Nixon - Slow Violence, Anthropocene Inequities, and Global Justice

Ingrid Martin

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Unsettled Crossings. I’m your host, Ingrid Martin, and today, we’re embarking on an intellectual journey into the heart of some of the most pressing and, quite frankly, the most perplexing crises of our time. This is a space for examining the contours of global justice and environmental inequities through thoughtful, critical conversations, and—let me tell you—we’ve got a lot to unpack in this episode.

Ingrid Martin

Our topic today revolves around what might seem like a strange contradiction—a violence that isn’t explosive or immediately visible, but instead unfolds in drawn-out, almost imperceptible ways over decades, even centuries. Rob Nixon, a leading thinker on this subject, has called it Slow Violence. It’s a concept that forces us to consider how ecological collapse and public inattention often go hand in hand, and why these slow-moving disasters can devastate lives, particularly the most vulnerable, without ever making headlines.

Ingrid Martin

To frame our discussion, I’ll take you through Nixon’s ideas, focusing first on the intellectual scaffolding he builds to confront these issues. A quick disclaimer—this isn’t a light subject. But, as with anything worth understanding deeply, it requires framing the big ideas and asking difficult questions. Nixon’s writings push us to reassess what it means to bear witness to environmental damage, across vast expanses of time and space. I know, the sheer scope can sound intimidating, but don’t worry, we’ll navigate it together, bit by bit.

Ingrid Martin

I should also mention that Nixon’s term, Slow Violence, is more than just academic jargon. It’s a kind of metaphorical lens—one that shows how things like climate change or deforestation operate more like a slow-motion tsunami, devastating human and ecological communities over time. These unfolding catastrophes don’t often feature dramatic footage, you know, like collapsing buildings or blazing fires. But make no mistake—they’re deadly, and they’re reshaping the very way humans and other species can exist. So, in the next few minutes, we’ll start unpacking not only his concept but also how these slow crises intersect with political silence, delayed justice, and yes, deep global inequalities.

Ingrid Martin

Before diving in deeper, though, let’s step back for a moment and ground all this in context. Nixon’s reflections align closely with what he calls the environmentalism of the poor. And here’s why this matters: while the world can marvel at flashy new infrastructure or romanticize sky-high urban skylines, vast numbers of communities are living—and dying—under the shadow of systemic neglect. They’re the people on the frontlines of what Nixon identifies as intergenerational injustice: the struggle to secure their future under a deteriorating natural world. These are urgent realities that connect deeply with the global inequalities of today’s Anthropocene. And we’re going to talk more about what exactly the Anthropocene even means in the next chapter.

Ingrid Martin

So stick with me, because this is where it gets fascinating. We’re constructing not just an academic critique of environmental collapse, but, hopefully, a clearer understanding of who bears the weight when the systems around us begin to crumble. From Kenya’s Green Belt Movement to overlooked casualties in postcolonial environmental history, Nixon’s scholarship urges us to see environmental violence for what it is: systemic, uneven, and undeniably political. Let’s begin by zooming out with the Anthropocene next.

Ingrid Martin

Alright, let’s start with this curious term: the Anthropocene. The word itself stems from anthropology—meaning “human”—and it’s a proposal to officially classify our current geological epoch as one defined by human activity. The idea is that humans have radically altered the Earth’s systems to the point where we’ve left permanent markers in the fossil record. Think mass extinctions, rising greenhouse gases—you name it. Supporters of this term place its beginning around the late eighteenth century, coinciding with the Industrial Revolution. But the impacts really speed up after 1950 during a period some scholars dub the Great Acceleration.

Ingrid Martin

Now, during the Great Acceleration, we see carbon emissions, nitrogen cycles, urban expansion, and industrial consumerism surging at an exponential rate. Picture this—since 1950, humanity’s environmental footprint hasn’t just expanded. It’s exploded. We’ve introduced novel materials like plastics that don’t degrade, fossilized in layers of sediment, and we’ve fundamentally altered global ecosystems at a pace unmatched in Earth’s history. But here’s the thing: this era of incredible environmental transformation coincides with—and here's where it becomes troubling—the era of what some experts call the Great Divergence, the dramatic widening of economic inequality between the ultrarich and the ultrapoor.

