The perception of a ‘Pollutant’: On Ecocriticism and Environmental Racism

‘Weed’ is not a botanical classification, it merely denotes the wrong kind of plant in the wrong place. Eliminating weeds is obviously a ‘problem in gardening,’ but defining weeds in the first place requires a cultural, not horticultural, analysis. Likewise ‘pollution’ is an ecological problem because it does not name a substance or class of substances, but rather represents an implicit normative claim that too much of something is present in the environment, usually in the wrong place.

— Greg Garrard (2012, p. 6)

When reading about the lives of the small Paraguayan tribe, the Guayaki Indians, in Pierre Clastre’s The Chronicles of the Guayaki Indians (1998), it is not totally unimaginable to consider the rituals they undertake to be insensitive and sometimes brutal. When a mother gives birth in the tribe she sits on a bed of ferns and palm leaves, with a stake in the ground in between her legs, and a dramatically stationed group of Atchei surrounding her. She pulls on this stake to work with muscular movements to deliver the ‘fall’ of the child, an entire birthing process which is done in complete silence, without the uttering of the slightest moan. The surrounding Atchei do not say a word, ‘Nothing could be read on their attentive faces, and not even a smile came to their lips’ (Clastre, 1934, p. 17). For our society this could easily be in- terpreted as a cold-hearted lack of compassion for an event that would most commonly be associated with joy, powerful emotion and family gathering around. In reality, the Indian’s reaction to the birth of the child is an equal act of love and protection, for if they were to make a sin- gle noise or alarm, this would alert the deadly forest dwellers who would locate, and hunt down the young prey to kill him. What may seem an insensitive lack of emotion to our society, is in fact an act of love. Even the social norms we obey around something seemingly obvious as a woman giving birth, is not set in scientific fact. (Clastre, 1998, pp. 15-59)

Ecocriticism is the ‘study of the shifting perception of the environment in its relationship between literature, culture and the natural world’ (Glotfelty, 1996, p. xix) including how social inequalities and power structures affect the way we interact with nature. The ecocritic accepts that ecology is a moving target. It’s not a static thing, and is in fact dynamic and shifting as the result of ongoing interaction between human beings and their surroundings, as well as between nonhuman beings and their surroundings. Australian philosopher John Passmore argues that ecological problems are not solely scientific issues, and that they in fact require broader social and political discussions, stating, ‘Prob- lems in ecology, then, are properly scientific issues, to be resolved by the formulation and testing of hypotheses in ecological experiments. Ecological problems, on the other hand, are features of our society, arising out of our dealings with nature, from which we should like to free ourselves, and which we do not regard as inevitable consequences of what is good in that society.’ (Passmore, 1974, p. 44). Describing something as an ‘ecological problem’ makes a normative claim about how we would wish things to be, and ‘while this arises out of the claims of ecological scientists, it is not defined by them’ (Garrard, 2012, p. 6).

One such example of an ecological problem affected by our shifting perception of the natural world is our understanding of pollution. The term ‘pollution’ has been expanded and utilised in many forms, to the extent of the inclusion of light and noise as pollutants. Likewise, car- bon dioxide is considered a pollutant,

Broken Spectre Still

Richard Mosse despite being naturally occurring in vast quantities (Garrard, 2012, p. 13) Suggesting that pollution is not an objective fact of nature, but rather a moral and cultural category that reflects our values and beliefs about the environment.

