This research is about examining the way in which racialized environmental violence contributes to exploitative social relations becoming embedded in the everyday world. I argue that the space of the everyday has been produced through cycles of social relations proceeding from and/or tied to racialized environmental violence. I continue the work of critical scholars in asserting that social and environmental violence is linked in the same ideological impulse which seeks to hide itself behind a variety of alienating processes. The slow way in which environmental violence works is particularly impactful in these processes because of its attritional lethality, contributing to premature death. I studied these processes by examining the histories surrounding the site of a construction day labor firm in Richmond, Virginia. My methodology includes archival research on newspapers, public documents, and secondary sources establishing that the patterned co-location of social and environmental violence does not occur by chance.

This dissertation may be read on several different levels. At its most accessible, it is a detailed ethnographic description of how ‘women in mining’ negotiate the daily terrain of caregiving and being exposed to highly contagious and resistant diseases that are associated with mining, which could potentially adversely affect their day-to-day lives, wellbeing and family relations. At its most analytical, it utilises Nixon’s concept of ‘slow violence’ by carefully charting the challenges that a female mineworker faces; having to provide for her family even in the most difficult situations, and sometimes at the expense of her own health. Hence, ‘women in mining’ are situated in a web of connections that exist between working underground and being caregivers in their homes; while at risk of transmitting tuberculosis (TB) and acquiring reproductive health related problems. This dissertation illustrates the tactics and coping strategies that women in mining employ, and argues that they ‘make a plan’ to minimise the negative social consequences of ill health.

Over the course of his fifty-year career, Mexican writer José Emilio Pacheco has almost habitually written poetry about environmental themes especially those related to pollution, extraction, deforestation, and other related themes of destruction. Simultaneously, his work has engaged with questions of temporality, namely the passing of time and the inherent violence of such questions. In this essay, I examine a selection of Pacheco's poetry from the 1970s to the early 2000s, demonstrating Pacheco's marrying of the two concepts: environmental degradation and time. This marriage results in a provocative synthesis of eco-apocalypse, a phenomenon that details a paradoxical end that never actually arrives, but only consistently worsens. I illuminate Pacheco's work by incorporating Rob Nixon's concept of "slow violence”, which informs my reading of the poetry by calling to its imaginative power. This power allows it to depict that which is imperceptible, either because it moves too slowly or too broadly to be witnessed by the human observant. In short, Pacheco's poetry addresses human-perceived time and natural or deep time in light of the ongoing apocalypse, which, despite the morose tone of the poetry, obliquely urges the reader towards an awareness of eco-apocalypse.

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Using Nixon’s (2011) conceptualisation of slow violence, this study explores how violence is portrayed in English-language news articles reporting the Kyrgyz-Tajik border conflicts in April 2021 and September 2022. This study aims to discover the ways in which violence is communicated to English-speaking audiences, and, in a larger context, it contributes to the understanding of violence produced in border conflicts. The study analyses 50 news articles from four different media outlets through thematic analysis. The findings from this study suggest that the news reporting on the border conflicts focuses on casualties and “visible” violence, aligning with Nixon’s arguments that slow violence, the gradual degradation and suffering, is being marginalised in the public discourse. Moreover, the study finds that slow violence is best communicated in articles that build on personal interviews with the people living in the border communities.

