Annette Trefzer

The Catfish Industry and Spatial Justice in the Mississippi Delta: Steve Yarbrough's The Oxygen Man

This essay traces Edward Sojas “geography of labor” in the Mississippi catfish industry. Our interdisciplinary analysis integrates the socioeconomic realities of the Mississippi delta with Steve Yarbroughs literary rendering of that place in his 1999 novel The Oxygen Man . We argue that Yarbroughs novel closely maps changes in Mississippi delta agribusiness and urges readers to reimagine spatial justice in a landscape infamous for racism and poverty.