Systemic Racism and Othering within Government Agencies: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Environmental Injustice in the Flint, Michigan Water Crisis

IF 0.4 4区心理学 Q4 PSYCHIATRY

Psychoanalytic Study of the Child Pub Date : 2021-01-01 DOI:10.1080/00797308.2020.1859292

M. Rudden

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引用次数: 1

Abstract

ABSTRACT The severe water emergency in Flint, Michigan between 2014 and 2016 was inarguably caused by systemic organizational dysfunction. The Michigan Governor Snyders’ Flint Water Advisory Task Force, in their analysis of the severe water emergency in Flint, Michigan, emphasized the degree of systemic organizational dysfunction, providing evidence that the agencies involved demonstrated a disregard for the poor and black citizens of Flint and participated in environmental injustice. The author traces, through journalists’ reports, e-mails between and among officials, first-hand testimony and the timeline provided by the Task Force, that the performance of the involved agencies (the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Michigan Department of Health Services) was tainted by systemic racism, Othering and by the dehumanization of Flint citizens the majority of whom were African American, and poor. The scandal was finally made public when a pediatrician showed unequivocal data on the alarmingly high lead levels in children who ingested the water. An organizational analysis based on psychoanalytic principles (Freud, Bion, Hopper) further supplements her observations that systemic racism aided and abetted severe systemic dysfunction.

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政府机构内的系统性种族主义和其他:密歇根州弗林特水危机中环境不公正的精神分析解释

摘要2014年至2016年间，密歇根州弗林特市发生的严重水资源紧急事件无疑是由系统性组织功能障碍引起的。密歇根州州长斯奈德的弗林特水资源咨询工作组在分析密歇根州弗林特市严重的水资源紧急情况时，强调了系统性组织功能障碍的程度，提供了相关机构无视弗林特市穷人和黑人公民并参与环境不公的证据。提交人通过记者的报道、官员之间的电子邮件、第一手证词和工作队提供的时间表追溯到，相关机构（州环境质量部和密歇根州卫生服务部）的表现受到系统性种族主义的影响，由于弗林特公民的非人化，其中大多数是非裔美国人和穷人。当一名儿科医生展示了摄入该水的儿童体内铅含量高得惊人的明确数据时，这起丑闻终于公开了。基于精神分析原理的组织分析（弗洛伊德、比恩、霍珀）进一步补充了她的观察，即系统性种族主义助长和教唆了严重的系统性功能障碍。

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来源期刊

Psychoanalytic Study of the Child PSYCHOLOGY, PSYCHOANALYSIS-

CiteScore

0.90

自引率

20.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child is recognized as a preeminent source of contemporary psychoanalytic thought. Published annually, it focuses on presenting carefully selected and edited representative articles featuring ongoing analytic research as well as clinical and theoretical contributions for use in the treatment of adults and children. Initiated in 1945, under the early leadership of Anna Freud, Kurt and Ruth Eissler, Marianne and Ernst Kris, this series of volumes soon established itself as a leading reference source of study. To look at its contributors is to be confronted with the names of a stellar list of creative, scholarly pioneers who willed a rich heritage of information about the development and disorders of children and their influence on the treatment of adults as well as children. An innovative section, The Child Analyst at Work, periodically provides a forum for dialogue and discussion of clinical process from multiple viewpoints.