Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country

In a capitalist economy, lands deemed infertile or barren are sometimes targeted for resource extraction or toxic waste storage. Sadly, those who live on seemingly unproductive land—nearly always poor, indigenous, or people of color—are similarly considered marginal and exploitable. Traci Brynne Voyles dubs this practice “wastelanding” and argues that this is what happened on the Navajo reservation after 1942, when government officials already convinced that Navajo land was worthless gave unfettered access to energy companies for uranium exploration and mining. Corporations left large stretches of land littered with radioactive waste and Navajo workers and their families plagued with devastating health issues. This, of course, is not a new story, but Voyles examines events within an environmental context and concludes that this was—and continues to be—a clear case of environmental racial injustice. It is also a haunting condemnation of a modern United States that claims to espouse democratic principles yet during...