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“If That Would Have Happened”: The Moral Imperative of Environmental History

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A Comparative Political Ecology of Exurbia

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Abstract

In 1969, South Carolina state officials announced plans to develop a BASF petrochemical factory near Hilton Head Island. However, local residents—both white and African American—mobilized a national campaign against the factory, eventually resulting in the withdrawal of the plans. Over time, the narrative of “BASF’s defeat” has become an important part of the region’s historiography, often presented as both a symbolic victory of stakeholders defeating special interests, as well as the unique and strong character of local environmental concerns. Importantly, too, the factory’s defeat shifted the regional political economy away from heavy industry toward the kind of exurban development that began on Hilton Head in the 1960s and continues today. In this chapter, we discuss this event and the place in which it occurred—Southern Beaufort County—to consider the role of historiography and narrative in exurban politics. Specifically, we explore discourses that have emerged from the defeat of the BASF factory to understand the way past events shape today’s landscape and normalize the vision and materialization of amenity-based development. Thus, we argue that the often taken-for-granted BASF moral narrative is mobilized as part of a broader discourse that legitimates a pattern of unequal geography on the development landscape of Southern Beaufort County, South Carolina.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    BASF, or Badische Anilin and Soda Fabrik, is a German chemical firm.

  2. 2.

    I use the phrasing “undeveloped” deliberately to represent the politics of land-use decision-making. Here, Victoria Bluff is seen as undeveloped when it is not producing for human needs.

  3. 3.

    Also referred to as the “low country” or “lowcountry,” the Lowcountry is both a geographic and cultural marker for South Carolina’s coastal socio-ecology.

  4. 4.

    There is also 2876 miles of tidal shoreline.

  5. 5.

    South Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserves are North Inlet-Winyah Bay and the ACE Basin.

  6. 6.

    A major portion of the research that inspired this paper took place in Bluffton, South Carolina, located a few miles inland from Hilton Head Island. Bluffton’s growth is representative of regional development. Since the late 1990s, Bluffton has grown from 1 sq. mile to 53 sq. miles, with a population increase from 1000 people (1985) to 10,000 people (2005). If you add the adjacent county population, population numbers jump to nearly 30,000 people.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Studies and Science, Pace University, 861 Bedford Road, Pleasantville, NY, 10570, USA

    Michael H. Finewood

  2. Department of History, Political Science, & International Studies, Chatham University, 1 Woodland Road, Pittsburgh, PA, 15232, USA

    Lou Martin

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  1. Michael H. Finewood
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Correspondence to Michael H. Finewood .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Laura E. Taylor

  2. Environmental Studies, Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pennsylvania, USA

    Patrick T. Hurley

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Finewood, M.H., Martin, L. (2016). “If That Would Have Happened”: The Moral Imperative of Environmental History. In: Taylor, L., Hurley, P. (eds) A Comparative Political Ecology of Exurbia. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29462-9_8

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