Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor

In the Preface, Nixon points to Edward Said, Rachel Carson, and Ramachandra Guha as his sources of inspiration for writing Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. To him, “all three exemplify an ideal of the public intellectual as someone unafraid to open up channels of inquiry at an angle to mainstream thought; unafraid moreover to face down the hostility that their unorthodoxy often prompted” (ix).

Said, a Palestinian-American professor of literature and founder of postcolonial studies, utilized “historical, political, and biographical context” and diverse literary styles to reach a broad array of audiences. He was extremely critical of traditional academic writing. While he was not “environmentally-minded” (x), he believed deeply in human rights.

Carson was also skeptical of academics and so-called experts. She believed that “the mission of the public intellectual included exposing the euphemisms and bromides promulgated by cold-war America’s military-industrial complex” (xi). Carson was the first to document the harm that pesticides cause to all forms of life for the American public. While her writings did not touch on race, class, or colonial powers, Nixon argues that they were clearly concerned with the