Article published in:
Narrative Inquiry
Vol. 30:2 (2020) ► pp. 271–293

The spatialization and temporalization of environmental suffering

| University of Arizona
| University of Arizona
| University of Arizona
Many people live in circumstances of environmental suffering: exposure to contaminated natural resources and toxic chemicals due to a history of accident or misuse. Environmental suffering is disproportionately experienced by politically, ethnically, and economically disadvantaged group members. An analysis rooted in the concept of false consciousness (Gabel, 1975) suggests that environmental suffering narratives tend toward perspectival distortions. Although narratives from disadvantaged group members may contain defensive distortions, these are warranted by experiences of environmental suffering, and expert narratives also regularly contain distortions. Disadvantaged narratives of environmental suffering tend toward spatializing distortions: emphasizing spatial aspects, objectifying people and agents, and fixating on a tragic past. Advantaged narratives of environmental suffering tend toward temporalizing distortions: emphasizing temporal aspects, refusing to clearly assign blame, and fixating on a “miraculous” future. We present a preliminary supporting study, using quantitative text analysis, of parallel environmental suffering narratives from community members, EPA officials, and other experts.
Keywords: environmental racism, contamination narratives, time, space, false consciousness, redemption narratives
Article outline
  • Introduction: Common themes in environmental suffering narratives
  • Method: The politics of narrative
  • Theoretical tools: False consciousness and psychiatric phenomenology
  • Theoretical analysis: Environmental suffering narratives as modes of false consciousness
    • Narrative style
    • Cognitive style
    • Attitude towards history
    • Summary
  • Empirical analysis: Themes in Superfund oral history interviews
  • Method
    • Data source
    • Analyses
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion: Redemption and “contamination” narratives
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 19 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.18054.sul
References
Auyero, J., & Swistun, D. A.
(2009) Flammable: Environmental suffering in an Argentine shantytown. New York: Oxford UP.Google Scholar
Baker, D.
(1998) Keynote speech. In P. Tucker (Ed.), Report of the expert panel workshop on the psychological responses to hazardous substances (pp. 15–18). Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from https://​www​.atsdr​.cdc​.gov​/hec​/prhs​/psych5ed​.pdf
Baum, A., Gatchel, R. J., & Schaeffer, M. A.
(1983) Emotional, behavioral, and physiological effects of chronic stress at Three Mile Island. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 511, 565–572. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Beck, U.
(1992) Risk society. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Bella, D. A., Mosher, C. D., & Calvo, S. N.
(1988) Technocracy and trust: Nuclear waste controversy. Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering, 1141, 27–39. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Brugge, D. T., Benally, P., & Harrison, M.
(1997) Memories come to us in the rain and the wind: Oral histories and photographs of Navajo uranium miners and their families. Boston: Tufts School of Medicine.Google Scholar
Cable, S., Shriver, T. E., & Mix, T. L.
(2008) Risk society and contested illness: The case of nuclear weapons workers. American Sociological Review, 731, 380–401. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dzokoto, V. A., & Adams, G.
(2005) Understanding genital-shrinking epidemics in West Africa: Koro, juju, or mass psychogenic illness? Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 291, 53–78. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Edelstein, M. R.
(2004) Contaminated communities: Coping with residential toxic exposure. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Eden, S.
(1999) “We have the facts” – how business claims legitimacy in the environmental debate. Environment and Planning A, 311, 1295–1309. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, A.
(1991) Formations of violence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gabel, J.
(1975) False consciousness: An essay on reification. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Grant, D., Trautner, M. N., Downey, L., & Thiebaud, L.
(2010) Bringing the polluters back in: Environmental inequality and the organization of chemical production. American Sociological Review, 751, 479–504. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Grossmann, I., & Varnum, M. E. W.
(2011) Social class, culture, and cognition. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 21, 81–89. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Grumbly, T.
(2005) Superfund 25th Anniversary Oral History: Transcript of Interview with Tom Grumbly, Former President and CEO of Clean Sites, Inc., and Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management – U.S. Department of Energy. https://​semspub​.epa​.gov​/work​/HQ​/100000089​.pdf
Hammack, P.
(2008) Narrative and the cultural psychology of identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 121, 222–247. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Harris, D.
(1984) Health department: Enemy or champion of the people? American Journal of Public Health, 741, 428–430. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Herrera, D. S.
(1998) Keynote speech. In P. Tucker (Ed.), Report of the expert panel workshop on the psychological responses to hazardous substances (pp. 19–22). Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved from https://​www​.atsdr​.cdc​.gov​/hec​/prhs​/psych5ed​.pdf
Kroll-Smith, J. S., & Couch, S. R.
(1990) The real disaster is above ground: A mine fire and social conflict. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.Google Scholar
Layder, D.
(1998) Sociological practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lerner, S.
(2012) Sacrifice zones: The front lines of toxic chemical exposure in the United States. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Matheson, A., Wood, L., & Franklin, S.
(2017) Guided and unguided student reflections. Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved from: https://​arxiv​.org​/pdf​/1710​.05259​.pdf
Mazur, A.
(1998) A hazardous inquiry: The “Rashomon” effect at Love Canal. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McAdams, D. P.
(2013) The redemptive self: Stories Americans live by. Revised Ed. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McClelland, D. C.
(1975) Power: The inner experience. New York: Irvington.Google Scholar
Minkowski, E.
(1970) Lived time (N. Metzel, Trans.). Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Moezzi, M., Janda, K. B., & Rotmann, S.
(2017) Using stories, narratives, and storytelling in energy and climate change research. Energy Research & Social Science, 311, 1–10. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mohai, P., & Saha, R.
(2007) Racial inequality in the distribution of hazardous waste: A national-level reassessment. Social Problems, 541, 343–370. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nixon, R.
(2011) Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pennebaker, J. W., Boyd, R. L., Jordan, K., & Blackburn, K.
(2015) The development and psychometric properties of LIWC2015. Austin: University of Texas. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sica, A.
(1995) Gabel’s “micro/macro” bridge: The schizophrenic process writ large. Sociological Theory, 131, 66–99. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sales, J. M., Merrill, N. A., & Fivush, R.
(2013) Does making meaning make it better? Narrative meaning-making and well-being in at-risk African-American adolescent females. Memory, 21(1), 97–110. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Somers, M. R.
(1994) The narrative constitution of identity: A relational and network approach. Theory & Society, 231, 605–649. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, D.
(2016) Cultural-existential psychology: The role of culture in suffering and threat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, D. E.
(2014) Toxic communities: Environmental racism, industrial pollution, and residential mobility. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Vyner, H. M.
(1988) Invisible trauma: The psychosocial effects of invisible environmental contaminants. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Weiss, R., & Heimbinder, M.
(2010) “Creek Speak” – Newtown Creek Community Health & Harms Narrative Project: Final report from the Newtown Creek Alliance. http://​www​.newtowncreekalliance​.org​/community​-health​/creek​-speak/
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Lanza, Elizabeth & Anne Golden
2022.  In Negotiating Identities in Nordic Migrant Narratives, ► pp. 111 ff. Crossref logo
Schmitt, Harrison J., Isaac F. Young, Lucas A. Keefer, Roman Palitsky, Sheridan A. Stewart, Alexis N. Goad & Daniel Sullivan
2021. Time-Space Distanciation as a Decolonizing Framework for Psychology. Review of General Psychology 25:4 ► pp. 405 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.