ABSTRACT
Building on work in feminist geopolitics, we develop intimate geopolitics as a framework for understanding the functioning of gender and race in the contemporary US. We trace the formation of White agricultural masculinities, central to US national identity, alongside the disproportionate toxic burden borne by communities of colour to argue that relationships between the environment, race and gender can be understood through attention to intimate experiences and representations. The discourse of the timeless ‘family farm’ centres a patriarchal and hetero-normative family structure. An alternate discourse industrial modernity is undergirded by environmental racism, where Black bodies and geographies are exposed to toxic waste.
