The Slow Violence of The Coal Supply Chain from Extraction to Export

Wolman Seminar
Mar. 25 @ 3 P.M.
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The Slow Violence of The Coal Supply Chain from Extraction to Export

Nicole Fabricant, PhD
Towson University

Abstract: This talk sketches the historic and political-economic context for contemporary social movement organizing in South Baltimore for a Just Transition away from coal. I will highlight how and why Baltimore became a major exporter of coal (2nd largest coal export pier on E. coast) in the late 1970s. The talk quickly pivots to the invisible forms of violence tied to this globalized commodity chain that links Appalachian miners to poor white and Black communities in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Finally, I will reflect upon the important community-led scientific work in Curtis Bay since the coal silo explosion of 2021 where residents asked questions regarding fugitive coal dust: how far the dust traveled, how much accumulated and at what rate. Johns Hopkins University (JHU) scientists from CHARMED provided the technical support to collect, document and analyze data. This culminated in the first-ever collaborative report between community residents, scientists, and Maryland Department of the Environment and confirmed the presence of coal dust in the air of the South Baltimore community of Curtis Bay. While the report was used in August/September to pressure MDE for stricter regulation of the CSX rail cars and the open-air coal pier in Curtis Bay, the new permit has yet to be released. 

Despite the ongoing organizing efforts and the scientific evidence, Baltimore is far from a just transition away from coal. How can communities along an entire supply chain hold corporations like CSX accountable for the harms they have caused from the mines to the afterlives of extraction in overburdened communities? What might it look like to build relationships of trust and solidarity across critical nodes of the coal supply chain?

Bio:  Nicole Fabricant is Professor of Anthropology at Towson University in Maryland.  She teaches courses on resource wars, environmental justice, and the climate crisis. Her most recent book, Fighting to Breathe Race, Toxicity and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore (University of California Press 2022) looks at the cumulative impacts of industrial stationary toxic facilities in South Baltimore. It follows a dynamic and creative group of high school students who decided to fight back against the race- and class-based health disparities and inequality of industrial expansion. As a Baltimore resident and activist-scholar, Fabricant documents how these young organizers came to envision, design, and create a more just and sustainable future.

Fighting to Breathe received the 2024 APLA book prize for best critical ethnography in political anthropology. Her new research examines the political economy of coal (from extraction to export). She also documents political campaigns of solidarity and resistance across the entire supply chain from Appalachia to Baltimore as movement activists organize for a Just Transition from coal. She is currently working on a manuscript on the Need for the Re-nationalization and Electrification of Rail.