This thesis is a critical analysis of the normative planning practice in relation to the aspirational principles of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) (especially Section A, Part 1: Overall Responsibility to the Public). By exploring several dimensions of typical, or Business As Usual, planning practices in a local planning department in Springfield, Massachusetts and contextualized within larger planning concerns in the United States, I illustrate that socio-spatial, racialized oppression is deeply embedded in these common practices. Through a multimethod approach that includes historical survey, archival research, interviews, and direct observation, I argue that most professional planning operates from within antiquated frameworks that prioritize professionalism and expertise over genuine community engagement, relationality, and collective agency. This structure contributes to weakened trust in government and inequitable allocation of attention and resources, thereby reproducing inequity, particularly in disaster contexts. While these are my findings from site-specific research, I contend that such outcomes are evident in planning departments more generally. Thus, I conclude that the exacerbation of inequity during crises is not isolated, but instead a result of deeply embedded neoliberal planning practices. Specifically, I identify key barriers to equitable planning as 1) absence of care, 2) over-reliance on economic development, 3) disconnects between research and implementation, 4) degraded linking social capital and top-down public participation, and 5) illusions of objectivity in planning. These patterns contribute to what I, following Rob Nixon (2011), call slow violence against vulnerable populations through professional silence about and complicity in violent structures. Associating these trends with the violence of COVID-19 and racism, I find that planning may be participating in structural slow violence against communities of color, especially in Legacy Cities such as Springfield, Massachusetts. Finally, I call for a shift in planning practice, wherein we acknowledge and take responsibility for the unavoidable political role of the planner. I propose five steps to redirect our practices: 1) acknowledge our past, 2) reject illusions of objectivity, 3) identify injustices and define resilience collectively, 4) center care frameworks, and 5) invest in the implementation of research findings

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It was my first visit ever to the neighborhood association – in February 2017 – and the phone rang again in the contiguous room. “I’m sorry” apologized José Luis “but our colleagues are not here yet and I need to answer the phone”. Manolo, who stayed with me, responded to my curious look: “we just sent the monthly invoice of the cooperative committee of funerals and this month is higher than usual. Three people died only last week. The neighbors are calling to check if the invoice is right, and some of them are trying to postpone the payment. But we try not to do exceptions, it’s the only way to keep working”. When José Luis came back, they both explained to me what exactly was the cooperative committee of funerals. Facing an increase in the number of deceased people and the high expense that is usually incurred by families in burial services, in 1987 the neighborhood association came up with the idea of creating a group of people that would share those costs. The project, though, would only make sense with widespread support from the community. Despite the strict age limit of 50 years old, almost 4.000 people responded when the call was launched, and the number of associates has remained steady through the years. This anecdote reflects very well the identity of the Can Sant Joan community, to which José Luis and Manolo passionately introduced me during that first meeting. The two men talked straight about the many social and environmental problems that the neighborhood had faced during the years and the ways in which the community had organized to confront them. Yet, they did not speak in a plaintive way, their speech challenged corporate and institutional power and claimed fearlessly for social justice. The Can Sant Joan community – not unlike many others in the Vallès region – has faced many adversities of different kind since its very creation, but its inhabitants have always confronted them and have restlessly fought for improving the living conditions in the neighborhood. Can Sant Joan stands out among other sacrifice zones in the Vallès area because of the long list of locally unwanted land uses that is burdened with, but especially because of its strong subaltern identity that has led the community to partially revert their condition. My research is grounded on the acknowledgment of Can Sant Joan’s environmental and social burdens, as a representation of all those communities around the world whose livelihoods are contaminated and impoverished in the name of neoliberal capitalism, and especially to those that decide to stand up and fight against power inequalities and social injustices. I foresee my research not just as an intellectual exercise, but as a process grounded in real life experiences of contamination and neglect that ultimately seeks to make a difference in the community, where it starts. This study is, thus, a transdisciplinary – almost antidisciplinary – piece where different disciplines with ambitions of challenging the sociopolitical status quo in order to achieve social and environmental justice intertwine. My research is built on existing literature in the fields of subaltern environmentalism – and other forms alternative environmentalism – political ecology and environmental humanities. Much have been written about polluted communities in different fields, but there are still crucial gaps that need to be filled. My ambitions are to better understand the sociopolitical processes that lead to the creation of sacrifice zones, to expand the definition of violence by uncovering different forms of slow violence that take place in them, to analyze the environmental movements embraced by affected communities, and to evaluate the potential benefits 1 that a subaltern environmental movement could have to those communities. The outcome of my research will be shared with the movement against waste incineration of Can Sant Joan and with the community in an attempt to realize the main aspiration of my research: to inform and enhance the activist movement in the neighborhood. This will be done by co-organizing at least one public event in the neighborhood together