Abstract
How can a single landscape, a shantytown on the US–Mexico border, symbolize environmental devastation for some and progress and ‘the good life’ for others? Our analysis of this landscape and the people who are a part of it highlights the complexities of the environmental justice movement in the current era of neo-liberal economic policies. Although the colonia that we studied, Derechos Humanos, is located on top of an abandoned landfill near an open sewage canal, living here represents a step forward for many residents. However, to many US environmentalists, this landscape represents a toxic wasteland and the people living here are simply victims of border industrialization. Contributing to critical environmental justice studies, our analysis of Derechos Humanos highlights the injustices of the global political economy, creative responses to these forces by individuals most adversely affected by them, and the potential limitations of conventional framings of environmental justice and mainstream Northern environmentalism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The term colonia simply means neighborhood, a colonia popular is a neighborhood of the people, or a poor people’s neighborhood—typically the unannexed shantytowns that ring all of Mexico’s cities. In the US, the term colonia by itself refers to shantytowns found on the US side of the border.
This type of name is typical of colonias populares. Colonias are often named after dates marking uprisings of the people in Mexico, or other names representing the hopes for social justice of their residents.
Maquiladoras are factories owned by foreign corporations which produce goods in Mexico for export to other countries, primarily the United States.
Pellow and Brulle coined this term to mark a new development in the literature on environmental justice—a move beyond celebratory descriptions of the environmental justice movement to more critical evaluations of the strengths and limitations of both particular cases of environmental justice and the thinking that guides environmental justice activism more broadly (Pellow and Brulle 2005b: 4).
This framing is related to the question of geographical scope, or what institution(s) should be the subject of analysis in environmental justice research (see Baden et al. 2007).
We use pseudonyms throughout this paper.
Detailed information regarding the sampling sites, analytes, instrumental techniques, and chemical results has been published elsewhere (Owens and Niemeyer 2006).
The Mexican government initiated the Border Industrialization Program after the Bracero Guest Worker Program ended in 1964. The Bracero Program, which began in 1942, had allowed Mexican laborers to work legally in the US.
There have been a series of international accords and treaties, most notably the La Paz Agreement and NAFTA, established to address border environmental issues. While some of these agreements have led to tangible improvements, they can also collectively be seen as an “institutional shroud” (Staudt and Coronado 2002) that in its hopeful symbolism masks the international lack of accountability and responsibility for environmental degradation along the border.
There were, of course, exceptions. For example, one colonia resident had left his father’s ranchito, where he had his own 20 acres and some cattle, to “make it on his own” at the border.
This may also be because migrants tend to paint their lives as more prosperous than they really are for the people living where they migrated from, as pointed out to us by Bridget Hayden.
Numerous Northern environmental magazines have publicized the pollution and ecological devastation occurring within the colonias at the US–Mexico Border, including an article focusing specifically on Derechos Humanos (Snell 2001).
Sarah Hill has a richly detailed discussion of the varied trajectories and meanings of trash in the border region (Hill 2008).
Community leaders had advocated in the past, however, for enclosure of the wastewater canal.
Two dispensas were operated by missionary organizations and served as sources of inexpensive and/or free food for the community.
Women were very involved in community organization, arguably more so than men (see also Snell 2001). This fits a pattern that has been increasingly noticed in urban Latin America (see, for example: Stephen 1997; Alvarez et al. 1998) and, as well, in movements for environmental justice (see Rocheleau 1996).
While some mission groups from the US put most of their efforts into building houses and try to enter into, as much as possible, a more equal relationship with colonia residents, others are more clearly focused on proselytizing and adopt a more superior attitude to colonia residents. Colonos typically recognized that outside visitors can at the minimum be a source of candy for the kids or more substantial gifts for the adults. While some residents did not appreciate the proselytizing, few rejected the gifts. Nonetheless, the racialized discourses of ‘helping,’ North vs. South, and modern vs. backward shape each of these encounters, reminding both colonia residents and visitors of their places (see Gronemeyer 1992).
A further irony here is that some residents help NGOs in their work in these fishing communities, which were devastated by the 2005 hurricanes.
References
Agyeman, J. (2005). Sustainable communities and the challenge of environmental justice. New York University Press, New York.
Agyeman, J., Bullard, R. D., and Evans, B. (2003). Just sustainabilities: development in an unequal world. MIT, Cambridge.
Alvarez, S., Escobar, A., and Dagnino, E. (1998). Cultures of politics, politics of cultures: revisioning Latin American Social Movements. Westview, Boulder.
Baden, B. M., Noonan, D. S., and Toraga, R. M. R. (2007). Scales of justice: is there a geographic bias in environmental equity analysis. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 50: 163–185.
Baird, C., and Cann, M. (2005). Environmental Chemistry, 3rd edn., Freeman, New York.
