Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor

Rob Nixon’s monologue Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, critiques the way in which our concept of time elevates certain forms of environmental crises to be noteworthy, while relegating others. Although a useful concept for understanding some of the shortcomings of environmental law, it leaves the legal scholar lacking an alternative approach to that mired by the temporality of the present.

Nixon’s argument is elucidated through the concept of ‘slow violence’, which is differentiated from spectacle-led forms of violence, ‘is dispersed across time and space’ and often not viewed as violence per se (p.1). Subtly, slow violence enhances the precarity of humans and ecosystems, an issue made acute in the climate crisis and which environmental law attempts to redress.

Nixon’s interdisciplinary approach is situated within the debate about for whom and what purpose environmental law is for. Though the book’s horizons expand far beyond an explicit legal focus, the case studies and surrounding analysis provide a useful context for understanding some of the central tensions within environmental law. Most relevant to Nixon’s monologue is the supposed neutrality of law and how this assumption conceals the colonial power structures embedded within the discipline. This manifests in environmental law between countries calling for greater environmental protection and countries pursuing human development needs. The concept of slow violence helps to explain why such unequal power relations are seemingly so intractable in the context of environmental crises.

Nixon’s book is structured around an array of case studies that exemplify how acts of slow violence can be difficult to represent. One of these is the ‘poison redistribution ethic’ of exporting waste to developing countries (p. 2). Rationalised through ‘the calm voice of global managerial reasoning’, these exploitative relations are construed as trade (p. 1). The concept of slow violence offers an alternative lens for viewing such relations. Spatially, the violence done unto the recipients of such waste is invisible to the perpetrators, creating a power dynamic whereby some injustices are seen and others not. Temporally, the violence inflicted by the degradation of waste unfolds over generations as toxic pollutants and anthropogenic materials slowly seep into the landscape. Because legislation preventing this form of environmental injustice is omitted from international environmental law, it is perceived through trade law and rationalised economically.

Another illuminating example is a comparison between the disasters at Chernobyl and Bhopal. Whereas the gas leak in Bhopal was localised to India amongst ‘the faceless poor of the third world’ (p. 47), the explosion at Chernobyl was transboundary in scope. Though the suffering at Bhopal was more immediately tangible, it attracted less Western media coverage than Chernobyl, partly because it was contained. However, because the damage done at the cellular level to victims of Chernobyl is difficult to detect, it is likely the scale of suffering is underestimated. For those victims, official recognition of their predicament and appropriate medical care was not forthcoming. Both industrial catastrophes exemplify the way in which the right to a clean and healthy environment is not universal, but dependent on visibility and media salience. Nixon’s thesis explains how spectacle-driven crises warrant greater attention than slow violence, discounting some forms of suffering and creating hierarchies in biological citizenship in the process.

While Nixon’s book provides a useful insight into the difficulties of representing some environmental crises, it does not prescribe any ways environmental law could respond to this predicament. There is a heavy state-centric focus to Nixon’s argument; what might have been a useful insight for legal scholars would be an analysis of how different state constitutions entail certain degrees of civil liberties. Also how the rights of states complicate realising environmental standards on an international scale, notably the right to a clean and healthy environment. As a key representational tool of states, an explanation of how different constitutions conceive of and amend environmental law could have added a more nuanced understanding to why some forms of slow violence occur.

Another absent layer of analysis relates to sustainable development and how different countries have divergent priorities. For instance, chapter five explores the displacement of ‘developmental refugees’ as the result of the construction of megadams (p. 152). Nixon focuses on the narrative of national development and how this discounts some people’s plight in the name of progress. Were this situated within the context of sustainable development, the chapter may have reached a more informed understanding as to why environmental degradation is more prolific in countries of the global South, whose economic development needs supersede the luxury of environmental legislation.

It is perhaps the temporal focus that most limits the book’s usefulness to legal scholars. Nixon assumes time exerts a one-dimensional force, as opposed to existing interdependently with other phenomena. Though the concept of slow violence is important for understanding why environmental crises can be difficult to respond to, it fails to acknowledge the institutions and structures responsible for responding, exacerbating and reiterating these myopic timescales. For instance, the way in which existing legislation can grandfather actors from striving for new, higher environmental standards.

Overall, Nixon’s book provides a useful contextual analysis for legal scholars, especially those sympathising with arguments made by TWAIL scholars or Critical Legal Scholars. However, a greater focus on hard and soft law instruments would have provided a more useful analysis for legal scholars. So too could a discussion of debates surrounding intergenerational and environmental justice. Admittedly, this would require a much larger book, and perhaps comparison with other forms of law, which would be an unduly large expectation of an author without a legal background. Nixon states that his purpose is to think of creative ways to represent such slow violences, and he certainly delivers on this promise. His intersectional approach highlights the importance of including a diversity of disciplinary backgrounds in challenging the power structures in environmental law. In the context of climate change this book provides a useful lens for thinking beyond self-centred behaviours, towards more intergenerationally- and ecologically-oriented timescales.