How Mature Capitalism Turns Pollution into Diamonds: Malagnogenesis and the Reverse-Engineering of Harm into Risk

• Main Author: Martyn, Kevin P.
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholar Commons 2016
• Subjects: Neoliberalism; Environmental Justice; Lead exposure; Criminology; Agnotology; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Environmental Law; Geography
• Online Access: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6540; http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7737&context=etd

In recent years, there has been a great deal of debate about the pervasiveness and persistence of neoliberal thinking. In the context of the post-2008 ‘great recession’ the resilience of neoliberalism is particularly confounding. To begin to unravel the ways in which neoliberalism is situated relative to risk, this study identifies an increasingly important neoliberal knowledge practice: malagnogenesis. Malagnogenesis is proposed herein as the production of ignorance that normalizes harm for and amongst marginalized populations. To shed light on the phenomena of malagnogenesis, this study investigated the history of leaded gasoline in the U.S. To that end, I followed the production of ignorance from the introduction of gasoline lead additives in the early 1920s to the contemporary discursive failure surrounding the impact that leaded gasoline has had on late 20th century urban crime rates. Finally, this study supported the hypothesis of malagnogenesis in academia via a survey of academics.