Cover not available
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
DOI logo
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 [URL]
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. DOI logoGoogle 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. DOI logoGoogle 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. DOI logoGoogle 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. DOI logoGoogle 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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feldman, A.
(1991) Formations of violence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DOI logoGoogle 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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grossmann, I., & Varnum, M. E. W.
(2011) Social class, culture, and cognition. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 21, 81–89. DOI logoGoogle 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. [URL]
Hammack, P.
(2008) Narrative and the cultural psychology of identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 121, 222–247. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harris, D.
(1984) Health department: Enemy or champion of the people? American Journal of Public Health, 741, 428–430. DOI logoGoogle 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 [URL]
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. DOI logoGoogle 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: [URL]
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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mohai, P., & Saha, R.
(2007) Racial inequality in the distribution of hazardous waste: A national-level reassessment. Social Problems, 541, 343–370. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nixon, R.
(2011) Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pennebaker, J. W., Boyd, R. L., Jordan, K., & Blackburn, K.
(2015) The development and psychometric properties of LIWC2015. Austin: University of Texas. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sica, A.
(1995) Gabel’s “micro/macro” bridge: The schizophrenic process writ large. Sociological Theory, 131, 66–99. DOI logoGoogle 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. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Somers, M. R.
(1994) The narrative constitution of identity: A relational and network approach. Theory & Society, 231, 605–649. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, D.
(2016) Cultural-existential psychology: The role of culture in suffering and threat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle 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. [URL]
Wertz, J.
(2017, October). Can the EPA clean up Superfund sites faster? NPR.org. [URL]
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Lanza, Elizabeth & Anne Golden
2022. Wielding Space and Time in Migrant Narratives: Personal and Professional Identities in Discourse. In Negotiating Identities in Nordic Migrant Narratives, ► pp. 111 ff. DOI 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. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 april 2024. 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.