los esclavos y el activismo de la justicia ambiental. Además, el hecho de que para finales del siglo XX la contaminación petroquímica diera su mejor paso adelante, en tanto que para los residentes de la histórica barriada Diamond de la libertad negra el mismo se dio peleando por relocalización, todo eso promueve interrogantes críticos acerca del trabajo de vida y muerte para una transición justa desde el capitalismo petrolero.

Key Words:

• environmental justice
• Louisiana
• oil capitalism
• petrochemical industry
• Shell oil
• 环境正义
• 路易斯安那州
• 石油资本主义
• 石油化工
• 壳牌
• capitalismo petrolero
• industria petroquímica
• justicia ambiental
• Luisiana
• Shell

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Gratitude to Jack Norton for encouragement and feedback on this essay, to Darin Acosta for first teaching me about Norco and introducing me to the concept of the “petrochemical industrial complex,” and to Aubrey Edwards for collaborating with me on the photography. Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers whose generative comments strengthened this piece.

Notes

1. My attention to the interrelationship between the ordinary and extraordinary landscapes of Norco while primarily focused on how it can reveal the productions and contradictions of racial capitalist regimes, is also indebted to scholarship seeking to disrupt the visual over-determination and esthetic fetishization of hazardous site representations to more fully comprehend the processes through which toxic geographies are made, and therefore how they might be unmade (Balayannis 2019; Davies 2019; Rosenfeld et al. 2018).

2. Throughout this essay, “Black” is capitalized to denote the that this identity category is not a given but an explicitly politicized subject formation in the Black radical tradition.

3. Movement Generation defines just transition as a “shift to an economy that is ecologically sustainable, equitable, and just for all its members” (3).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lydia Pelot-Hobbs

LYDIA PELOT-HOBBS is an assistant professor of Geography and African American & Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research focuses on the carceral state, racial capitalism, and social movements.