{"id":327,"date":"2021-04-06T21:42:37","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T21:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/literature-culture-anthropocene\/?p=327"},"modified":"2021-04-06T21:42:38","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T21:42:38","slug":"fossilized-industries-and-the-decolonized-futures-visible-beyond-the-looking-glass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/literature-culture-anthropocene\/blog\/fossilized-industries-and-the-decolonized-futures-visible-beyond-the-looking-glass\/","title":{"rendered":"Fossilized Industries and the Decolonized Futures Visible Beyond The Looking Glass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Michelle Yao<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was younger, I used to fantasize about owning a house in the middle of Disneyworld. In this imagined future, I would naturally start each day with Mickey-shaped waffles and then end each night beneath bursts of Magic Kingdom fireworks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While waiting for this dream to be realized, I resigned myself to pretending that the smokestacks surrounding my hometown made up our very own Cinderella\u2019s Castle. In actuality, they are a symptom of our local economy\u2019s reliance on the petrochemical and plastic industries. The swath of sixty-three-and-counting industrial facilities pressed up against our homes is known as \u201cCanada\u2019s Chemical Valley.\u201d <\/a>1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The
Pictures of Chemical Valley, located in Sarnia, Ontario (left), placed next to pictures of Cinderella\u2019s Castle at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida (right). Top left photograph <\/em>by Marcus Johnstone via Flickr<\/em><\/a>. Top right photograph <\/em>by Mark Willard via Disney Parks Blog<\/em><\/a>. Bottom left photograph by <\/em>Jon Lin via Flickr<\/em><\/a>. Bottom right photograph by <\/em>Candace Lindemann via Flickr<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At night, the gas flares hovering above the plants glow like fallen stars. The refineries are always running, but they\u2019re at their most disarming in the dark. No longer a mere backdrop to rush hour traffic, their presence becomes undeniable to the city dwellers driving past. Most Sarnians have acclimated to\u2014if not outright embraced\u2014the oil and gas corporations\u2019 toxic reign. Still, it\u2019s sobering to contend with the visible manifestation of the slow violence<\/a> that we tolerate in exchange for our livelihoods. Of course, denial is a luxury not everyone can afford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The Valley feels like a permanent fixture, but it only became so well-fortified during World War II, when Sarnia was charged with producing rubber for the Allied forces<\/a>. Long before all of this, Aamjiwnaang territory spanned both sides of the waterway that the refineries now pollute<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then English and American settlers encroached on these lands, which were ceded in a series of treaties that created six separate reserves spread across both \u201cCanada\u201d and \u201cAmerica.\u201d<\/a> Colonial intrusion didn\u2019t stop there. The 20th<\/sup> Century saw the state repeatedly annexing reserve land and selling it to oil and gas companies, all in the name of economic expansion.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Over 850 Anishinaabe people<\/a> inhabit the 13 square kilometres that now constitute Aamjiwnaang First Nation<\/a>. The Reserve is surrounded on all sides by Dow, Suncor, and Shell facilities<\/a>. Everyone living in the surrounding area experiences health disparities as a result of our proximity to these plants<\/a>. But in a prime example of environmental racism, Aamjiwnaang inhabitants remain by far the most exposed to Chemical Valley\u2019s toxins. About 60% of the air emissions happen within five kilometres of their community<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chemical Valley didn\u2019t always exist, but it\u2019s such a foreboding force, it\u2019s hard to fathom that there was ever an era before its existence. But maybe we don\u2019t even need to resort to this effort of imagination. The Valley\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions are stoking up climate catastrophes<\/a>. Fossil fuels are a finite resource<\/a>. If state and industry leaders won\u2019t stop the plants from polluting, then maybe the structures will soon destroy so much that there won\u2019t be anyone left to man the castles\u2019 stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the World Doomsday Clock, thanks to many global leaders’ failures to address climate change, we\u2019re now 100 seconds away from the \u201cmidnight\u201d that signals a man-made apocalypse<\/a>. Cinderella\u2019s rags reappeared when the clock struck twelve. When unsustainable industries wreck the world, will the remaining ruins eventually give way to renewed biodiversity\u2014the reappearance of plants, animals, and everything and anything but those pesky, pernicious humans?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope that we\u2019ll never unearth the answer to this question. As April Anson has pointed out,<\/a> the impulse to embrace an indiscriminate end to humanity\u2014as if it\u2019s an inevitable conclusion\u2014reeks of ecofascism<\/a>. It implies that all humans are equally responsible for environmental crises. Never mind that Indigenous communities\u2014like Aamjiwnaang\u2014are persistently working against the ecological issues wrought by late-stage capitalism and colonial violence. At the same time, such communities are also the ones most impacted<\/a> by the manmade harms that have been outsourced to their homes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomorrow<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

When considering the future, let\u2019s operate from a desire-based framework, as suggested by Unangax\u0302 scholar Eve Tuck<\/a>. What kind of future do we desire for ourselves, for future generations? I\u2019d like to see an end to Chemical Valley\u2019s pollution. However, I don\u2019t want this to come to pass as a consequence of large-scale destruction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many activists are already in hot pursuit of a viable future without industrial pollutants. Aamjiwnaang youth have specifically formed groups like the Green Teens to defend their land and culture. They\u2019ve brought attention to their cause through rap performances<\/a>, photography<\/a>, and even an original documentary<\/a>. If we want to shake the Valley off, then supporting such groups will be fundamental to seeing this paradigm shift through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"In

