Three years ago, just before COVID plagued the world, I went to India to visit my relatives. The moment I stepped out of the Indian airport, the smell of exhaust hit me. Followed by constant honks from every other vehicle on the road. Lastly, I looked up at the sky and it couldn’t look any more apocalyptic.
Picture Description: Traffic Congestion in Mumbai, India (Not an uncommon sight at all!) (Source: The Indian Express)
My aunt, who was silently observing me gawking at the sky, said “Welcome to India! Mumbai always has this level of pollution, I bet you don’t get to see this in Singapore! The sky is always dark even during the day. Now that you are here, you will get used to it soon.” I was confused about whether I should be concerned about the level of air pollution, relieved that my relatives are aware of the pollution and are still healthy, or amused at my aunt for proudly introducing me to air pollution as though it is a tourist attraction.
Believe it or not, it only took me less than a week to get used to it.
Sure enough, despite air pollution levels being dangerously high in India (Singh, 2022), it is often normalised by people living there. From an environmental justice perspective, normalising pollution can have detrimental socio-economic and health impact on marginalised communities. Mah & Wang (2019) look at these impacts through the concept of accumulated injuries, which refers to how people’s well-being is affected by the overlapping of “triple jeopardy” of social, environmental, and health inequalities (Mah & Wang, 2019). Using the case study of peri-urban Nanjing, a heavily polluted megacity along the lower Yangtze River, Mah & Wang (2019) explains how accumulated injuries are experienced in Nanjing in three ways:
i. Knowledge gap: Many workers knew about the health effects of pollution by looking at heath injuries around them and word of mouth, but there were no epidemiological studies or official reports to validate their observation.
“Over these years, I feel there are more people getting cancer. Not sure if it’s associated with the working environment. … Somehow I feel there must be some connection” (interview, March 2016, obtained from Mah & Wang, 2019).
Despite the recognition of the health risks of working in petrochemical factories, workers prioritized the monetary benefits of working there instead. This is understandable since many of these workers came to Nanjing in search of better job prospects.
ii. Unequal Financial Compensation: Polluting industries compensated nearby village farmers for damage to their housing and land but did not compensate migrant workers for damage to their houses, lack of access to clean water, etc. This meant that certain groups of people faced greater health and environmental effects than others.
iii. Lack of hope: Most people who were aware of the health implications of working and living near polluting industries felt powerless about the situation and accepted the pollution. While there was resignation felt across all social groups, the most socially disadvantaged groups (villagers and migrant workers) were the quietest on the issue despite being the most affected by the pollution. This was probably because they had to be concerned about surviving and making a living rather than worrying about their health and environment.
This case study shows how the very evident pollution can be unseen by people due to factors such as knowledge gap, inequality faced by financial compensation, and feelings of hopelessness. Again, we see that the most disadvantaged, marginalised groups are the ones that suffer the most.
These injustices reveal how unfair and sad reality can be. However, now that we see these injustices, we should not unsee them. That is because we are privileged enough to act upon it, unlike the disadvantaged groups above who were forced by their circumstances to unsee it.
With that, see you in the next (and final) post!
Komal
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References:
(2019) Accumulated Injuries of Environmental Injustice: Living and Working with Petrochemical Pollution in Nanjing, China. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 109:6, 1961-1977,DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2019.1574551
Singh, R. K. (2022, January 11). India’s Deadly Air Pollution Keeps Getting Worse Not Better. Bloomberg. Retrieved April 1, 2022, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-11/india-s-deadly-air-pollution-keeps-getting-worse-not-better
Featured image source: https://www.ask-ehs.com/blog/occupational-health-safety-in-petrochemical/