Can the Subaltern Sweat? Race, Climate Change, and Inequality

Colonial-era systems of forced labor, ranging from indenture to outright slavery, were central to the development of contemporary understandings of human thermal physiology. The subaltern laborer’s body became a crucial site for understanding the effects of heat on different kinds of racialized bodies, as a means of both maximizing labor extraction and consolidating social and political regimes organized around the perceived vulnerability and susceptibility of different kinds of bodies to heat.