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Petrochemical risks have a long latency period—they are silently ticking time bombs in many communities. The first bomb exploded in 1978 at Love Canal. As the first publicized case of a community contaminated by the very substances underlying residents’ livelihoods, Love Canal is emblematic of the risk society. Lois Gibbs led residents in a social movement to pressure politicians for a solution. The movement succeeded in gaining relocation for residents who wanted it and in achieving the remediation of this first Superfund site.
In the wake of Love Canal, more contaminated communities were discovered across the country. In some cases, residents mobilized social movements, but in many other communities they did not. Why? Social movements are ephemeral phenomena—they emerge, coalesce, transform, and fade.
Those fluid processes are the subject of Erin Robinson’s book. She presents a fine-grained analysis of environmental movement features, using Hickory Woods as her case study. Robinson’s work reveals the movement of movements—the multiple transformations of residents and organizations in response to various social forces, particularly government, media, and science. Robinson shows that a social movement is often a dance between challengers and authorities—sometimes graceful, sometimes awkward—in which one dancer’s step partially determines the other dancer’s next step.
This book significantly contributes to the understanding of environmental conflicts, community resources, and movement mobilization. It stands with works such as Phil Brown and Edwin Mikkelsen’s No Safe Place and Suzanne Marshall’s “Lord, We’re Just Trying to Save Your Water,” but it has the bonus of a focus on movement processes.
The book is valuable not only for those contributions but also for bringing attention to the larger social significance of contaminated communities. The Hickory Woods story and the stories of countless other contaminated communities—whether mobilization occurs or not—represent