with members of the movement against incineration, in which the outcomes of my research will be presented to the local audience. Additionally, I keep personal relationship with the key informants, who have been integrated in the activist-scholar circle of the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory. If successful, this study could be the first stage of an action research in which local activists would not only be treated as a group of study, but their needs and actions would reframe the questions and scope of my research. In turn, the local movement against incineration would make use of the research outcomes in order to reach its goal, eventually creating a symbiotic feedback process potentially fruitful for both parts. This study is organized in seven chapters and six interludes. In chapter 2 I present the rationale behind the choice of case study as a research methodology, introduce the writer to the case study design, and share the ethical considerations at stake. Chapter 3 contains the theoretical toolbox where I conduct a literature review of the material that serves as theoretical frame for this study. I start with different visions on subalternity to later define subaltern environmentalism, and pointing out to some commonalities among different forms of alternative environmentalism. Then, I explore the concept of sacrifice zone and present the street science process that is being used by affected communities in order to uncover the infliction of slow violence in a variety of forms. In chapter 4 I introduce the reader to the case study through a short historical revision of the origins of Can Sant Joan and the development of the neighborhood until our days. Thereafter I thoroughly analyze the socio-political positionality of the community in different terms to verify if Can Sant Joan is a subaltern community. Chapter 5 is dedicated to discussing the neighborhood of Can Sant Joan as a sacrifice zone, as well as different forms of slow violence that the community has suffered. First, I revise the long list of locally unwanted land uses (LULUs) that the community has been burdened with and uncover a pattern based on political criteria for the placing of those LULUs. Thereupon, I analyze the different forms of slow violence that Can Sant Joan is being inflicted, including environmental, structural and narrative violence. In chapter 6, I document the movement against waste incineration in the cement plant that is taking place in Can Sant Joan, present the main forms of activism that the movement is using, and discuss the features that make it fit into the frame of subaltern environmentalism. Then, I discuss the central role of street science and forming coalitions: while the former is used to contest narrative violence and legitimize the claims of the community, the latter enhances public visibility and helps to forge a common subaltern identity that goes beyond the borders of the neighborhood. The study concludes with chapter 7, where I summarize the outcomes of this thesis by answering the research questions posed in chapter 2. Finally, I briefly present potential future research in Can Sant Joan that could keep contributing to the mobilized scholarly fields and to the movement against incineration as well, and close with a short update of the last months of struggle. The study is complemented with a series of six 2 interludes inspired by the Toxic Bios1 project, which compiles in an interactive open access online platform toxic autobiographies from communities affected by environmental injustices in several European countries and beyond. In the interludes the scale of the unit of analysis shifts from the community of Can Sant Joan to the individuals affected by the studied phenomena and thus, I use storytelling in order to complement my research with insights from a different perspective. In the first interlude, I highlight the importance that bodily experiences of toxicity can have in contesting narrative violence through toxic storytelling and I discuss the new guerrilla narrative methodology. The rest of the interludes comprise six toxic autobiographies by six different members of the local community that are to different extents active in the movement against waste incineration in Can Sant Joan.

This conflict study in Theology investigates reconciliation possibilities in indigenous lands in northern Sweden to be discussed through the Sámi Trail of Tears Walking Trail – a real-life innovation project. The historical material is based on the depiction of forcefully dislocated Sámis and the now polarized situation where local indigenous groups risk new conflicts partly with each other, partly with extractive industries, motorized tourism, and the majority’s society. Six public media sources were used for a brief thematization to detect discourse ethics used in communicative action. Further, two conferences were visited through participatory observation, revealing the importance of inclusion and visualized sovereignty. Five relevant sites were observed by asking how a walking trail could add value to reconciliation processes, and twenty interviews, or reasonings, were done mainly in Sápmi and Torne River valley, with one additional in Northern Finland to compare the situation of Forest Sámis in both countries. While site observations revealed ongoing slow violence in environments, they also showed how individuals become activated by their existing or absent relationships to a place. The interviews depicted cultural and existential views on place-bodies, reindeer keeping, natural elements, and material and immaterial values connected to them. The research also focused on the indigenous value-based Verdi system, recognized, and remembered by interviewees belonging indigenous communities. Further, the investigation asked about the role of leadership in truth- and reconciliation processes. The material was collected through qualitative indigenous research methods, and completed with perspectives of inclusion, wilderness spirituality, slow violence, and slow tourism. The material was analytically discussed through Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action. The findings points toward importance of continuing truth commissioning, a potential role of the Church in future negotiations, and also criticism against the failings of national leadership participation in truth-telling and reconciliation processes. Lastly, a briefly discussed model of Habitus-Based Reconciliation suggests focusing on long-term existential aspects of shared places and negating natural resources needed for communities and local cultures.

