Geography, time, and toxic pollution: slow observation in Louisiana

Abstract

This chapter forwards the concept of ‘slow observation’ as an antidote to the slow terror of toxic pollution. Inspired by Nixon’s (2011) work on ‘slow violence’, the chapter delves into the lived-experience of petrochemical pollution in Louisiana, revealing the myriad ways local communities have learnt to notice environmental injuries, not over the span of months or even years, but over decades of slow observation. From gradually witnessing plants slowly dying or changing colour; to birds and frogs no longer appearing in the local environment; to cracks slowly materializing in the foundations of buildings; the chapter reifies these ‘slow observations’ (Davies 2018) as important accumulated knowledge that can help make sense of pollution. In this racialised postcolonial landscape, the uneven distribution of pollution present today can be read as an expression of late-modern ‘necropolitics’ and can be traced to the plantation politics of the past. By examining the daily realities of environmental racism, this chapter frames slow observations as small acts of resistance against these toxic geographies. The chapter encourages geographers and allied social scientists to research slow violence using ethnographic approaches. By taking seriously the knowledge claims of local communities, it allows us to contest dominant framings of slow violence as a necessarily ‘invisible’ form of brutality. Slow violence is not always invisible. It just depends who is looking.