Agrochemical Exposure and Environmental (In)justice: Legal Repression of Latin American Banana Workers

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Abstract

Research on legal repression highlights the different ways that elite actors can use the law to demobilize social movements and activists, yet the area has remained largely limited to the criminal justice system and state actors. Political and economic elite hold tremendous power in shaping the legal opportunity structure within which activists press their claims. Corporations in particular devote substantial resources to anticipating and contesting civil claims brought by workers, consumers, and activists. These social control efforts have received little attention from movement scholars. In this study, we expand the concept of legal repression by examining the legal tactics used by both state and corporate elites in a series of civil litigation cases over pesticide exposure. Since the 1980s, a movement of former banana workers from Latin America has sought damages from US-based fruit and chemical companies over health effects of chemical exposure. Drawing on court, legal, and media documents, we analyze how state and corporate actors responded to the banana workers’ legal mobilization. Findings reveal that elite actors employed a variety of repressive legal tactics to obstruct the banana workers movement and avoid liability for environmental harms. This research has important implications for understanding how elite actors shape the political and legal context of movements, as well as the corporate legal practices upholding global environmental injustices.

Authors

• Laura Bray, North Carolina State University

• Nicholas J Membrez-Weiler, North Carolina State University

• Thomas E. Shriver, North Carolina State University