Ingrid Martin

This leads us to ask: are these grand narratives—of universal human impact—missing something important? And, honestly, I think they are. Because while the Anthropocene tells a unifying story about humanity’s collective geological influence, it can also conceal the unequal distributions of vulnerability, of resources, and of responsibility. Let me explain. A subsistence farmer in rural Kenya and a hedge fund manager from New York are both ‘Anthropocene actors,’ right? But are their contributions, or even their exposure to its risks, remotely comparable? Not at all. If anything, these blanket terms risk masking the vast gulf in accountability and the disproportionate suffering of marginalized communities.

Ingrid Martin

This tension, between a convergent species narrative and the realities of social and environmental divergence, is one of the biggest critiques of the Anthropocene discourse. Take industrial emissions: research shows that just ninety corporations, primarily fossil fuel giants, have been responsible for nearly two-thirds of global carbon emissions since the mid-1700s. Ninety corporations, not humanity at large. And yet, mainstream Anthropocene storytelling often glosses over this imbalance, framing planetary destruction as a “human problem” instead of pinpointing the concentrated power and decision-making of a wealthy minority.

Ingrid Martin

Another issue with this narrative lies in how it frames opportunity. Some voices celebrate the Anthropocene as a turning point, calling it a chance for humanity to master Earth’s systems—what they call ‘guardianship.’ But this optimism hasn’t always aged well. It’s tempting to feel empowered by phrases like, “we are as gods and must get good at it,” but haven’t we already seen where hubris gets us? Many of the ecological crises we’re battling today spring directly from a mindset of dominion—this belief we can manipulate planetary systems as if they’re fully knowable or, worse, controllable. It’s... dangerous territory.

Ingrid Martin

And, here’s what really makes all this feel urgent: environmental collapse doesn’t operate in isolation. It folds into structural inequality in ways that are systematic and compounding. Think of Pacific Islands already disappearing under rising seas from emissions they didn’t contribute to. Or megacities where slums, built by necessity, sprawl in the shadows of gated skyscrapers designed to protect wealth. Anthropocene metrics might catalog everything from carbon traces to plastic layers, but unless these narratives grapple with how inequity is baked into environmental history, they risk sounding tone-deaf to the realities on the ground.

Ingrid Martin

So, yes, the Anthropocene is powerful, no question. It forces a planetary perspective and asks us hard questions about what kind of future we’re creating. But it’s also flawed—monumentally flawed—if it isn’t grounded in a critique of injustice. As the era of the Anthropocene intersects with this Great Divergence, we’re left trying to tell two very different kinds of stories—a collective one about humanity’s shared impacts, and a fragmented one about who reaps the benefits and who bears the costs.

Ingrid Martin

And those costs—well, they’re often invisible. Slow-moving disasters like desertification or rising toxicity accumulate quietly, silently reshaping livelihoods before anyone’s paying attention. This brings us straight to the concept of Slow Violence, and why it’s such a crucial framework for understanding environmental inequities today.

Ingrid Martin

So, we’ve reached a pivotal juncture in our discussion: Slow Violence. At its core, Slow Violence is a term Rob Nixon coined to describe the kind of harm that sneaks up on you—or on entire populations—at a glacial pace. It’s less like a sudden explosion and more like an invisible erosion of rights, livelihoods, and even life itself. Nixon defines it as violence that occurs gradually, often out of sight, a delayed destruction whose repercussions play out silently over time, across generations. And yes, I know it’s a conceptual mouthful. But it’s one of those ideas that becomes crystal clear once you see its examples in the world around us.

Ingrid Martin

Take, for instance, the phenomenon of desertification in Kenya. Each year, as topsoil vanishes from overused land, it doesn’t make the evening news. There’s no ‘breaking story’ about miles of fertile land becoming barren, forcing communities to migrate or adjust to dwindling resources. Yet, over decades, this seemingly minor ecological shift becomes a cumulative crisis—pushing families into poverty, eroding food security, and sparking local conflicts over what remains. This slow, creeping loss is as catastrophic as a hurricane or wildfire, but it operates beneath the thresholds of public attention and political urgency, which is precisely what makes it so dangerous.

