ABSTRACT
This chapter adopts chemo-ethnography as a framework for examining lived experiences of white working class people in Ashtabula, Ohio. It examines impact of Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act on the politics of deindustrialization in Ashtabula. The chapter argues that the impacts of the contaminants on human and environmental health are an important and often overlooked part of feelings of resentment attributed to rural white America. Ethnographic insights into the formulation of class and ethnic identities subsumed under the category “white” are vital to producing a more vibrant portrait of the lives that occupy this group. The chapter demonstrates the relevance of chemosociality using an ethnographic case study from Ashtabula County, Ohio. It presents the history of how Ashtabula’s residents first learned about Fields Brook through their experience with depleted uranium—a radioactive chemical compound stored and used at one of the facilities that was responsible for the Superfund.
