Toxic Tropics

Purity and Danger in Everywhere in Everyday Life

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6078816
AutoresLiza Grandia (University of California, Davis, autor correspondente)
Ano2019
Volume21
Fascículo1
Páginas1-10
Data de publicação2019-11-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Ecological Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1528-6509 • E-ISSN: 2162-4593
EditoraUniversity of South Florida Libraries (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5038/2162-4593.21.1.1243
OpenAlexW2987446769
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6

In contrast to popular images of the tropics as verdant Edens, forest dwellers face various pollutants with little-understood environmental health impacts. Drawing upon long-term ethnographic research in northern Guatemala through the lens of Mary Douglas' work on purity, danger, and culture, this paper describes how the inventive re-use of modern waste exposes rural people to new and unknown toxic substances from “matter out of place.” While environmental justice literature has emphasized industrial, extractive, and military disasters, this note draws attention to the less dramatic yet lethal pollutants encountered in the everyday lives of the rural poor through “chemical trespass.”

Archaeology · Biology · Environmental ethics · Ethnography · Everyday life · Political science · Trespass · Tropics · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · History · Law · Mining and Resource Management · Ecology