Public futurity: the rhetorics of sustainability and survival at the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery

ABSTRACTI propose the concept of public futurity as a framework for studying how communities renegotiate collective identity in times of crisis. Public futurity, which I define as the process by which groups imagine and deliberate about their shared future, demonstrates how collective identity is maintained, negotiated, and transformed over time. I theorize how futurity is experienced collectively, drawing from scholarship on Black, queer, and disability futurity to show that appeals to futurity recognize not only the possibility of change, but the impossibility of sustaining an untenable present. I apply the concept of public futurity to an analysis of public deliberation about the fate of the former Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) oil refinery. A series of meetings organized by Philadelphia's Refinery Advisory Committee became highly contested, with mostly Black residents arguing that the site should benefit the local public and mostly white former workers fighting to keep the refinery open. Tracking how residents and former workers leveraged futurity differently in their arguments, I demonstrate how residents revealed the impossibility of the refinery's continued survival. I argue that a key process of public futurity is contending with the liminality of collective identity, and that undoing is necessary for transformation.KEYWORDS: Publicsenvironmental justicefuturitytemporalitytransformation Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Scholarship on rhetoric and futurity includes: Kelly Happe, “Utopia and Crisis,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 53, no. 3 (2020): 272–8; Matthew Houdek and Kendall Phillips, “Rhetoric and the Temporal Turn: Race, Gender, Temporalities,” Women’s Studies in Communication 43, no. 4 (2020): 369–83; Lore/etta LeMaster and Amber Johnson, “Speculative Fiction, Criticality, and Futurity: An Introduction,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 18, no. 3 (2021): 280–2; Ersula Ore and Matthew Houdek, “Lynching in Times of Suffocation: Toward a Spatiotemporal Politics of Breathing,” Women’s Studies in Communication 43, no. 4 (2020): 443–58; Candice Rai, Democracy’s Lot: Rhetoric, Publics, and the Places of Invention (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2016); and Haley Schneider, “Deliberative Topoi and the Pull of the Future: Bridging Disparate Visions of Dresden Elbe Valley,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 49, no. 5 (2019): 495–516.2 Max Marin, “South Philly Refinery’s Long History of Fires, Explosions, Deaths and Injuries,” Billy Penn, June 21, 2019, https://billypenn.com/2019/06/21/south-philly-refinerys-long-history-of-fires-explosions-deaths-and-injuries/ (accessed September 4, 2023).3 Catalina Jaramillo, “With South Philadelphia Refinery in Bankruptcy Proceedings, Neighbors See an Opportunity for Cleaner Air,” WHYY, January 31, 2018, https://whyy.org/articles/south-philadelphia-refinery-bankruptcy-proceedings-neighbors-see-opportunity-cleaner-air/ (accessed September 4, 2023).4 Jaramillo, “Bankruptcy Proceedings.”5 Jaramillo, “Bankruptcy Proceedings.”6 Dorceta Taylor, Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility (New York: New York University Press, 2014), 35–7.7 Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) Refinery Fire and Explosions, https://www.csb.gov/philadelphia-energy-solutions-pes-refinery-fire-and-explosions-/ (accessed September 4, 2023); Andrew Maykuth, “Bankrupt Philadelphia Energy Solutions Blames ‘Mislabeled’ Pipe for Big Blast That Led to Refinery’s Closure,” Philadelphia Inquirer, March 3, 2021, https://www.inquirer.com/business/energy/bankrupt-pes-philadelphia-refinery-sues-supplier-babcock-for-explosion-20210303.html (accessed September 4, 2023).8 Susan Phillips, “Faulty, Old Pipe Caused PES Refinery Explosion, Sending Bus-Size Piece of Debris Flying across the Schuylkill,” WHYY, October 16, 2019, https://whyy.org/articles/faulty-old-pipe-caused-pes-refinery-explosion-sending-a-bus-size-piece-of-debris-flying-across-schuylkill/ (accessed September 4, 2023).9 Phillips, “Faulty, Old Pipe.”10 Gerard A. 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