Pollution is Colonialism
Colonialism in Canada is an ongoing structure whereby settler society and government assert sovereignty over lands already occupied by Indigenous peoples.
Category Archives: toxicity
Cleaning up toxic sites shouldn’t clear out the neighbors
Notions of “sustainability” and “urban greening” ought to include values of justice and equity. Otherwise, important projects like the Blue Greenway will build sustainable waterfronts for the urban elite, rather than spreading the environmental benefits of toxic cleanup to the many.
Bibliography on critical approaches to toxics and toxicity
Toxicity, toxins, and toxicants are areas of critical concern because controversies over what they mean, how they act, how they come into being and where, and what counts as evidence have high stake ramifications. These texts offer critical insights into these processes:
Community Responses to Toxic Hazards: A Reading List
A reading list of the David and Goliath story of communities versus industries, governments, and polluting infrastructures.
CFP: Theorizing Harm
Whether focused on toxicity, disease, disaster, violence, or malfunction, STS scholars have long studied harm. Given the great diversity of approaches and cases, this panel seeks to take an intersectional approach to theorizing harm.
How toxic flame retardant chemicals become-and stay-ubiquitous in our homes and bodies
A new report highlights the failure of Canadian federal regulations to keep harmful flame retardant chemicals out of homes and consumer products. In fact, it argues that current regulations keep toxic chemicals *in* homes and bodies.
On Solidarity and Molecules (#MakeMuskratRight)
Deferring to molecules rather than social movements when it comes to contamination is a case of power relations.
Ethnographic Refusal: A How to Guide
Refusal is a method whereby researchers and research participants together decide not to make particular information available for use within the academy. Here are some strategies for identifying and collaborating with research refusals.
A Bibliography for Teaching Flint
This bibliography is designed for professors who want to “teach Flint” in their classrooms. The Flint, Michigan water crisis is an extreme but quintessential case study that shows the intersections of environmental health, governance, the built environment, systemic racism, and social inequity.
Drawing the Invisible: An interview with the illustrator for the Radiation Monitoring Project
Communicating invisible threats is an area of interest in discard studies because it requires distilling and articulating the ideas that matter most in our concepts of contamination and harm. I asked Yuko some questions about the background and choices behind the images for the Radiation Monitoring Project.
Discard Studies 