Ingrid Martin

And slow violence isn’t just an “over there” problem. Consider industrial toxins seeping into water supplies. From Flint, Michigan to underground aquifers in rural India, invisible pollution can linger undetected for years. By the time community members realize their health has suffered—be it through cancers, learning disabilities, or agricultural collapses—the culprits are often long gone, leaving only a residue of suffering in their wake. Nixon critiques how these tragedies are chronically under-represented because, let’s be honest, slow motion calamities don’t have the same sensory or media spectacle as burning buildings or flooding streets. Yet the cost, measured in lives and futures lost, is immense.

Ingrid Martin

Now, it’s essential to zoom out here and connect this to another term Nixon uses: the Environmentalism of the Poor. Here’s the gist: for affluent societies, environmental activism often centers on conservation or aesthetics—like preserving national parks or fighting urban air pollution. But for communities already living precariously at the edges, environmentalism is not a choice; it’s survival. Whether it’s Kenyan women planting trees through the Green Belt Movement or Southeast Asian farmers resisting land grabs, these are people battling to secure their futures against systems that prioritize short-term profit over long-term justice.

Ingrid Martin

The brilliance of Nixon’s framework is that it situates these marginalized voices where they belong: at the center of ecological struggles. These communities understand, firsthand, how environmental destruction compounds inequality, locking them into cycles of poverty. And make no mistake, this cycle isn’t accidental. It’s the result of deliberate political neglect paired with economic models that allow environmental exploitation to fall heaviest on those least equipped to fight back.

Ingrid Martin

I want to leave you with an image. Picture a tree—not as we often think of it, something static or aesthetic—imagine it as a bridge. For the Green Belt Movement in Kenya, a single tree could mean shade for crops, fuel for fire, or roots that keep precious soil from eroding entirely. Each tree planted was—literally and symbolically—an act of survival, providing tangible resources and signaling resistance to oppressive ecological policies. What’s remarkable here isn’t just the resilience, but the clarity with which these grassroots campaigns connect environmental security and social justice.

Ingrid Martin

But we’re not done yet. When slow violence is at work, it doesn’t just erode physical landscapes. It fundamentally shifts political landscapes too, often in ways we don’t immediately see. That’s where we’ll head next.

Ingrid Martin

If we’re going to talk about the future of environmental justice, we need to start with a premise that feels both radical and, frankly, obvious: inequality is as much an ecological problem as it is a social or economic one. You can’t separate who shoulders the burden of slow violence from conversations about who holds power, who controls resources, and who gets left behind in the Anthropocene.

Ingrid Martin

This isn’t just a matter of fairness; it’s about survival. And here’s why. Many of the systems driving environmental collapse—the overexploitation of forests, rampant pollution, carbon emissions—they persist because they disproportionately affect the vulnerable. When accountability is diffused or when the harmed are powerless to fight back, the urgency for change diminishes. It’s a cruel irony that those who’ve contributed least to environmental destruction are often the ones living closest to its consequences.

Ingrid Martin

But, here’s the thing: the seeds of environmental justice already exist. In Nixon’s work, he highlights grassroots movements as the antidote to institutional inertia. Look at Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, where tree planting became a profound act of self-reliance. But grassroots efforts alone can’t counteract structures of inequality baked into global systems. They need allies—legislators willing to fight for accountability; international frameworks that ensure corporations can’t profit from planetary harm; and yes, solidarity from you, from me, from anyone who isn’t directly harmed but has the power to amplify these stories and demands.

Ingrid Martin

Let’s pivot for a moment. Remember what I said about Pacific Islanders facing rising seas? It’s not just their homes at stake—it’s their culture, their history, their whole identity tied to that land. Their survival depends on global action. Without a systemic overhaul of energy policies, carbon caps, and investment in renewable solutions, these islands might just disappear. Justice, in these cases, isn’t just about adaptation—it’s about responsibility. Who gets to thrive in a shared future and who gets written out of it?

Ingrid Martin

What’s powerful, and perhaps underappreciated, is the intersection of environmental action with other global justice movements. Environmental justice isn’t just about trees or clean air—it’s linked to housing rights, labor movements, food security, and gender equity. Why? Because these are the same systems being exploited. Resource extraction in one place destabilizes housing in another. Workers who demand safer conditions are often those at the frontlines of environmental hazards. Globally, it’s women—think of those Kenyan farmers—who disproportionately bear the labor of mitigating the fallout of deforestation, droughts, and polluted water sources.

