Date of Award
5-1-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in English
First Advisor
Leigh Anne Duck
Second Advisor
Jay Watson
Third Advisor
Jaime Harker
School
University of Mississippi
Relational Format
dissertation/thesis
Abstract
Mining the Body: Racial Capitalism and the Sacrifice Zone of the Body examines 20th and 21st-century American literature, excavating the ways in which mining not only extracted resources from the earth, but also mined the bodies of their workers for their labor, often ignoring safety in the name of economy. This extraction of coal and of labor, along with its attendant exploitations, sparked unionization and labor movements throughout the century, as miners were frequently at the forefront of asserting their rights in response to this treatment. Using a framework that relies on both environmental criticism, such as Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (2013) and foundational texts on labor studies, including Cedric J. Robinson’s Black Marxism (1983), provides an opportunity to consider the intersections of these issues in literary works featuring mining.
Here the concept of a “sacrifice zone” is extended from solely a geographical area blighted by industrial pollution to also include the body as an environmental site of sacrifice. Mining the Body applies the concepts of sacrifice zones and slow violence to the body, considering the human body as an integral part of the natural environment, or an “embodied sacrifice zone,” rendering it equally vulnerable to exploitation. What Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. termed “environmental racism” allows an examination of not only the spaces but also the politics of invisibility—namely, which bodies are rendered invisible in situations of environmental toxicity near communities of color. Prior to environmental studies solidifying the use of terms like sacrifice zone and environmental racism, authors like Jack Conroy, Yaa Gyasi, Myra Page, and Upton Sinclair engaged with these ideas in their works.
The extraction of a subterranean resource—coal—proves foundational to this dissertation, as this material serves as fuel to propel the development of the modern world and the destruction of the natural world. Examining coal as fuel and material entity renders visible not only the product extracted but also the toll mineral extraction takes on human bodies. Hybrid forms of knowledge offer a means of resisting the hegemony of industrial control over the bodies and safety of those working in or living near these sites of extraction.
Recommended Citation
Young, Regina Marie, "Mining the Body: Racial Capitalism and the Embodied Sacrifice Zone" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 8883.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/8883