Situated Bodies and Toxic Certainty: How Mothers Think Comparatively About Risk(s)

• In Event: Permeable Housing and Intersecting Infrastructures

Abstract

This paper explores the question of who moves or stays in a Superfund site—a highly contaminated area identified for cleanup—and why? I use data collected from six months of field research in Calumet, an African-American and Latino neighborhood located on a three-zone Superfund site in East Chicago, Indiana. I examine (a) the processes that led the city’s Mayor to relocate more than 1,100 residents at a public housing complex located within the Superfund site, (b) residents’ relocation experiences, and (c) wider community responses to contamination. I find that the government’s failure to disclose information about the level of environmental (soil and water) contamination, provide adequate relocation assistance, and consider residents’ housing and neighborhood choice, compounds the cumulative impact of environmental and social stressors. While government officials focus on reducing a single risk—toxic exposure—residents in the Superfund site are responsible for thinking comparatively about a panoply of risks. I find that government officials’ failure to consider the cumulative effect of environmental contamination, chronic illness, and social vulnerability hinders mothers’ capacity to exercise agency in residential decisions. By examining constrained residential choices, place attachment, and management of known risks from exposure to contaminants, this paper contributes to a more complete understanding of the sociotechnical materiality of housing infrastructures and experiences of single mothers living in environmentally burdened neighborhoods.

Author

• Paola Villegas, Northwestern University