On Tuesday, 26th November, the Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs proudly celebrated the recipients of its annual Dissertation Prizes. The winner, Kobi Essilfie, a 2024 graduate of our MSc in Security, Peace-Building, and Diplomacy, presented his dissertation titled “The Slow Violence of Environmental Injustice: A Comparative Case Study of Cancer Alley and The Navajo Nation.” Essilfie wrote a piece to discuss his award-winning dissertation.

The Slow Violence of Environmental Injustice: A Comparative Case Study of Cancer Alley and The Navajo Nation

by Kobi Essilfie

What do a stretch of industrial plants in Louisiana and the abandoned uranium mines of the Navajo Nation have in common? They are both witnesses to what is called a ‘slow violence’ that has reshaped their communities and environment.

Environmental injustice occurs when environmental burdens or advantages are distributed unequally across different social, economic, and racial groups. This creates a system that disproportionately exposes certain groups to environmental hazards, leading to serious health issues, including increased rates or risk of cancer, maternal, reproductive and newborn health problems, and cardiovascular diseases. My dissertation explored the slow violence of environmental injustice through the case studies of Cancer Alley, Louisiana (a predominantly African American community) and the Navajo Nation (a Native American reservation). I decided to focus my dissertation on these two marginalised communities because their experiences have been perpetuated by deeply embedded structural inequalities that have manifested over time.

My central dissertation question was about what structural conditions made these environmental injustices possible and why they became deeply entrenched in society. To answer this, I conducted a historical analysis that allowed me to engage with the deeper, structural roots of these issues. By looking at these two different marginalised communities, I hoped to see commonalities behind what caused their unique trajectories of oppression.

The residents of Cancer Alley and the Navajo Nation have endured substantial historical oppression in the United States. The petrochemical environment of Cancer Alley is home to African American communities who are descended from slaves. The region’s historic plantation economy transitioned into industrialisation where the disproportionate siting of hazardous industries exposed vulnerable communities to life-threatening contamination. A practice that influenced the siting of toxic facilities in Cancer Alley was redlining, a racially discriminatory housing policy that influenced the likelihood that African American communities would be exposed to harmful air pollution.

The current environmental challenges faced by the Navajo Nation correlate with their history of settler colonialism, where the Native American community endured forced displacement known as the Long Walk, land exploitation, and resource extraction that resulted in their land being contaminated. Over 500 abandoned uranium mines, the remnants of the US nuclear program, litter the Navajo Nation. Many of these mines were never adequately cleaned up, leaving the Navajo people and the environment struggling with radioactive pollution that continues to cause harm.

In Cancer Alley and the Navajo Nation, there is an interconnected relationship between slow and structural enduring harms where violence morphs from one form to another, reproducing environments where spaces have become inherently violent. While separated by geography these communities share a grim commonality: their suffering is no accident. It is the outcome of structural conditions rooted in environmental racism and racial capitalism that have resulted in environmental injustice that continues to this day. These environments have become sacrifice zones, where people’s physical and mental well-being, including their quality of life, have been jeopardised in the name of economic development.

The experiences of Cancer Alley and the Navajo Nation remind us that the people who have historically contributed least to the ongoing environmental degradation of the planet are frequently the ones who suffer the most.

This points to broader, transnational patterns of environmental injustice that affect and fall disproportionately on other marginalised communities worldwide. For instance, in India, Dalit communities face similar spatial and environmental segregation due to cast based discrimination that can be traced to historical and cultural practices.

I hope that my research will inspire further inquiry into the layered, complex nature of environmental injustice and encourage more targeted and context-sensitive intervention in policy and advocacy.