Abstract : The work that follows analyses the environmental, cultural, economic and rhetorical methods of conceptualizing violence affecting traditional Niger-Deltan and pan-Indigenous peoples. Whispering in Shadows by Jeanette Armstrong and Yellow-Yellow by Kaine Agary represent how Okanagan and other pan-Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Niger Deltans experience contemporary forms of slow genocide as a result of environmental pollution and various forms of displacement from ancestral spaces. This analysis of both texts brings to the fore the Indigenous sense of life, well-being, and progress that is grounded in a holistic view of communal life on traditional lands, and places it in contrast with the non-traditional use of traditional lands, as well as the exploitation of Okanagan and Nigerian Indigenous peoples produced by the dominant socio-economic realities controlled by the forces of globalization. Indigenous environmentalism reflected by Armstrong’s and Agary’s novels views human relationships with the land in terms of an interconnected familial dependence, and not within extreme notions of romanticized abstinence from dependence on land or of capitalist exploitative use of land. In the light of the environmental criticism of Yellow-Yellow and Whispering in Shadows, I propose that both texts may be read as eco-literature. However the ecocritical work of both novels is based, not on Western-identified notions of ecocriticism that often prioritize the non-human through what Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin describe as “anti-human” environmentalism. Rather, the novels adopt an Indigenous view of humans and non-humans not as competing subjects, but as interdependent and interrelated parts of one entity: the land. Agary’s and Armstrong’s renderings of displacement disrupt dominant utilitarian perceptions of the land by showing that it carries meaning and identity that encompasses culture, social, personal and communal existence. I suggest that a reaffirmation of culturally-grounded relations with the land, a reconnection to land and rebuilding of localized networks between Individuals in eco-devastated communities and between such communities in a form of globalization-from-below provides a strong base for healing, for cultural preservation, and for creative collaborative responses and solutions to globalization. Global minority collaboration and cultural affirmation ultimately has potentials of destabilizing and resisting globalization in sustainable ways. They insulate communities from the hegemony of the dominant Western socio-cultural models. The close familial ties between Indigenous peoples and the land, coupled with historic, cultural and economic meaning of land to such communities suggest that the loss of traditional land under systems of globalization is a traumatizing and devastating experience for traditional peoples. I argue that such cultural and physical dislocation normalizes a trend of infighting and social instability, which becomes a self-reproducing violence that exacerbates the process of slow genocide: “the emotional and physical harm done to survivors of violence over time that leads to extreme hardship and premature death for many” (Cottam, Huseby, and Lutze 2). At the heart of Armstrong’s and Agary’s texts are critiques of both environmental and social injustices that emanate from industrial activities on Indigenous traditional lands. The environmental representations of Armstrong and Agary portray Indigenous perspectives that link environmentalism to the cultural, economic and social facets of sustainability. The pan-Indigenous and African environmentalisms represented in Whispering in Shadows and in Yellow-Yellow respectively do not define “environmental concerns” and issues of justice in terms of separate issues that need linking. Rather, they represent the issues of equity, justice, and environmental, spiritual and cultural stability as a one and the same interrelated issue of sustainability. / Résumé : Ce qui suit analyse des dispositifs environnementaux, culturels, économiques et rhétoriques qui engendrent le déplacement chez les peuples traditionnels autochtones et du Delta de Niger. Whispering in Shadows de Jeannette Armstrong et Yellow-Yellow de Kaine Agary représentent, de manière similaire, la façon dont les peuples