Black Earth: Natural Gas Infrastructure and Environmental Racism in Union Hill Virginia

• In Event: 1429 - Informal Discussion Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 5: Rural and Environmental Sociology

Abstract

This working (and ongoing) project is based on extensive fieldwork I have been doing on anti-pipeline activism in Virginia. My primary research focus is on the struggle against the building of a 54,000 horsepower natural gas compressor station in the historic black freedman community of Union Hill in rural Buckingham, County Virginia. The chosen location of the compressor station has prompted public accusations of environmental racism against the state of Virginia and the corporate giant Dominion Energy. The struggle against this compressor station also intersects with a larger regional movement against natural gas infrastructure. This case offers rich opportunities for sociological analysis. I use the framework of Racial Capitalism (Robinson 1983, Pulido 2017) to frame the production of racial and ecological violence by the neoliberal corporate state and to examine how it is produced and how it is resisted. I am using qualitative research methods including semi-structured and in-depth interviews, participant observation, and archival sources to explore this landmark environmental justice movement.

Author

• Travis L. Williams, Virginia Commonwealth University