Analyze

Sylvia Wynter (2003) suggests that our current struggles in Western colonized society regarding racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, ethnicism, climate change, environmental destruction, and the unequal distribution of resources are rooted in what she argues is the overrepresentation of the descriptive statement of Man as human, which only recognizes white, wealthy, able-bodied, heterosexual men as "human." As such, just as I argue Black feminist writers and scholars have drawn on speculative methods and Afrofuturism, the use of twentieth-century technology and speculative imagination to address issues within Black and African diasporic communities (see Dery & Dery, 1994), to insist on and explore the full humanity of Black girls, women, and femmes, so too have Black and African diasporic scholars called on Afrofuturism to imagine new ways technology and traditional knowledge practices can address environmental injustice. Suékama (2018) argues that as a form of resistant knowledge building and theorizing, an Afrofuturist approach to environmentalism “integrates speculation with the ecological and scientific, and the spiritual or metaphysical'' to make our environmental justice less European, male, human, (and I would add capitalist) centered. Thus, an Afrofuturist approach to environmental injustice asks us to think about our collective struggle for environmental justice as a part of and connected to other forms of systemic oppression rooted in the rejection of African diasporic and Indigenous people and their knowledge practices through the overrepresentation of Man as human in Western society. In this way, a speculative and Afrofuturist approach to environmental injustice draws on African diasporic knowledge practices in conjunction with modern and traditional technologies to imagine new solutions to environmental injustice that center the needs, values, and traditional practices of African diasporic people.

Peterson-Salahuddin, Chelsea. 2023. "An Afrofuturist Approach to Unsettling Environmental injustice." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

This 7-minute 'image film' was produced in light of the 100 year anniversary of the Wood River refinery. It briefly touches on the company's products, history and guiding values. I first saw the film in a small cinema room at the Wood River Refinery Museum and found this upload on YouTube. I was curious to see how anthropocenic effects are or are not depicted.  At about 90 seconds into the clip, a plant operator states: "This piece of land, this refinery has been here for a hundred years and it has changed with the world over the last hundred years, through world war two, but now we have women in the refinery." However, the narrative is not further developed, as the film cuts to another worker who recounts visiting the facility with his father. Certainly, a promotional film like this is supposed to present the company in the best light possible. When it comes to social and environmental change, a vague acknowledgment of World War II and a positive framing of women entering the company's workforce might indicate the limits of this visual mode of communication. 

The authors are Paul E. Farmer, Bruce Nizeye, Sara Stulac, and Salmaan Keshavjee. All of the authors are involved with the nonprofit organization Partners in Health in some capacity, with experience working with rural or poverty stricken areas. Paul E Farmer, the primary author of the article is a medical doctor also working for the United Nations who has published many other articles on similar topics.

The main argument is that susceptibility to certain diseases is not only determined by biology but also social conditions, leading to a disproportionate disease rate among the poor, and minority groups without access to medical services. The author shows that addressing these social conditions leads to a decrease in disease when combining treatment and prevention plans.

The argument is supported through a combination of historical information including rates of AIDS in the early 1990’s and a study done in Baltimore in an effort to reduce AIDS rates in African Americans, who were more likely to be in poverty, by addressing monetary barriers to heath care. Two more recent cases are also used to support the main argument, implementing a method created by the Partners in Health to prevent transmission and provide AIDS care in rural Haiti and rural Rwanda. Throughout the article references were made to the current medical professional’s dilemma, where they are in a position to see the social inequalities contributing to disease rates but not trained to report or change common social contributing factors. This makes the article more relatable to the reader that may have experience in the medical field which elps to support the argument.

“Pioneers of modern public health during the nineteenth century, such as Rudolph Virchow, understood that epidemic disease and dismal life expectancies were tightly linked to social conditions [55,56].” (Farmer 5)

“…large­-scale social forces—racism, gender inequality, poverty, political violence and war, and sometimes the very policies that address them—often determine who falls ill and who has access to care.” (Farmer 1)

“In an attempt to address these ethnic disparities in care, researchers and clinicians in Baltimore reported how racism and poverty— forms of structural violence, though they did not use these specific terms—were embodied [33,34] as excess mortality among African Americans without insurance.” (Farmer 2)

Data collected from a study done in Baltimore in the 1990’s, including statistics and observations is used to support the main argument. The methods used in Haiti and Rwanda as well as the results from implementing those methods are also used as examples for the claim that social conditions greatly impact disease susceptibility.

Emergency response is addressed in terms of both long term response and future emergency prevention. The method used by the PIH in both Haiti and Rwanda were implemented in response to high rates of disease in those places, showing that an emergency can occur gradually and the response may require creating a permanent system. Prevention is also discussed as a portion of emergency response, that it is important not only to deal with emergencies as they occur but also to identify the causes and change the system to prevent the same emergency in the future.

The article has primarily been referenced in later works by Paul E. Farmer who has written several other papers and articles on both the medical state of Haiti and Rwanda as well as structural violence in many capacities. The article was initially published in 2006 and has since been published in journals, books, as well as open online collections for use by the sts community.

The bibliography shows references to several papers by many of the same authors, showing it was produced as a continuation of previous ideas but showing new information learned through the PIH’s activities in Haiti and Rwanda. The bibliography also shows many references from the early to mid 1990’s showing similar thoughts to initial research done in Baltimore and other places with high rates of AIDS.