Ingrid Martin

But justice also means storytelling. It means shifting the narratives that underpin our collective understanding of environmental change. Right now, the dominant narrative often casts humanity as a whole as the villain responsible for ecological collapse. But, as we’ve seen from Nixon’s critique, that’s neither accurate nor helpful. We need targeted narratives that recognize power disparities—not just between wealthy corporations and the marginalized, but also between nations, between cities and rural regions, and between generations. Without that focus, solutions risk becoming as diffuse as the problems they aim to solve.

Ingrid Martin

Here’s where it gets hopeful, even inspiring. The power of equitable environmental policies is that they don’t just fix one problem—they raise the floor for everyone. Cleaner energy infrastructure, for instance, doesn’t just cut carbon emissions; it creates jobs, improves health outcomes, and reduces poverty. Sustainable agriculture, when supported by fair trade policies, restores ecosystems and creates economic lifelines for farming communities. Simply put, justice must be foundational—anything less is merely a Band-Aid on a breaking system.

Ingrid Martin

And yet, slow violence thrives in the gaps between our policies and our imaginations. People often disengage because the scope of change required feels paralyzing. But this is where I want to leave you with something actionable, because large-scale issues are built on small, deliberate choices. How we vote, whose stories we center, and what consumption patterns we normalize all factor into larger systemic shifts. Let’s pause here, though, because the next chapter will unpack the most urgent takeaways from Nixon’s scholarship.

Ingrid Martin

As we draw this conversation to a close, I want to circle back to the central themes that have guided us through Rob Nixon's powerful scholarship. At the heart of his work is a simple yet profound truth: the crises we face—whether they manifest slowly as environmental decay or rapidly as glaring inequality—are deeply interconnected. They demand that we expand our conception of justice, beyond legal or political boundaries, into terrains that encompass both the ecological and the moral.

Ingrid Martin

Key to this understanding is recognizing that slow violence—those drawn-out, largely invisible processes that harm ecosystems and the vulnerable—requires a radical shift in how we tell stories about suffering and accountability. Nixon challenges us to rethink what we define as urgent, asking why some crises command global attention while others—like desertification, toxic drift, or deforestation—play out unnoticed, devastating lives in silence.

Ingrid Martin

And here's the transformative insight: while slow violence is pervasive, it's neither immutable nor inevitable. Throughout this episode, we’ve seen how grassroots movements, like Kenya's Green Belt Movement, demonstrate the power of collective action. These efforts, led by those directly experiencing the fallout of neglect, bridge the gap between survival and resistance. They remind us that environmental activism is not just about preserving landscapes—it’s about preserving livelihoods, dignity, and futures.

Ingrid Martin

For scholars and activists alike, Nixon’s work serves as both a critique and a guide. It critiques the Anthropocene’s grand, sweeping narrative by exposing the unequal vulnerabilities and responsibilities it often obscures. And it guides us by foregrounding voices from the margins—those who resist not for glory or aesthetics, but because their survival depends on it. If we’re to confront the cumulative weight of slow violence, we need a coalition of storytellers, scientists, lawmakers, and activists to work in tandem—amplifying these voices and weaving their struggles into broader narratives of global justice.

Ingrid Martin

As we face the Anthropocene's shared yet uneven burdens, let this be our call to action: to ask better questions, demand fairer policies, and embrace the small choices within our power. Whether it’s voting for equitable environmental reform, supporting local sustainability initiatives, or amplifying stories from underserved communities—each action is a thread in the larger fabric of change.

Ingrid Martin

Because, at the end of the day, the future we imagine isn’t just shaped by the frameworks of scholars or the policies of world leaders. It’s shaped by us: our choices, our attention, and our capacity to envision a shared, inclusive vision of justice. And that, listeners, is a future I believe we can work toward—incrementally, persistently, and together.

Ingrid Martin

Thank you for journeying with me through these challenging yet vital ideas. I hope today’s episode has sparked new thoughts, deepened old ones, and, most importantly, inspired action. On that note, we’ll see you next time. Stay curious, stay compassionate, and—more than anything else—stay engaged.