Jordan Woodward Receives the 2023 Zora Neale Hurston Prize by AFS
Jordan Woodward, PhD student at The Ohio State University, was awarded the 2023 Zora Neale Hurston Prize by AFS.
The Zora Neale Hurston Prize is named for the pioneering folklorist, ethnographer, and creative writer who worked in and wrote extensively about African American communities throughout the southern U.S., and is internationally known for her folklore collection Mules and Men (1935) and her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), as well as other notable works. The prize is given to a graduate or undergraduate student for the best work in any medium—including but not limited to published or unpublished papers, films, sound recordings, or exhibitions—on African American folklore.
Woodward’s project is titled “Environmental Racism as Diffused Carcerality: Stories from the ‘Women of Cancer Alley’” and highlights first-hand stories about the ramifications of petrochemical pollution in “Cancer Alley,” Louisiana, the 85-mile strip of the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to New Orleans that is home to over 200 petrochemical plants that produce toxic air and water pollutants. The “Women of Cancer Alley” is a collection of digital stories created by eight African American women who have lived the majority of their lives in Cancer Alley and can also trace their family lineage in this area back several generations. Woodward’s research and the women’s narratives draw attention to how the story of Cancer Alley is a story of environmental racism—the purposeful locating of environmentally- and health-hazardous industries near communities of color.
View the digital collection of stories, Social Justice: The Women of Cancer Alley on YouTube.
The Hurston Prize committee was impressed with Woodward’s ethnographic approach to this project which underscores the importance of ethnographic methodologies and personal narratives in documenting environmental injustices to support research that can benefit these communities.
Read more about Woodward’s work in an interview about the Hurston Prize published by Ohio State University’s English Department.
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