Through the Eye of a Hurricane

Abstract

AbstractThe chapter’s case study of the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the city of New Orleans illustrates how ecointersectional analyses must attend not only to local formations and practices but also to the complex exchanges of oceans, wetlands, river flows, and oil deposits as they intermesh with the actions and impacts of oil industries, the work of the Army Corps of Engineers, chemical industries, public housing developments, landfill practices, and the afterlives of slavery. This more detailed case study emphasizes that climate injustice, indeed, racial climates, arise out of multiple lineages, multifaceted histories, and complex material exchanges. While tracing the impacts of systems of oppressive practices, beliefs, and institutions is a key component of understanding climate injustice, we overlook the complexity of the exchanges if we do not see how environments are shaped by systems of oppression and are, in turn, crucial contributors to those systems.