Being affected by cultural, social and historical factors, pollution is perceived in different ways across the world, and can in turn be viewed as a social justice issue. The term ‘environmental racism’ describes a form of systemic racism whereby marginalised communities are dispro-portionately burdened with the impact of environmental hazards due to systemic inequalities and their lack of political and economic power, which force them to live in proximity to sources of toxic waste and pollution (Beech, 2023, para. 2). Professor Edward O. Wilson states that, ‘Environmental pollution is the toxic by-product of civilisation’s headlong pursuit of progress, a blight that falls disproportionately on the poor and the powerless.’ (Wilson, 2002, p. 133). This is laid bare in the distressing capture of Delhi’s extreme pollution and its consequences on its inhabitants in the film Invisible Demons (2021), in which disturbing images of thick clouds of smog engulf the city and patients gasp for breath into oxygen masks. As put by the reporter in the film ‘10% of all deaths that year are due to air pollution... and the ones most af- fected are the homeless who are outside day in, day out, they breathe this toxic, poisonous air’ (Invisible Demons, 2021). For many people, pollution is perceived as an unavoidable consequence of economic development, something that affects all people regardless of class or race. However, this highlights a failure to acknowledge the disproportionate negative consequences that affect poorer countries, exacerbat- ing existing social inequalities and highlighting the differing consequences of the pursuit of development.

Similarly, despite the adverse impacts of extractive and polluting industries on local communities, these communities may be forced to rely on them for economic sustenance.

Richard Mosse’s exhibition Broken Spectre (2023), is an immersive video installation depicting the devastating ecological narratives in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, emerging most prominently in the three years since Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency in 2019. Particularly poignant narratives in the film include the industrial agriculture of beef and leather industries along the Trans-Amazonian Highway, where millions of cattle are farmed to meet global demand for leather seats in our cars, or cheap beef in places like Burger King (Milner, 2022). Or the cinematic depiction of environmental crimes of illegal mining, logging and burning of the rainforest biome. Local people engaging in these industries are sustaining a livelihood that for ‘viewers in the West can feel very far away’ (Mosse, 2022, quoted in Milner, 2022, para. 22). It is ironic that these very same Western nations have benefited from development that relied on these heavily polluting and extractive forces in the past. Timothy Luke (1997) states that, ‘If we correlate wilderness consciousness with social classes we can see that the antimodern, future primitive condemnation of industrial human civilisation by many deep ecologists is contradictory, in the social forms of life that generate this consciousness’ (Luke, 1997, p. 21). In other words, the values and perspectives that lead people to reject modern society and embrace a more primitive or natural way of life against extractive and polluting practices, are themselves shaped by modern society. And are indeed more likely to reap the rewards of a modernised world.

Perceptions of pollution can also be shaped by cultural and historical factors. In many indigenous communities, pollution is seen as a vio- lation of the sacred relationship between humans and the environment. In Hinduism, the river Ganges is considered a sacred and purifying body of water, and the act of bathing in the river is believed to wash away sins and confer spiritual benefits.

Despite high levels of pollution in the river, many Hindus continue to view it as a sacred and life-giving force. From an ecocritical perspective, this highlights the importance of understanding the cultural and spiritual dimensions of environmental issues and recognising the diversity of perspectives on pollution and its impacts.

By examining the ways in which pollution is perceived and

126 Composting is so hot experienced differently in alternative communities and regions, we can gain an understanding of the factors that contribute to our individual perception of the natural environment. Ecology itself is shifting and what may seem like a ‘purely scientific problem’ (Passmore, 1974, p. 44) of pollution, is in fact an object for cultural analysis. We cannot restore the environment without first restoring justice to our economic and social systems, and to restore justice to our social systems we must begin to acknowledge and seek to change the systems that allow for the most marginalised populations to be the ones who bear the heaviest brunt of environmental degradation. The larger social and cultural narrative must be more compassionate to the great variety of human and non-human beings that inhabit the world together, because ecological justice is deeply entwined with social justice. We must not only tackle the technical aspects of emissions reductions and adaptation, but also the social aspects that perpetuate poverty, inequality, and injustice.

Katherine Yousof speaks to poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner from the Marshall Islands in her book A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None. Jet- nil-Kijiner states ‘these two issues- theyre so much bigger than us, nuclear issues and climate change and yet we [the Marshall Islands] are at that crossroad.’ (Laubscher, 2017, quoted in Yusoff, 2018, [no pagination]).