The Violent Environments series shows how violence is enacted through, for, and on environmental spaces, including land, water, and air. 

The acceleration of diverse and converging crises—climate disaster and apartheid, environmental racism and resurgent ecofascism, ecocide and land grabbing—reinforce that environmental violence has become an unmistakable feature of contemporary life. Environmental violence is both sudden and prolonged; acute and cumulative; hypervisible and invisibilized; direct and structural; material and epistemic.

From the use of force to coerce conservation and suppress environmental activism, to the perpetuation of environmental harm through state-sponsored extraction and pollution, to the weaponization and militarization of nature, this series explores the environment as a medium of violence, as a means of violence, as the stakes of violence, and as the product of violence. 

Series editors: Kristen Billings, Rebecca Laurent, Rudy Molinek

(Dis)Placement of German Heritage in New Ulm, Minnesota

From the high vantage point of the "Hermann the German" statue in New Ulm, Minnesota, Ryan Hellenbrand and Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand explore the settler stories inscribed on stolen Dakota homeland, casting a thought-provoking spotlight on the intricate tapestry of history and belonging in the region.

Hindustan Zinc and Corporate Social (Ir)Responsibility

In 2021 and 2022, Prerna Rana spoke with people in Udaipur, India whose livelihoods have been impacted negatively by both environmental pollution and the corporate social responsibility programs meant to mitigate that harm.

Saving the Forest to Secure the Mine in Jamaica’s Cockpit Country

Marie Widengård looks to critical border studies to understand how both extraction and conservation are at work in a contested area of Jamaica.

Multispecies Grief in the Wake of Megafires

A global coalition of authors articulate the environmental violence of megafires by focusing on the myriad experiences of multispecies grief in their wake.

Reforging Gun Culture in the American West: A Conversation with Bryce Andrews

Writer, rancher, and farmer Bryce Andrews discusses his newest book Holding Fire, which traces his personal story of grappling with the history of guns and violence in the American West.

The Problem with Wind Farming on Rajasthan’s Sacred Lands

Orans are sacred lands in the Thar Desert that are are being developed for wind energy projects. Nisha Paliwal argues that while wind energy is considered sustainable, it is experienced as violent extractivism by nearby village communities.

Pandemics, Predation, and Crip Worldings

Mollie Holmberg takes crip lessons from philosopher Val Plumwood's experience of being prey to a crocodile, pointing toward strategies for collective pandemic survival and resistance to environmental violence.

Mapping the Unfree Labor of Prison Agriculture: A Conversation with Carrie Chennault and Josh Sbicca

Prison Agriculture Lab directors Carrie Chennault and Josh Sbicca discuss the ubiquity of carceral agriculture in the United States, its structuring logics of racial capitalism, and possibilities for abolitionist food futures.

The Violence of Gated Communities in Buenos Aires’s Wetlands

Real estate developments emulating U.S.-style master-planned communities are popular in Buenos Aires. Mara Dicenta unpacks the violence such developments enact on the environment and the community, as well as the resurgence against them.

What Are Violent Environments?

Edge Effects editors recommend readings and podcasts on violent environments in anticipation of our new themed series.

Featured image: A helicopter moves through a sky stained by plumes of black smoke