The photography of the Aamjiwnaang\u2019s Green Teens being displayed at the Community Forum on Pollution and Action. This event took place on February 8, 2011, within the city of \u201cSarnia\u2019s\u201d limits. This showcase is specifically called \u2018Photo-Voice,\u2019 and it allowed the teens to \u201cvoice their views about living in an unhealthy environment in a healthy fashion.\u201d Photograph of Green Teens display <\/em>by Marcus Johnstone, via Flickr<\/em><\/a>. Additional information about the showcase via <\/em>The Starfish.<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Vanessa Gray was the founder of the Green Teens<\/a>. She is still a dedicated activist who, among countless other contributions, now helps organize \u201cToxic Tours\u201d around the Valley. Every fall, visitors from all over bear witness to the Valley\u2019s environmental destruction. The sights, sounds, and smells are a shock to those who haven\u2019t been deemed expendable by the settler state.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not all doom and gloom, though. The tours also serve as an opportunity to share stories, honour Anishinaabe resilience, and build alliances so that everyone can work towards different, more desirable futures<\/a>. After all, actual action must follow inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Day After Tomorrow<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Thomas King has noted how mass media and museum displays often implicitly insist that the \u201cpast was all [Indigenous people] had. No present. No future.\u201d3<\/a><\/sup> All the while, he observes, \u201cNative writers [have begun] to use the Native present as a way to resurrect a Native past and to imagine a Native future.\u201d3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of resistance extends beyond writers, of course. The stories that the Green Teens tell with their creative displays are also powerful assertions of their community and culture\u2019s past, present, and future. Not only are such local activists imagining decolonized futures, they\u2019re also tangibly building paths to reach towards these outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Toxic Tours weaponize national historic sites\u2019 rubberneck tour format<\/a> to highlight Aamjiwnaang\u2019s ongoing resistance. If museums are so compelling, then here\u2019s one detailing the antiquated violences that the government has gone to great pains to preserve. If theme parks are so appealing, then here\u2019s one that doesn\u2019t need to pump artificial smells into the air<\/a> to transport outsiders to a reality that might have previously been shuttered to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stories that the Green Teens tell with their creative displays are also powerful assertions of their community and culture\u2019s past, present, and future.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As one of few racialized immigrants living in Sarnia, I\u2019ve often felt like a tourist passing through. I\u2019m a settler that has reproduced processes of colonialism by trying to assimilate into a culture predicated on violence. Then again, I\u2019m also an individual who\u2019s lost a parent, a kindergarten teacher, and who knows what else to the chemical castles that I\u2019ve spent the second half of my life escaping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the tricky thing with toxins. As Alexis Shotwell has observed, \u201c[r]ich people have an easier time enacting the kind of redistribution or avoidance of poison \u2026 [but] these practices are temporary and illusory; we cannot in the end be separate from the world.”4<\/a><\/sup> Anyone who thinks that they\u2019re untouchable should take a second look at the refineries ruining the atmosphere we share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, now that midnight\u2019s about to strike, I\u2019ve found myself turning back to my hometown and envisioning a better future set in the same space. Disney\u2019s corporate spell has worn off. I now dream about worlds without castles of any kind. Instead of superimposing Fantasyland\u2019s image onto the refineries, I\u2019d now like to see a world where clean air and clean drinking water for all isn\u2019t solely confined to my wildest wishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my imagined future, Green Teens and other desire-driven change makers will be the ones leading the charge on casting aside capitalist contaminants. We\u2019ll act in time and reverse the most devastating impacts of climate change without<\/em> losing anything valuable on the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the future will still have Toxic Tours, but the tours will be describing archaic practices that have long been abandoned. Let these unsettling records show us why these self-destructive smokestacks should remain locked in the past. Future generations will learn of these losses, but I hope that they won\u2019t mourn them. I know I won\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\":
A postcard from the imagined \u201cToxic Tours\u201d of the future. While there is a picture of what Chemical Valley looks like in the present day, I have reframed this image to suggest that the depicted \u201chistorical exhibit\u201d displays only artefacts of a long-lost age where companies like Shell and Imperial Oil were still primitively polluting this land. Original photograph of Chemical Valley <\/em>by Wikimedia user P199, via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/a>. Clipart of shell <\/em>by Noun Project user Vectors Point, via The Noun Project<\/em><\/a>. Clipart of railing <\/em>by Susann Mielke via Pixabay<\/em><\/a>. Clipart of left silhouettes <\/em>by Mohamed Hassan via Pixabay<\/em><\/a>. Clipart of right silhouettes <\/em>by Gordon Johnson via Pixabay<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Print Works Cited<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
  1. Gray, Beze, and Alice Damiano. \u201cAamjiwnaang Toxic Tours.\u201d Local Activism for Global Climate Justice: The Great Lakes Watershed<\/em>, edited by Patricia E. Perkins, Routledge, 2019, pp. 183-191.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    1. Wiebe, Sarah Marie. Everyday Exposure: Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada\u2019s Chemical Valley<\/em>. Kindle Ed., UBC Press, 2016, ch. 5.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
      1. King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative<\/em>. Kindle Ed., House of Anansi Press Inc., 2005, ch. 4.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
        1. Shotwell, Alexis. Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times<\/em>. Univ of Minnesota Press, 2016, p. 85.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

          <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          By: Michelle Yao When I was younger, I used to fantasize about owning a house in the middle of Disneyworld. In this imagined future, I would naturally start each day with Mickey-shaped waffles and then end each night beneath bursts of Magic Kingdom fireworks. While waiting for this dream to be realized, I resigned myself … <\/p>\n

          Continue reading “Fossilized Industries and the Decolonized Futures Visible Beyond The Looking Glass”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":347,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-field-guide-entry"],"yoast_head":"\nFossilized Industries and the Decolonized Futures Visible Beyond The Looking Glass - Field Guide to Lost Futures<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over 850 Anishinaabe people inhabit the 12.57 square kilometres that now constitute Aamjiwnaang First Nation The Reserve is surrounded on all sides by Dow, Suncor, and Shell facilities. 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