Max Liboiron
Biographic Data
| ID | 203536 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Max Liboiron |
| GIVEN NAMES | Max |
| FAMILY NAME | Liboiron |
| SIGNATURE | LIBOIRON M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Memorial University of Newfoundland |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3837-8650 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 377 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Struggling with Citational Politics as a Pathway to Unlearning and Relearning for Collective Action
There is a growing movement committed to the values of equitable and just citation, but the material practices of altering citational politics are more challenging. For instance, researchers in the Global South are under-cited, but how many citations are enough to correct this bias? How do we best determine when an author is from the Global South to begin with? We present a case study where social and natural science researchers (the authors) spe…
Discard Studies
An argument that social, political, and economic systems maintain power by discarding certain people, places, and things. Discard studies is an emerging field that looks at waste and wasting broadly construed. Rather than focusing on waste and trash as the primary objects of study, discard studies looks at wider systems of waste and wasting to explore how some materials, practices, regions, and people are valued or devalued, becoming dominant or …
Finding a good starting place
The CLEAR lab is an interdisciplinary plastic pollution laboratory whose methods foreground humility and good land relations. In this interview, María Fernanda Yanchapaxi and Eve Tuck speak with CLEAR lab founder, Max Liboiron, and co-investigators, Katherine Crocker and Deondre Smiles. Together, they explore Indigenous perspectives on climate change and outline the problems with how Western education thinks about it. Our guests question individu…
A Māori Approach to Starting Research from Where You Are
Using citizen science to evaluate extended producer responsibility policy to reduce marine plastic debris shows no reduction in pollution levels
As governments around the world grapple with the challenge of responding to increased plastic pollution, extended producer responsibility (EPR) policy, which shifts the responsibility for waste management of a product to producers, is quickly becoming a cornerstone of legislative approaches to this issue. However, the effectiveness of this policy has never been assessed in terms of reducing plastic marine debris. Understanding if a policy like EP…
Pollution Is Colonialism
In Pollution Is Colonialism Max Liboiron presents a framework for understanding scientific research methods as practices that can align with or against colonialism. They point out that even when researchers are working toward benevolent goals, environmental science and activism are often premised on a colonial worldview and access to land. Focusing on plastic pollution, the book models an anticolonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous, …
Seeing power with a flashlight
This paper contributes to the growing literature on 'making and doing' in Science and Technology Studies (STS) by describing and theorizing the teaching of making and doing. We describe a collaborative do-it-yourself (DIY) technology project taught simultaneously in Canada and the United States, in sociology and public health, to undergraduates with no prior electronics experience. Students built thermal flashlights - low cost digital tools for m…
Viscous Objects. The Uneven Resistances of Repair
The MV Veteran, a seagoing car ferry constructed by the Dutch industrial conglomerate Damen Shipyards Group, connects the two small, rural outport communities of Fogo Island and Change Islands to the larger island of Newfoundland, Canada. Our paper examines the breakdowns of this new ferry and the repairs facilitated through its manufacturer’s warranty. In our analysis, we treat the warranty as a ‘script’ as something that both constrains and ena…
Viscous objects
Image d’ouverture Le ferry MV Veteran non loin de l’île Fogo. Creative Commons BY Paul Asman & Jill Lenoble. L’île de Terre-Neuve, située sur la côte atlantique du Canada, est affectueusement appelée « The Rock ». Les petites communautés rurales réparties le long de cette côte accidentée sont reliées au continent par des services de traversiers exploités par le gouvernement. Ces traversiers sont plus que des moyens de transport : ils constituent …
Toxic politics
Toxicity has become a ubiquitous, if uneven, condition. Toxicity can allow us to focus on how forms of life and their constituent relations, from the scale of cells to that of ways of life, are enabled, constrained and extinguished within broader power systems. Toxicity both disrupts existing orders and ways of life at some scales, while simultaneously enabling and maintaining ways of life at other scales. The articles in this special issue on to…
Compromised Agency
The concept of agency is ubiquitous in STS, particularly regarding cases of alternative ways of knowing and doing science such as civic, citizen, and feminist sciences, among others. Yet the focus on agency often glosses over the constraints placed on agents, particularly within asymmetrical power relations. This article follows the case of BabyLegs, a do-it-yourself monitoring tool for marine microplastic pollution, and the attempt to keep the t…
Making and Doing Politics Through Grassroots Scientific Research on the Energy and Petrochemical Industries
The high stakes of emergent environmental crises, from climate change to widespread toxic exposures, have motivated STS practitioners to innovate methodologically, including leveraging STS scholarship to actively remake environmental scientific practice and technologies. This thematic collection brings together current research that transforms how communities and academics identify, study, and collectively respond to contaminants engendered by th…
Care and Solidarity Are Conditions for Interventionist Research
