Ecowomanism at the Panamá Canal

Book excerpt: In Ecowomanism at the Panamá Canal: Black Women, Labor, and Environmental Ethics, Sofia Betancourt constructs a transnational ecowomanist ethic that reclaims inherited environmental cultures across multiple sites of displacement. Betancourt argues that women in the African diaspora have a unique understanding of how a moral refusal to compromise their humanity provides the very understanding needed to survive what was once an inconceivable level of environmental devastation. This work is guided by the experiences of West Indian women, imported to Panamá by the United States from across the Caribbean, whose labor supported the building of the Panamá Canal—the so-called silver men and women who faced mud, mosquitoes, and malaria while building a literal pathway to the American empire.