Animacies CH 5- Kim The

In Animacies, Chen uses methodologies that explores the relationships between  the animate and inanimate, how these boundaries are produced and monitored, and its political implications. Chen draws upon queer of color studies, critical animal studies, and disability studies. The book argues how animate and inanimate objects are racialized or classed. The author builds on existing environmental justice work. For example, chapter five discusses how animacies can be used in examining the Chinese lead panic and how it led to racialization of people of color and impacts biopolitics, such as where toxic waste materials are dumped and how “third world countries might be better off trading for toxic waste of first-world countries since ‘poverty or imminent starvation’ were a greater threat to life expectancy than the toxicity of the waste they would receive.” In this chapter, the author examines the racializing discourse around the Chinese lead panic, from the ads created to warn people about lead poisoning in children’s toys such as the Thomas the Tank Engine toy line and kits that could be used to test for self-testing for lead in different products. Chen describes how the lead panic utilized exceptionalism, framed the US as a victim, and cast other countries as the enemy. She also discussed how lead is animated and comes alive in the sense of the damage that it is invoked to create. She also discussed how communities of color were affected including how animacies create labor hierarchies in the neoliberal economy and perpetuate the prison industrial complex. When in reality it was not mentioned how Chinese people contributed to building and expanding the US by being the main group responsible for building the railroads. Chen also discusses how categories and boundaries are queered throughout the process

This is related to class because it is related to many of the methodologies we have already covered in class. Chen does a good job doing interdisciplinary work and incorporating theory from a large number of fields, while still making a clear argument and utilizing literature to justify her argument in ways that are understandable. While I do wish that more disability studies perspectives had been incorporated, it does do a good job at laying out the foundations of the field (in the introduction) as well as to highlight works such as those from Nirmala Erevelles that focus on intersectional works in disability studies. I think that another strength of this chapter is that it does not isolate different fields into different chapters. For example, it incorporates and weaves queer, disability studies, and racial perspectives to examine one issue, the Chinese lead panic, from more angles, thereby strengthening her argument.

Discussion Questions:

1.     What forms of animacies are used to racialize people under the Trump administration (especially in terms of natural resources)? How does this happen? How does this contribute to biopolitics? Are there similar narratives being used today that contribute to nationalism?

2.     The author of Animacies does a good job at incorporating theories from a large number of fields while making clear arguments? What are some strategies for doing thorough interdisciplinary work in scholarship, activism, and education that we can gain from this book?

3.     How can queering intersectional categories be a helpful frame to use in terms of examining biopolitics and in fighting for environmental justice?