Calls for interventionist research in academic disciplines, including science and technology studies (STS), are increasingly common. Yet none offer insights for what to do or whom to turn to after a researcher has intervened and the result is slander, defaming, or disenfranchisement—even though these are possible, and even likely, results of intervening in controversies and power struggles. Drawing from the ethics and methods used in direct actio…
Redefining pollution and action
Using plastic pollution as a case study, this article shows how the material characteristics of objects - their density, their size, and the strength of their molecular bonds, among other traits - are central to their agency. The author argues that it is crucial to attend to the physical characteristics of matter if we, as researchers, are going to describe problems and contribute to solutions for 'bad actors' like pollutants. Plastics and their …
Tactics of Waste, Dirt and Discard in the Occupy Movement
Both Occupiers and our opponents have used waste and discards—figuratively and literally—in strategies to create and cultivate a new social movement on one hand, and to maintain power and control over protesters on the other. This study will look at the roles trash, waste, filth and discards have played in tactical decisions by both sides of the movement from the point of view of a New York City Occupier. Overall, the examples examined of trash, …
Toxic politics
Toxicity has become a ubiquitous, if uneven, condition. Toxicity can allow us to focus on how forms of life and their constituent relations, from the scale of cells to that of ways of life, are enabled, constrained and extinguished within broader power systems. Toxicity both disrupts existing orders and ways of life at some scales, while simultaneously enabling and maintaining ways of life at other scales. The articles in this special issue on to…
Pollution Is Colonialism
In Pollution Is Colonialism Max Liboiron presents a framework for understanding scientific research methods as practices that can align with or against colonialism. They point out that even when researchers are working toward benevolent goals, environmental science and activism are often premised on a colonial worldview and access to land. Focusing on plastic pollution, the book models an anticolonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous, …
Redefining pollution and action
Using plastic pollution as a case study, this article shows how the material characteristics of objects - their density, their size, and the strength of their molecular bonds, among other traits - are central to their agency. The author argues that it is crucial to attend to the physical characteristics of matter if we, as researchers, are going to describe problems and contribute to solutions for 'bad actors' like pollutants. Plastics and their …
Making and Doing Politics Through Grassroots Scientific Research on the Energy and Petrochemical Industries
The high stakes of emergent environmental crises, from climate change to widespread toxic exposures, have motivated STS practitioners to innovate methodologically, including leveraging STS scholarship to actively remake environmental scientific practice and technologies. This thematic collection brings together current research that transforms how communities and academics identify, study, and collectively respond to contaminants engendered by th…
Tactics of Waste, Dirt and Discard in the Occupy Movement
Both Occupiers and our opponents have used waste and discards—figuratively and literally—in strategies to create and cultivate a new social movement on one hand, and to maintain power and control over protesters on the other. This study will look at the roles trash, waste, filth and discards have played in tactical decisions by both sides of the movement from the point of view of a New York City Occupier. Overall, the examples examined of trash, …
Finding a good starting place
The CLEAR lab is an interdisciplinary plastic pollution laboratory whose methods foreground humility and good land relations. In this interview, María Fernanda Yanchapaxi and Eve Tuck speak with CLEAR lab founder, Max Liboiron, and co-investigators, Katherine Crocker and Deondre Smiles. Together, they explore Indigenous perspectives on climate change and outline the problems with how Western education thinks about it. Our guests question individu…
Seeing power with a flashlight
This paper contributes to the growing literature on 'making and doing' in Science and Technology Studies (STS) by describing and theorizing the teaching of making and doing. We describe a collaborative do-it-yourself (DIY) technology project taught simultaneously in Canada and the United States, in sociology and public health, to undergraduates with no prior electronics experience. Students built thermal flashlights - low cost digital tools for m…
Tactics of Waste, Dirt and Discard in the Occupy Movement
Both Occupiers and our opponents have used waste and discards—figuratively and literally—in strategies to create and cultivate a new social movement on one hand, and to maintain power and control over protesters on the other. This study will look at the roles trash, waste, filth and discards have played in tactical decisions by both sides of the movement from the point of view of a New York City Occupier. Overall, the examples examined of trash, …
Care and Solidarity Are Conditions for Interventionist Research
Calls for interventionist research in academic disciplines, including science and technology studies (STS), are increasingly common. Yet none offer insights for what to do or whom to turn to after a researcher has intervened and the result is slander, defaming, or disenfranchisement—even though these are possible, and even likely, results of intervening in controversies and power struggles. Drawing from the ethics and methods used in direct actio…
Redefining pollution and action
