by Tessa Stapp
In ninth grade biology, we learn that the cell has a semipermeable membrane that allows nutrients to pass through it from the surrounding environment. Stepping back and considering ourselves as the cell — as we too are affected by the nutrients and chemicals in our environment — is to believe in our own trans-corporeality.
Stacy Alaimo, a professor of the environmental humanities, coined the term “trans-corporeality” to highlight the ways in which human bodies are inseparable from the natural world they inhabit. In her book “Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self,” Alaimo states that “the human is always inter-meshed with the more-than-human world.” Contrary to the colonial view of the human-nature relationship, which values natural resources based on their use to humans, she argues that society needs to first think about human-centric hierarchies and the impact they can have on the environment.
Alaimo’s work interrogates the human interconnectivity with non-human nature by connecting corporeal feminist theory, disability studies, environmental health, and interdisciplinary sciences. For instance, the onset of the Anthropocene marks the period of time where the human experience has had the most impact on the environment. Modern nature hierarchies were instilled in America through colonization that formed the narrative of anthropocentrism, an environmental view of humans at the top of the food and life pyramid while all other animals occupy a lesser space.
Research on who lives near toxic waste sites in America and the health effects of toxic waste sites, like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s survey of superfund sites, sheds light on why the trans-corporeal framework is necessary to understanding the human-environment relationship. Alaimo’s theory explains the ways in which capitalism steals our ability to see our own porousness and continues to toxify the human body through environmental mediums such as the air, soil, and water.
A critical study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that 49.7% of those living within three miles of a remedial superfund site are minorities (meaning those on the census except those marked white non-Hispanic), while minorities are only estimated to be 38.4% of the total U.S. population. The toxic sites surrounding BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) populated communities directly impacts the health of these communities.
Nancy Langston, an environmental historian, explains in her book Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Legacy of DES that “toxic chemicals have the potential to cross the boundaries between species and generations, altering the hormone systems that shape our internal ecosystems of health, as well as our relationships with the broader ecosystem around us.” In “Health Effects of Residence Near Hazardous Waste Landfill Sites: A Review of Epidemiologic Literature,” author Martine Vrijheid explains that the impact of generational immune system trauma means that children growing up in communities near sites polluted with hazardous material are more likely to develop asthma and cancer in the future.
There has been proof of a correlation between race and toxicity in the environment for decades. The first environmental justice research conducted in Southern California found a direct correlation between the percentages of non-white peoples living in an area code and the amount of uncontrolled toxic waste sites in the area.
Based on this research, air pollution appears to disproportionately affect POC and low-income communities. Ihab Makati and other researchers from the University of Minnesota have concluded that those in poverty have a 1.35 times higher burden of particulate matter (PM2.5), POC have a 1.28 times higher burden of PM2.5, and Black people have a 1.54 times higher burden of PM2.5 compared to the average person. The research analysis further shows that these patterns of disproportionate impact hold across cities and states. Thus, the trends seen in fig. 1 and fig. 3 seem to be applicable beyond individual cities. Low-income and POC families experience environmental injustices on multiple levels; toxicity permeates the water, soil, and air of these communities.
The damage is inflicted on the environment through illegally dumping hazardous waste or creating cheap solutions for oil spills. These tactics allow profits to soar for companies like Shell and ExxonMobil by negating their environmental culpability. Ultimately, the true cost falls on the individuals who live intimately with the Earth. Fig. 2, fig. 3, and fig. 4 illustrate the correlation between marginalized communities and their proximity to pollution on the city and national level.
BIPOC families are disproportionately affected by this choice to value corporate motives over the environment and people. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) reports that the oil and gas industry in America emits nine million tons of methane and pollutants annually, and African American communities bear the brunt of this pollution.
Even on a global level, corporate actors are the key contributors to environmental degradation. The Carbon Disclosure Project states that only one hundred companies are responsible for 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As Alaimo suggests, by viewing the environment as a space without agency and as materials for usage without considering that we also must live on this land, we are ignoring the porousness of our bodies.
In feminist theory, the term “necropolitics,” explored by philosopher Achille Mbembe, reckons with the implications of ignoring our trans-corporeality. There is an acknowledgment of the state’s view of specific individuals, and in this case environments, as “living-dead” or already dying. The willingness to misuse nature and allow primarily low-income BIPOC families to live on toxic land is how the politics of death move through the environment.
Ensuring a healthy living environment for all people requires decolonizing our land and point of view related to the environment.
“Human beings have been talking about leaving a small footprint on the Earth,” the spokeswoman of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan/Ohlone and co-founder of the Sogorea Te Land Trust, Corrina Gould, explained during a panel on decolonizing Ohlone land. “Nearly everything we made was biodegradable. Everything except the shellmound, mortar and pestles, and arrowheads.”
“How do we return to leaving behind a small footprint?” asked Gould. Through rematriation, the women-led process of returning stolen land back to its ancestral caretakers facilitates the process of trans-corporeality. The land trust works in Huichin Ohlone land to facilitate land and food sovereignty for native peoples. The work of physical decolonization recognizes the importance and vitality of the environment.
Gould then explained why her ancestors respected nature. Through a story of her grandson hitting a tree with a branch one day, she reminded us all to be grateful to the tree and respect it for all it does for us.
“Can you give me air?” asked Gould.
Her grandson replied “no.”
“Can I give you air?” asked Gould.
“No,” her grandson responded.
Gould said, “that is why we must protect and care for them as they care for us.”
Through facilitating the stewardship of the land by those whose ancestors knew how to best care for it and abandoning a human-centered hierarchical view of nature, there is hope for positive change.
Gould, with a determined look in her eye, ended with, “we lived in reciprocity with the land. The land gave us what we needed and we nourished it. Then it continued to feed us and future generations.” According to Gould, by divesting ourselves of an anthropocentric viewpoint and instead embracing systems of mutual aid across species, we can live trans-corporeality.
Sources:
Alaimo, Stacy. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010. Print. Pg. 2
U.S. EPA, Office of Land and Emergency Management Estimate. 2017. Data collected includes: (1) Superfund site information as of the end of FY2016; and (2) 20011-2015 American Community Survey (ACS) census data. Sites used in this analysis included 1,836 Superfund final, deleted, and proposed National Priorities List (NPL) sites, as well as non-NPL Superfund Alternative Agreement sites in the 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico with accurate location data.
“Disrupting Hormonal Signals.” Toxic Bodies: Hormone Disruptors and the Legacy of DES, by Nancy Langston, Yale University Press, New Haven; London, 2010, pp. 1–16. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1nq0mv.5. Accessed 8 Oct. 2020.
https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/environmental-justice
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304297
https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304297
The United Church of Christ’s study of uncontrolled hazardous wastes in Los Angeles city, 1987.
https://insideclimatenews.org/content/map-people-color-greater-air-pollution-burden
Greenpeace investigation reveals Shell, Total, and other oil majors using illegal toxic waste dumps in Patagonia
Mbembé, J.-A. and Libby Meintjes. “Necropolitics.” Public Culture, vol. 15 no. 1, 2003, p. 11-40. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/39984.
Colonization, Decolonization, & Rematriation on Ohlone Land. Panel. October 21st, 2020.
Tessa Stapp (she/they) is a third-year double majoring in Political Science and Gender and Women’s Studies with a minor in LGBT Studies. She joined Perennial hoping to delve deeper into academic research surrounding the environment and use this research to uncover the inequalities faced by marginalized communities. Outside of academia, she spends time making linoleum block prints and painting.