The spatialization and temporalization of environmental suffering
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.
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
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusion: Redemption and “contamination” narratives
- Acknowledgements
- Note
-
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Cited by (2)
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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.
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