Alternative visions for citizenship practice in an environmental justice dispute

Abstract.

This paper explores the way in which multiple discourses of citizenship inflect environmental justice activism. A case study of a siting conflict in St James Parish, Louisiana (US) highlights that different citizen subjectivities and socio-spatial relations are imagined within alternative traditions of citizenship. The paper works through several moments in the St James controversy to illustrate the implications of each of these traditions for struggle over environmental justice. It is argued that in borrowing from both liberal and communitarian traditions, the activists at the centre of this case were fostering a hybridised conception of citizenship that helped them to negotiate the spatial tensions inherent in the idea of environmental justice.

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank Katherine Hankins for her spirited engagement in a dialogue that lasted longer than either of us expected it would, and for her forebearance regarding various hiccups in the process of editing these papers. In addition, I thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on earlier versions of the paper.

Notes

1. The proposed Shintech facility was designed on a more massive and integrated scale than most of the 10 existing PVC production facilities in the US. It would be made up of three integrated production units (chlor/alkali, VCM and PVC) as well as an on-site incinerator for waste disposal. Vinyl chloride, or vinyl chloride monomer (VCM), is the monomer from which polyvinylchloride is derived. It is widely used and valued in industrial processes because its polymers have important flame-retardant properties. Vinyl chloride itself, however, is a fire and explosion hazard; like many industrial chemicals, its combustion releases several additional toxic gases (EHC, 1997). Part of the concern with PVC production stems from the incineration of waste VCM. Vinyl chloride is ranked fourth on the EPA's list of priority hazardous substances (ATSDR, 1999) and emissions of more than 1 lb per year of VCM are required to be reported to the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). VCM is listed as a carcinogen in the TRI and has been related in a number of studies to cancers of the liver, lung and brain (ATSDR, 1999; EHC, 1997). Epidemiological studies have also noted high incidences of miscarriage and birth defects among those exposed to vinyl chloride. The chemical industry tends to downplay the health effects of vinyl chloride by noting that its carcinogenic effects have been related to intensive occupational exposure to the chemical (Shintech, Inc., 1996), but the lower limit of pre-cancerous exposure is not known (EHC, 1997). Vinyl chloride is a chemical which is the subject of particular public concern in Louisiana because the three African American ‘vinyl communities’ of Morrisonville, Reveilletown and Sunrise, located adjacent to vinyl chloride production facilities, were so heavily contaminated by VCM that they were bought out and relocated by the companies in question.

2. As elicited in interviews with participants in the Shintech protest, the discourses of citizenship invoked in this dispute were derived from lived experience and strategic interpretations of the parameters of the siting dispute.

3. The claim made under Title V of the Clean Water Act of 1990 is not a focus of the paper, but referenced here to illustrate the combinatory legal strategy used by the St James Citizens for Jobs and Environment