In the Shadow of the Valley: An Ethnographic Inquiry into Toxic Waste in California’s San Joaquin Valley

Yalda Asmatey
Anthropology
UC Berkeley

This ethnography examined the classic showdown between people living simple lives based upon working the land and the rise of new industry and technologies after World War II which have altered and controlled the environment and impacted the health of people in ways that often cannot be known or understood. The grantee explored how Kettleman City, California came to host the largest toxic waste dump in the West. She investigated (i) how Chemical Waste Management Inc transformed the unincorporated towns‚ environmental, and economic disparities into a lucrative site for dumping waste; and (ii) how residents, who are routinely exposed to hazards, whose lives are in constant danger, think, feel, and protest their surroundings; and (iii) how the creation of (un)certainty in peoples‚ lives and their environment is (re)produced in the use of official science to disguise, confuse, and silence pressing issues related to the environmental health consequences on communities.