Bandy, J. (2000). Bordering the future: resisting neoliberalism in the borderlands. Critical Sociology 26: 232–258.
Benford, R. (2005). The half-life of the environmental justice frame: innovation, diffusion, and stagnation. In Pellow, D. N., and Brulle, R. (eds.), Power, justice, and the environment: a critical appraisal of the environmental justice movement. MIT, Cambridge, pp. 37–54.
Brosius, J. P. (1997). Endangered forest, endangered people: environmentalist representation of indigenous knowledge. Human Ecology 25: 47–70.
Bryner, G. C. (2002). Assessing claims of environmental justice: conceptual frameworks. In Mutz, K. M., Bryner, G. C., and Kenney, D. S. (eds.), Justice and natural resources: concepts, strategies and applications. Island, Washington, D.C., pp. 337–354.
Carter, D. E., Pena, C., Varady, R., and Suk, W. A. (1996). Environmental health and hazardous waste issues related to the US–Mexico border. Environmental Health Perspectives 104: 590–594.
Cole, L. W., and Foster, S. R. (2001). From the ground up: environmental racism and the rise of the environmental justice movement. New York University Press, New York.
Doane, M. (2007). The political economy of the ecological native. American Anthropologist 109: 452–462.
Dwyer, A. (1995). On the line: life on the US–Mexico Border. Monthly Review, New York.
Earle, D. (1999). The borderless borderlands: Texas’ colonias as displaced settlements. In Goldin, L. R. (ed.), Identities on the move: transnational processes in North America and the Caribbean Basin. Institute for Meso-American Studies, State University of New York, Albany, pp. 169–184.
Escobar, A. (1995). Encountering development: the making and unmaking of the third world. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Escobar, A. (2004). Beyond the third world: imperial globality, global coloniality and anti-globalisation social movements. Third World Quarterly 25: 207–30.
Faber, D. (1998). The struggle for ecological democracy: environmental justice movements in the United States. Guilford, New York.
Faber, D., and McCarthy, D. (2005). Neo-liberalism, globalization and the struggle for ecological democracy: linking sustainability and environmental justice. In Agyeman, J., Bullard, R. D., and Evans, B. (eds.), Just sustainabilities: development in an unequal world. MIT, Cambridge, pp. 38–63.
Farmer, P. (2004). An anthropology of structural violence. Current Anthropology 45: 305–25.
Fay, M. (2005). The Urban Poor in Latin America. World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Fussell, E. (2004). Sources of Mexico’s migration stream: rural, urban, and border migrants to the United States. Social Forces 82: 937–967.
Gledhill, J. (1995). Neoliberalism, transnationalization and rural poverty: a case study of Michoacan, Mexico. Westview, Boulder.
Gronemeyer, M. (1992). Helping. In Sachs, W. (ed.), The development dictionary: a guide to knowledge as power. Zed, London, pp. 53–69.
Harvey, D. (2000). Spaces of hope. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Heyman, J. M. C., and Campbell, H. (2004). Recent research on the US–Mexico border. Latin American Research Review 39: 205–220.
Hill, S. (2003). The colonization of border poverty: “Colonias” in the unpopular imagination. In Vila, P. (ed.), Ethnography at the Border. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Hill, S. (2006). Purity and danger on the US–Mexico border, 1991–1994. South Atlantic Quarterly 105: 777–799.
Hill, S. (2008). El Dompe, Los Yonkes and Las Segundas: consumption’s other side in El Paso-Ciudad Juarez. In McCrossen, A. (ed.), Disrupted boundaries: consumption in the United States–Mexico borderlands. Duke University Press, Durham Spring.
Ingram, H., Laney, N. K., and Gillilan, D. M. (1995). Divided waters: bridging the US–Mexico border. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Lewis, S. J., Kaltofen, M., and Ormsby, G. (1991). Border trouble: rivers in peril: a report on water pollution due to industrial development in Northern Mexico. National Toxic Campaign Fund and National Toxics Campaign, Boston.
Limerick, P. N. (2002). Hoping against hope: environmental justice in the twenty-first century. In Mutz, K. M., Bryner, G. C., and Kenney, D. S. (eds.), Justice and natural resources: concepts, strategies and applications. Island, Washington, D.C., pp. 337–354.
Liverman, D. M., Varady, R. G., Chavez, O., and Sanchez, R. (1999). Environmental issues along the United States–Mexico border: drivers of change and responses of citizens and institutions. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 24: 607–43.
Morse, R., and Hardoy, J. (1992). Rethinking the Latin American City. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Mutz, K. M., Bryner, G. C., and Kenney, D. S. (2002). Justice and natural resources: concepts, strategies and applications. Island, Washington, D.C.
