Across the U.S., Black communities live in environments burdened by toxic wastes. This research project investigates the relationship between race and waste in industrialized societies, through a case study of aluminum production in North Carolina. The study examines how race and waste have allowed aluminum to become a vital and valuable material in the modern U.S. The investigators will analyze how racism has shaped work, social life and politics in an aluminum company town, drawing on the insights and supporting the efforts of impacted underprivileged residents. This detailed empirical and historical study of a small town in the American South will contribute theoretical understanding to a wide range of disciplines, including critical and feminist geopolitics, historical geography, environmental studies, American Studies, and critical race studies. Collaborative and arts-based methods will make research accessible and engage broader audiences in environmental justice education.
In scholarship on toxic exposure and hazardous environments, race is frequently taken for granted, included as one variable among many or an unintended by-product of larger structural issues. This research centralizes structural racism in 20th century capitalism, a period in which aluminum played a key role in establishing the U.S. as a global military and economic power. The case study focuses on Badin, North Carolina, one of the first aluminum smelters in the U.S and a segregated company town that is the site of a contemporary environmental justice struggle. Using a combination of archival and ethnographic methods to examine 100 years of Badin?s history (1915-2015), this research investigates and contributes to scholarship on waste, structural racism, and environmental justice politics. The investigators examine multiple wastes in Badin, from the chemical by-products of aluminum smelting and the unmarked toxic dumps, to the bodies of workers and environmental resources that are ?wasted? in order to make usable aluminum. They trace how different actors over the course of Badin?s history negotiated, defined and challenged what was considered valuable and what was marginalized as waste. The study explores how segregation and anti-Black racism have impacted the social life and the physical environment in Badin over time and what it means for affected communities to build political participation through suffering and illness caused by toxic exposure. Through participant-observation of Badin community negotiations to redress contamination, and drawing on interviews with key stakeholders in regional environmental justice politics, the study examines the potential for racial and environmental justice in the U.S. today.
