Guardians of the environment in Canada's Chemical Valley

Bibliographic Data

ID4525264
AuthorsSarah Marie Wiebe (0000-0002-2417-3614, University of Victoria, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume20
Issue1
Pages18-33
Publication date2016-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCitizenship Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1362-1025 • E-ISSN: 1469-3593
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13621025.2015.1075470
OpenAlexW2244604644
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited43

Citizens of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation fight for justice with their bodies at the frontlines of daily toxic exposure. This paper examines struggles for environmental and reproductive justice in the polluted heart of Canada's 'Chemical Valley'. These are as struggles over life, land and knowledge. Based upon community-engaged qualitative research, from a participatory action research approach, including field immersion, participant observation and 35 in-depth interviews with First Nations residents, I document the Aamjiwnaang First Nation's citizens' activities and practices on the ground as they cope with the impact of their contaminated surroundings on their health and habitat. This community-engaged scholarship lens brings into view the lived experiences and ongoing practices of resistance by the Anishinabek citizens who are surrounded by Chemical Valley. I situate these struggles within the green citizenship literature to assess three blind spots of green governmentality: greening citizenship, lifestyle blame and Western dualisms. I discuss the multiple edges of ecological citizenship and argue that citizens are simultaneously bound up within disciplinary power relations and place-based belonging. This place, although polluted, is crucial to practices of relational Anishinabek citizenship and the identity of indigenous citizens who call this place both 'prison and home'

Blame · Citizen journalism · Citizen science · Citizenship · Criminology · Economic Justice · Environmental ethics · Environmental justice · Ethnography · Governmentality · Indigenous · Participant observation · Participatory action research · Political science · Politics · Prison · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Ecology

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