Screen LibraryOil beach : how toxic infrastructure threatens life in the ports of Los Angeles and beyond /
"In this engaging interdisciplinary investigation, Christina Dunbar-Hester, a leading scholar in the area of democratic control of technologies, focuses on the relationships between commerce, environment, and nonhuman life forms in San Pedro Bay, which houses the contiguous ports of Long Beach...
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
The University of Chicago Press,
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| Publisher Address: | Chicago, IL : |
| Publication Dates: | 2023. |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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| Summary: |
"In this engaging interdisciplinary investigation, Christina Dunbar-Hester, a leading scholar in the area of democratic control of technologies, focuses on the relationships between commerce, environment, and nonhuman life forms in San Pedro Bay, which houses the contiguous ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. The harbor is a heavily industrialized area built atop a land- and waterscape that is important for wildlife, containing estuarial wetlands, the LA river mouth, and a marine ecology where colder and warmer Pacific Ocean waters meet. This is a unique spot for industry too--this port complex is amongst the top-ten biggest container ports in the world, and the harbor is also home to major oil operations. Dunbar-Hester, a professor of Science & Technology Studies and Communication at the University of Southern California, centers her account on multispecies life in the period of about 1960 to the present, which coincides with the era of modern environmental regulation in the United States. Focusing on cetaceans, bananas, sea birds, and otters whose lives are intertwined with the vitality of the port complex itself, Dunbar--Hester reveals how logistics infrastructure destroys ecologies as it circulates goods and capital--and helps readers to consider a future where the accumulation of life and the accumulation of capital are not in violent tension"-- "Can the stories of bananas, whales, sea birds, and otters teach us to reconsider the seaport as a place of ecological violence, tied to oil, capital, and trade? San Pedro Bay, which contains the contiguous Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, is a significant site for petroleum shipping and refining as well as one of the largest container shipping ports in the world-some forty percent of containerized imports to the United States pass through this so-called America's Port. It is also ecologically rich. Built atop a land- and waterscape of vital importance to wildlife, the heavily industrialized Los Angeles Harbor contains estuarial wetlands, the LA River mouth, and a marine ecology where colder and warmer Pacific Ocean waters meet. In this compelling interdisciplinary investigation, award-winning author Christina Dunbar-Hester explores the complex relationships among commerce, empire, environment, and the nonhuman life forms of San Pedro Bay over the last fifty years--a period coinciding with the era of modern environmental regulation in the United States. The LA port complex is not simply a local site, Dunbar-Hester argues, but a node in a network that enables the continued expansion of capitalism, propelling trade as it drives the extraction of natural resources, labor violations, pollution, and other harms. Focusing specifically on cetaceans, bananas, sea birds, and otters whose lives are intertwined with the vitality of the port complex itself, Oil Beach reveals how logistics infrastructure threatens ecologies as it circulates goods and capital-and helps us to consider a future where the accumulation of life and the accumulation of capital are not in violent tension"-- |
| Carrier Form: | xiv, 252 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-240) and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780226819716 022681971X 9780226819693 0226819698 |
| Index Number: | GE155 |
| CLC: | X24-171.2 |
| Call Number: | X24-171.2/D898 |
| Contents: | Introduction -- Precariously perched in a port -- Yes, we have no bananas -- Coastal translocations -- Aqua nullius -- Conclusion : flux: bridging to futures. |