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On January 9th 2014, residents across Charleston, West Virginia, awoke to an unusual liquorice smell in the air and a similar taste in the public drinking water. That evening residents were informed that the tap water in tens of thousands of homes, hundred of businesses, and dozens of schools and hospitals - the water made available to as many as 300,00 citizens in a nine-county region - had been contaminated with a chemical used for cleaning crushed coal.
This books tells a particular set of stories about that chemical spill and its aftermath, an unfolding water crisis that would lead to months, even years, of fear and distrust. It is both oral history and collaborative ethnography, jointly conceptualised, researched, and written by people - more than fifty in all - across various positions in academia and local communities.
I'm Afraid of That Water foregrounds the ongoing concerns of West Virginians (and people in comparable situations in places like Flint, Michigan) confronted by the problem of contamination, where thresholds for official safety may be crossed, but a genuine return to normality is elusive.
On January 9th 2014, residents across Charleston, West Virginia, awoke to an unusual liquorice smell in the air and a similar taste in the public drinking water. That evening residents were informed that the tap water in tens of thousands of homes, hundred of businesses, and dozens of schools and hospitals - the water made available to as many as 300,00 citizens in a nine-county region - had been contaminated with a chemical used for cleaning crushed coal.
This books tells a particular set of stories about that chemical spill and its aftermath, an unfolding water crisis that would lead to months, even years, of fear and distrust. It is both oral history and collaborative ethnography, jointly conceptualised, researched, and written by people - more than fifty in all - across various positions in academia and local communities.
I'm Afraid of That Water foregrounds the ongoing concerns of West Virginians (and people in comparable situations in places like Flint, Michigan) confronted by the problem of contamination, where thresholds for official safety may be crossed, but a genuine return to normality is elusive.
Luke Eric Lassiter is a professor of humanities
and anthropology and director of the graduate humanities program at
Marshall University. He is the author of Invitation to
Anthropology, The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography, and,
with Elizabeth Campbell, Doing Ethnography Today.
Brian A. Hoey is a professor of anthropology
and associate dean of the honors college at Marshall University and
author of Opting for Elsewhere.
Elizabeth Campbell is chair of the department of
curriculum and instruction at Appalachian State University. She is
the coeditor of Re-imagining Contested Communities and coauthor of
Doing Ethnography Today.
A great example of a multiauthored and intersubjective ethnography of toxic suffering, this book is a model for future disaster ethnographies." — Peter Little, Rhode Island College
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