traditionnels autochtones et ceux du Delta de Niger expérimentent les formes contemporaines du génocide lent sous forme de pollution environnementale, ainsi que des déplacements spatiaux. Cette analyse porte un regard particulier sur le sens de la vie, du bien-être et du progrès selon les cultures traditionnelles autochtones qui se basent sur une vision globale de la vie commune sur la Terre ancestrale. Cette cosmologie est mise en contraste avec la culture mondialisée qui encourage notamment l’utilisation non-traditionnelle des terrains et l'exploitation des peuples traditionnels autochtones. L'environnementalisme autochtone reflété dans les romans d'Armstrong et d’Agary considère les relations des humains avec la Terre comme étant une dépendance familiale interconnectée. Cette relation ne se définit pas sur base des notions extrêmes d'abstinence romancée ou de non-dépendance sur la Terre. Elle n’est pas définie non plus par des notions de l'exploitation écocidaire capitaliste de la Terre. À la lumière de la critique environnementale de Whispering in Shadows et de Yellow-Yellow, je propose que les deux textes soient lus comme des éco-littératures. Cependant, le travail des deux romans écocritiques est fondé non sur les notions occidentales de l’écocritique qui privilégient souvent les non-humains dans un environnementalisme que Graham Huggan et Helen Tiffin (2010) décrivent comme étant « antihumain », mais plutôt sur celles qui considèrent les humains et les non-humains non pas comme des sujets en concurrence, mais comme les parties interdépendantes et intimement liées au sein d’une seule entité: la Terre. La conception de la question du déplacement selon Agary et Armstrong déstabilise la perception dominante matérialiste de la Terre en montrant que la Terre est porteuse d’un sens et d'une identité qui peuvent sembler arbitraires, mais qui englobent au fait la culture, la vie sociale, personnelle et communautaire. Je propose qu’une base solide pour gagner la guérison spirituelle, la préservation des cultures marginalisées et la lutte contre la mondialisation se trouve dans la réaffirmation des relations culturellement fondées avec la terre, la reconnexion à la terre et la construction de réseaux localisées entre les individus dans les communautés éco-dévasté, ainsi qu’entre ces communautés, dans une forme de « mondialisation d’en bas. » La collaboration entre les minorités et l'affirmation culturelle ont de la potentielle à déstabiliser et résister la mondialisation de manière durable. Cette globalisation d’en bas isole aussi les communautés de l'hégémonie des modèles socio-culturels dominants venant souvent de l’occident. Les liens familiaux étroits que partagent les peuples autochtones et leur Terre, ainsi que les significations historiques, culturels et économiques de la Terre pour ces communautés autochtones, suggèrent que la perte des espaces terrestres traditionnelles sous les systèmes de la mondialisation est vécue comme une véritable expérience traumatisante et dévastatrice. Cette injustice normalise par la suite une tendance de la violence latérale et de l'instabilité sociale qui devient une violence autoreproductrice et qui maintient le processus historique du génocide lent: «le préjudice émotionnel et physique subi par les victimes de la violence au fil du temps qui mène à la pauvreté extrême et à la mort prématurée pour beaucoup» (ma traduction : Cottam, Huseby, et Lutze 2). Au cœur des textes d'Armstrong et d’Agary se trouvent des critiques contre les injustices sociales et environnementales émanant des activités industrielles dans les espaces traditionnelles autochtones. L’environnementalisme d'Armstrong et d’Agary décrit des cosmologies autochtones qui interagissent entre l'écologie et les aspects culturelles, économiques et sociaux du développement durable. L’environnementalisme autochtone d’Armstrong et l’environnementalisme africain d’Agary, en fonction de leurs cosmologies traditionnelles respectives, ne conceptualisent pas des «préoccupations environnementales» et les questions de justice dans le contexte des questions distinctes qui devraient être liées comme la culture dominante occidentale les conçoivent. Pour eux, les questions de l'équité, de la justice, de la stabilité environnementale, spirituelle et culturelle ne sont qu’une et la même question du développement durable.