A1 Journal article (refereed)
Race, Environment, and Crisis : Hurricane Camille and the Politics of Southern Segregation (2024)

Arffman, A., & Holmila, A. (2024). Race, Environment, and Crisis : Hurricane Camille and the Politics of Southern Segregation. Environment and History, 30(2), 187-209. https://doi.org/10.3197/096734022X16552219786636

JYU authors or editors

Publication details

All authors or editors: Arffman, Atte; Holmila, Antero

Journal or series: Environment and History

ISSN: 0967-3407

eISSN: 1752-7023

Publication year: 2024

Volume: 30

Issue number: 2

Pages range: 187-209

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Publication country: United Kingdom

Publication language: English

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3197/096734022X16552219786636

Publication open access: Not open

Publication channel open access: 

Publication is parallel published (JYX): https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/82717

Abstract

In August 1969 Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi coast. We argue that the disaster caused by the Hurricane was an outcome of the entanglement between human and non-human agents. As a non-human agent, Hurricane Camille thrust the prevailing socio-economic situation in the segregationist South into the spotlight, with all its political and cultural ramifications – much to the annoyance of the local political elite that had long sought to isolate southern politics from civil rights and desegregation agenda. Consequently, it (re)invigorated and furnished the civil rights movement and the politics defining that era with new arguments and approaches that would have been impossible to develop from the perspective of human agency alone. By examining both local and national press discourses relating to the crisis caused by Hurricane Camille in the state of Mississippi in August 1969, we argue that historical agency should not be seen in purely anthropocentric terms but as an entanglement between human and non-human events.

Keywords: natural phenomena; hurricane force storms; crises; societal effects; politicisation; politics; decisions; human rights; African Americans; refugees; racial policy; discrimination; socioeconomic status; human rights policy; civil rights movements; environmental awareness; environmental history

Free keywords: environment; civil-rights movement; non-human agency; crisis; hurricane

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Related projects

Ministry reporting: Yes

VIRTA submission year: 2022

JUFO rating: 2