Using plastic pollution as a case study, this article shows how the material characteristics of objects - their density, their size, and the strength of their molecular bonds, among other traits - are central to their agency. The author argues that it is crucial to attend to the physical characteristics of matter if we, as researchers, are going to describe problems and contribute to solutions for 'bad actors' like pollutants. Plastics and their …
Compromised Agency
The concept of agency is ubiquitous in STS, particularly regarding cases of alternative ways of knowing and doing science such as civic, citizen, and feminist sciences, among others. Yet the focus on agency often glosses over the constraints placed on agents, particularly within asymmetrical power relations. This article follows the case of BabyLegs, a do-it-yourself monitoring tool for marine microplastic pollution, and the attempt to keep the t…
Making and Doing Politics Through Grassroots Scientific Research on the Energy and Petrochemical Industries
The high stakes of emergent environmental crises, from climate change to widespread toxic exposures, have motivated STS practitioners to innovate methodologically, including leveraging STS scholarship to actively remake environmental scientific practice and technologies. This thematic collection brings together current research that transforms how communities and academics identify, study, and collectively respond to contaminants engendered by th…
Toxic politics
Toxicity has become a ubiquitous, if uneven, condition. Toxicity can allow us to focus on how forms of life and their constituent relations, from the scale of cells to that of ways of life, are enabled, constrained and extinguished within broader power systems. Toxicity both disrupts existing orders and ways of life at some scales, while simultaneously enabling and maintaining ways of life at other scales. The articles in this special issue on to…
Seeing power with a flashlight
This paper contributes to the growing literature on 'making and doing' in Science and Technology Studies (STS) by describing and theorizing the teaching of making and doing. We describe a collaborative do-it-yourself (DIY) technology project taught simultaneously in Canada and the United States, in sociology and public health, to undergraduates with no prior electronics experience. Students built thermal flashlights - low cost digital tools for m…
Viscous Objects. The Uneven Resistances of Repair
The MV Veteran, a seagoing car ferry constructed by the Dutch industrial conglomerate Damen Shipyards Group, connects the two small, rural outport communities of Fogo Island and Change Islands to the larger island of Newfoundland, Canada. Our paper examines the breakdowns of this new ferry and the repairs facilitated through its manufacturer’s warranty. In our analysis, we treat the warranty as a ‘script’ as something that both constrains and ena…
Viscous objects
Image d’ouverture Le ferry MV Veteran non loin de l’île Fogo. Creative Commons BY Paul Asman & Jill Lenoble. L’île de Terre-Neuve, située sur la côte atlantique du Canada, est affectueusement appelée « The Rock ». Les petites communautés rurales réparties le long de cette côte accidentée sont reliées au continent par des services de traversiers exploités par le gouvernement. Ces traversiers sont plus que des moyens de transport : ils constituent …
A Māori Approach to Starting Research from Where You Are
Using citizen science to evaluate extended producer responsibility policy to reduce marine plastic debris shows no reduction in pollution levels
As governments around the world grapple with the challenge of responding to increased plastic pollution, extended producer responsibility (EPR) policy, which shifts the responsibility for waste management of a product to producers, is quickly becoming a cornerstone of legislative approaches to this issue. However, the effectiveness of this policy has never been assessed in terms of reducing plastic marine debris. Understanding if a policy like EP…
Pollution Is Colonialism
In Pollution Is Colonialism Max Liboiron presents a framework for understanding scientific research methods as practices that can align with or against colonialism. They point out that even when researchers are working toward benevolent goals, environmental science and activism are often premised on a colonial worldview and access to land. Focusing on plastic pollution, the book models an anticolonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous, …
Discard Studies
An argument that social, political, and economic systems maintain power by discarding certain people, places, and things. Discard studies is an emerging field that looks at waste and wasting broadly construed. Rather than focusing on waste and trash as the primary objects of study, discard studies looks at wider systems of waste and wasting to explore how some materials, practices, regions, and people are valued or devalued, becoming dominant or …
Finding a good starting place
The CLEAR lab is an interdisciplinary plastic pollution laboratory whose methods foreground humility and good land relations. In this interview, María Fernanda Yanchapaxi and Eve Tuck speak with CLEAR lab founder, Max Liboiron, and co-investigators, Katherine Crocker and Deondre Smiles. Together, they explore Indigenous perspectives on climate change and outline the problems with how Western education thinks about it. Our guests question individu…
Struggling with Citational Politics as a Pathway to Unlearning and Relearning for Collective Action
There is a growing movement committed to the values of equitable and just citation, but the material practices of altering citational politics are more challenging. For instance, researchers in the Global South are under-cited, but how many citations are enough to correct this bias? How do we best determine when an author is from the Global South to begin with? We present a case study where social and natural science researchers (the authors) spe…
Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Environmental ethics (5 works) · Ecology (4 works) · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Engineering (3 works) · Geographies of human-animal interactions (3 works)