DDT’s long shadow: Long-banned chemicals linked to abnormal sperm
A study of men from the Faroe Islands finds that high DDT and PCB exposure during adolescence and adulthood is associated with abnormal chromosomes in sperm. By Brian…
Tag: environment
Summer Roundup: The Ethnographic Case, Part 1 by Deanna Day
In June, we debuted an extensive new series on Somatosphere, The Ethnographic Case. Edited by Emily Yates-Doerr and Christine Labuski, the series is organized on an expanding, virtual…
Roundtable reviews of “Banned: A History of Pesticides and the Science of Toxicology”
If you’re interested in the history of pesticides and toxicology, Banned provides a detail-oriented, close reading of key 20th century experiments, legislative hearings, events, and texts to investiga…
The Ocean Conservatory’s Call for Mass Incineration in Asia: Disposability for Profit, Fantasies of Containment, & Colonialism
The Ocean Conservatory would like to burn 80% of the waste in coastal Asia with US-made incinerators. According to a wide range of experts and grassroots organizations from…
The Power Behind Disposability: Why New York City’s ban on polystyrene was vilified, sued, and reversed
On July 1 New York City banned disposable Styrofoam containers. First they were sued over the decision, and last week the ban was overturned. What is the big…
Toxic Politics: A Collection of Research Projects
The global economy produces pervasive contaminants, harmful pollutants, damaging particles, and poisonous atmospheres, which are inescapably part of everyday life, though the harms and benefits are un…
LA’s Shade Balls: The ecological costs of plastics in water
Putting 20,000 black plastic balls in water after people have been warned against throwing plastic into waterways has sparked a number of questions. Our plastic expert talks about…
Article Alert! Attuning to the Chemosphere: Domestic Formaldehyde, Bodily Reasoning, and the Chemical Sublime
“”During the first hour spent in houses with suspected indoor air-quality issues, I would slowly develop an ache in the back of my eyes, which would with time…
Image as Method: Conversations on Anthropology through the Image by Andrés Romero
What follows is a series of conversations conducted after the recent Image as Method symposium, which took place on May 4th and 5th, 2015, at Columbia University’s Heyman…
Designing for the Future at Giant Mine
How do you communicate permanent pollution and toxicity to future generations? We held workshops with community members in Yellowknife and Dettah to make models about they would communicate…
Sharing the Road
Comparison between riding culture in Holland and T&T In T&T we do not have an everyday bicycle culture as a part of our transport infrastructure. You don’t see…
Sharing the Road
Comparison between riding culture in Holland and T&T In T&T we do not have an everyday bicycle culture as a part of our transport infrastructure. You don’t see…
Bomb Ecologies? Inhabiting Disability in Postconflict Laos by Leah Zani
I am an anthropologist researching postwar revival and development in Lao PDR (Laos), the most cluster-bombed country in the world (Branfman 2013). Through fieldwork with development organizations an…
Plastic Marine Smog and Horizontal Smoke Stacks: Representations of Pollution as Knowledge
Representations are the basis of human knowledge both in terms of how knowledge is made as well as how it is reproduced and circulated. They are the way…
How the Ocean Cleanup Array Fundamentally Misunderstands Marine Plastics and Causes Harm
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Ocean Cleanup array, designed to clean plastics from the ocean like a baleen whale, is one of these…
Rice and Beans: The Private Role of Food
The signfiicance of selling a personal substance in the public market. — Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
The Promising Predicament of the Keystone XL Pipeline
Stockpile of Keystone XL pipes near Buffalo, South Dakota. Photo by David Bond. Politics makes visible that which had no reason to be seen. —Jacques Rancière Whether ultimately…