Owens, J., and Niemeyer, E. (2006). Analysis of chemical contamination in a canal within a Mexican border colonia. Environmental Pollution 140: 506–16.
Pellow, D. N., and Brulle, R. J. (eds.) (2005a). Power, justice, and the environment: a critical appraisal of the environmental justice movement. MIT, Cambridge.
Pellow, D. N., and Brulle, R. (2005b). Power, justice, and the environment: toward critical environmental justice studies. In Pellow, D. N., and Brulle, R. (eds.), Power, justice, and the environment: a critical appraisal of the environmental justice movement. MIT, Cambridge, pp. 1–22.
Pena, D. G. (1997). The terror of the machine: technology, work, gender, and ecology on the US–Mexico Border. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Pena, D. (2005). Autonomy, equity and environmental justice. In Pellow, D. N., and Brulle, R. (eds.), Power justice and the environment: a critical appraisal of the environmental justice movement. MIT, Cambridge, pp. 131–152.
Rajan, S. R. (2001). Toward a metaphysic of environmental violence: the case of the bhopal gas disaster. In Peluso, N. L., and Watts, M. (eds.), Violent environments. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, pp. 380–398.
Ramirez, C. Q. (2000). Migration and maquiladoras on Mexico’s northern border. MigrationWorld 28: 14–18.
Redford, K. H. (1991). The Ecologically noble savage. Cultural Survival Quarterly 15: 46–48.
Rees, W. E., and Westra, L. (2003). When consumption does violence: can there be sustainability and environmental justice in a resource-limited world. In Agyeman, J., Bullard, R. D., and Evans, B. (eds.), Just sustainabilities: development in an unequal world. MIT, Cambridge, pp. 99–124.
Rocheleau, D. (1996). Feminist political ecologies: global issues and local experiences. Routledge, New York.
Ruiz, R. E. (1998). On the rim of Mexico: encounters of the rich and poor. Westview, Boulder.
Sachs, W. (1992). The development dictionary: a guide to knowledge as power. Zed, London.
Sbert, J. (1992). Progress. In Sachs, W. (ed.), The development dictionary: a guide to knowledge as power. Zed, London, pp. 192–205.
Sharp, K. (2006). Voices in the space between: economy, ecology and Pentecostalism on the US–Mexico Border. Ecotheology 11: 415–30.
Snell, M. B. (2001). Free-trade triage. Sierra 86: 22–28.
Staudt, K., and Coronado, I. (2002). Fronteras no mas: toward social justice at the US–Mexico Border. Palgrave, New York.
Stephen, L. (1997). Women and social movements in Latin America: power from below. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Tiefenbacher, J. P. (1998). Toxic emissions and spills along the US–Mexican Border.. La Frontera Química 13: 59–77.
US Environmental Protection Agency (1998). The 1997 US–Mexico Border Environmental Indicator Report, US Mexico Border XXI Program. US EPA, Washington, D.C.
US Environmental Protection Agency (2002). National Recommended Water Quality Criteria: 2002. Office of Water, Office of Science and Technology, Washington, D.C.
Varady, R. G., and Mack, M. D. (1995). Transboundary Water Resources and Public Health in the US–Mexico Border Region. Journal of Environmental Health 57: 8–14.
Vila, P. (2000). Crossing borders, reinforcing borders: social categories, metaphors, and narrative identities on the US–Mexico frontier. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Ward, P. M. (1999). Colonias and public policy in Texas and Mexico: urbanization by stealth. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Acknowledgements
This article is the result of the work and ideas of many people. First and foremost, we wish to thank the residents of Derechos Humanos and the various organizations involved with the community who all welcomed us with open arms and shared with us their perspectives on life in the colonia. We would also like to thank our colleague, Laura Hobgood-Oster, who coordinated this project with us. Critically, much of the research was conducted by some outstanding students: Janel Owens in 2001; Claire Campbell, Santiago Guerra, Ben Thompson, Angela Townley, Emily Williams, and Travis Witherspoon in 2002; and Leslie Nairn, Kelly Sharp, Ana Villalobos, and Thomas Shields in 2003. Funding for the project was generously provided by a Fleming Collaborative Research Grant from Southwestern University and a chemistry departmental grant from the Robert A. Welch Foundation (AF-0005). Finally, various colleagues have provided excellent commentary on this paper: Conner Bailey on a much earlier version and Maria Lowe and Bridget Hayden on recent versions. Hayden’s comments were particularly helpful in conceptualizing our arguments. Last but not least, three anonymous reviewers provided very helpful comments that we think have significantly improved the article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Johnson, M.A., Niemeyer, E.D. Ambivalent Landscapes: Environmental Justice in the US–Mexico Borderlands. Hum Ecol 36, 371–382 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-008-9171-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-008-9171-8