Neoliberal Globalization and the Slow Violence of Social and Environmental Destruction: The Case of the Bhopal Disaster.

This paper investigates the relationship between neoliberal globalization and long-term adverse social and environmental consequences of the 1984 Bhopal disaster. The Bhopal disaster that killed 25,000 and injured 600,000 is only remembered by the spectacle of its immediate aftermath. What remains understudied is the way in which the slow violence of social and environmental destruction continues to affect marginalized people living in Bhopal. Bhopal is a site of slow violence because Bhopal represents prolonged devastation that continues over time and space. More than 100,000 in Bhopal remain chronically ill; children continue to be born with physical and mental deformities; women and girls suffer many reproductive health complications; and contaminated soil and groundwater affect thousands of marginalized Bhopalis. This paper attempts to go beyond the spectacle-driven understanding of the tragedy by examining (1) the Bhopal disaster as the outcome of a process in which developed countries/sites offshore socioecological risks to poor countries/sites; (2) the ongoing adverse consequences of the disaster as the outcome of a dynamic that renders invisible the slow violence of social and environmental harms affecting vulnerable populations in marginalized countries. This paper uses a mixed-method approach, drawing data from 50 interviews with Bhopal victims and activists and relevant archives and official and independent reports. Additionally, I create and use a cross-national dataset on industrial disasters that have enduring social and environmental consequences. This research on the intersection of environmental justice, neoliberalism, development, disaster, and resistance has multiple scholarly implications, both methodological and theoretical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]