Life and Death in Louisiana’s Petrochemical Industrial Complex

Abstract

This photo essay traces the historical geography of Norco, Louisiana—heart of Louisiana’s petrochemical industrial complex. Norco, named for the first oil company sited there (the New Orleans Refinery Company), is the quintessential Louisiana petrochemical town, neither exceptional nor provincial, a place that for generations has been a nexus of struggles between racial capitalism’s extractive drive and the demands for collective life encapsulated in slave uprisings and environmental justice activism. Moreover, the fact that by the late 20th century, petrochemical pollution made the best path forward for residents of the historic Black freedom neighborhood Diamond was by fighting for relocation raises critical questions about the life and death work of just transition from oil capitalism.