ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIOLOGY https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2020.1803541 ARTICLE Our ‘good neighbor’ Formosa Plastics: petrochemical damage(s) and the meanings of money Paul Jobin Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Through its chronic pollution and recurrent explosions, the petrochemical industry is the source of constant damage for fenceline communities. Measures that might prevent or correct this damage are postponed with a local flow of money, a situation viewed through the prism of the different levels of damage, from chronic pollution to cancers and explosions. This article analyzes how a collective lawsuit launched against a petrochemical complex in Taiwan is challenging this economy. Formosa Plastics, the owner of the petrochemical complex, is one of the world’s largest chemical companies. Its ‘good neighbor’ policy includes a mix of political corruption, patronage care services and regular cash payments. Based on a four-year observation and in-depth interviews with the plaintiffs and other local sources, this article draws on the sociology of money to examine the ambiguous role of compensation in disputes over environmental and public health damage. I show that the search for justice and compensation nourishes a range of expectations. This includes, in proportion to the scope of the damage, a moral condemnation of the polluters and the prevention of further harm, in addition to economic assistance. Received 6 April 2020 Accepted 28 July 2020 The literature on disputes over industrial damage seldom addresses problems of money, but when it does, it generally prioritizes its negative meaning. This money, which is basically corporate money, has the power to divide the community of victims and discourage them from pursuing collective action (Ottinger 2013). The result is a ‘quiescence’ of the mobilization (Shriver, Adams, and Messer 2014; Eaton and Kinchy 2016, cf. Jerolmack and Walker 2018) and may become a ‘compensation trap’ (Van Rooij et al. 2012; Mah and Wang 2019): the distribution of money becomes a social habit that tends to normalize the pollution, thus allowing companies to postpone efforts to prevent it. Another stream of literature on environmental justice and the ‘languages of valuation’ (e.g., Martínez Alier 2002; Centemeri 2015) emphasizes the incommensurability of industrial damage, and therefore tends to relegate money as an awkward solution or a reductionism of the multidimensional aspect of industrial damage to ecosystems and human communities (notable exceptions are Kallis, GómezBaggethun, and Zografos 2013; O’Neill 2017). Although I acknowledge the fundamental contribution of this literature – indeed a large part of the research presented in this article resonates with it – I find it problematic that its understanding of money is incomplete. The critical literature on environmental issues generally frames money as abstract and fungible (i.e., a dollar is a dollar, whether earned or stolen, CONTACT Paul Jobin pauljobin3@gmail.com © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group KEYWORDS Industrial hazards; fenceline communities; environmental health; compensation; sociology of money; class action donated as a solatium or obtained by a court verdict as compensation). Inversely, recent research on the sociology of money inspired by the now-classic work of Viviana Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money (2017 [1994]), has shed a new light on the different meanings of money and its fundamentally ambiguous and moral dimension. Through the study of a collective lawsuit launched against a petrochemical complex in Taiwan, this article focuses on the ambiguous role of compensation in disputes over environmental and public health damage. Since civil actions necessarily involve the question of compensation, it is essential to examine the nature of compensation itself. Despite procedural slowness and uncertain outcomes, class actions offer an opportunity to redefine the meaning of compensation for industrial damage. This article is based on a four-year research project in Taiwan (2016–2019), which included observation of court hearings, indepth interviews and group meetings with the plaintiffs, their lawyers and other local sources. The petrochemical industry and the scope of its damage The petrochemical industry at issue here is the source of numerous forms of hazards and damage. Through its reliance on oil extraction and its massive release of carbon emissions, at the global level, the petrochemical industry bears a large share of the responsibility for 12 P. JOBIN Acknowledgements Professors C.C. Chan and Jui-hua Chen, attorney Thomas Chan and his colleagues Aslan Hung and Shu-fang Huang welcomed and encouraged me in this research. I also owe many thanks to Brother Wu, Hao-chung Chan, Robin Yuan-ho Huang and Mingyi Wu for their help and generosity. My research assistants Chiashuo Tang, Chee-Wei Ying, Fei-hsin Chang, Shih-hao Jheng and Yi-ying Tsai aided in conducting and transcribing interviews. PeiYi Hsieh and Hung-yang Lin offered further notes and transcriptions. Discussions with Wenling Tu, Kanlin Hsu, Xavier Sun, Yanling Ting and other participants of the Citizen Platform on Formosa’s Sixth Naphtha Cracker proved quite fruitful. Precious comments from Pascal Marichalar, Laura Centemeri, Sezin Topçu, and Rebecca Fite, and invaluable suggestions from two anonymous reviewers and editor Stewart Lockie greatly helped to improve the initial manuscript. Shih-hao Jheng made the maps with QGIS software, an open source Geographic Information System. Disclosure statement The author reports no potential conflict of interest. Notes on contributor Paul Jobin is an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, in Taiwan. His research focuses on environmental issues in Asia, particularly Taiwan and Japan. Recent publications include a contribution to Critical Zones, edited by Bruno Latour & Peter Weibel (MIT Press) and the co-edited book Environmental Movements and Politics of the Asian Anthropocene, forthcoming at ISEAS (Singapore). ORCID Paul Jobin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0952-4746 References Adams, A., E. S. Thomas, A. Saville, and G. Webb. 2018. “Forty Years on the Fenceline: Community, Memory, and Chronic Contamination.” Environmental Sociology 4 (2): 210–220. doi:10.1080/23251042.2017.1414660. Allen, B. 2003. Uneasy Alchemy. Citizens and Experts in Louisiana’s Chemical Corridor Disputes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 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