Month: November 2015

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The Berdichev Leather Factory in the Wake of the Chernobyl Accident

Professor Kate Brown, Professor of History, Department of History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), USA This sentence in a document sent to Kiev a few months after the Chernobyl accident could read as criminal: “In the month of May [1986], the meat factories of Zhitomir, Korosten’, and Novograd-Volynsk processed livestock received from the 30-km zone … Continue reading The Berdichev Leather Factory in the Wake of the Chernobyl Accident

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U.S. Oil Refineries Required to Monitor Ambient Air Toxics: A victory, with limits, for neighbouring communities

Dr Gwen Ottinger, Assistant Professor, Department of Politics, Drexel University, USA The EPA refinery rule thus marks a major victory in community groups’ decades-long struggle for ambient air monitoring at refinery fence lines… but without a way to translate new air quality information into action, communities risk being overwhelmed by data. On September 29, 2015, … Continue reading U.S. Oil Refineries Required to Monitor Ambient Air Toxics: A victory, with limits, for neighbouring communities

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Toxic Life? The Slow Violence of refugee abandonment

Dr Thom Davies, Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, UK @ThomDavies “The single most important challenge to the safety and protection of refugees arises from populist politics and toxic public debates” – Volker Türk, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Protection (UN 2015) While conducting research this summer in the so-called ‘new Jungle’ in … Continue reading Toxic Life? The Slow Violence of refugee abandonment

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A Reflection on the Tianjin Explosions

Dr Cynthia Wang, Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, UK  The issue of realizing the right to information is far greater than one hazardous substance. Baskut Tuncak, UN Special Rapporteur (2015)  The shocking series of explosions at a hazardous goods warehouse occurred at the night of 12 August 2015, but since then Tianjin have … Continue reading A Reflection on the Tianjin Explosions

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Toxic Struggle and Corporate Paradox in a High-Tech Industrial Birthplace

Dr Peter C. Little, Assistant Professor, Anthropology Department, Rhode Island College, USA A three hour drive northwest of New York City, in the Empire State’s Southern Tier region, is the small community of Endicott. Nestled along the Susquehanna River, it is known as the “Birthplace of IBM.” International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)—born of a marriage between the … Continue reading Toxic Struggle and Corporate Paradox in a High-Tech Industrial Birthplace

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My journey in environmental justice: How – or rather why – I came to work on the Toxic Expertise project…

India Foster, Project Administrator, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, UK “It is universally considered just that each person should obtain that (whether good or evil) which he deserves; and unjust that he should obtain a good, or be made to undergo an evil, which he does not deserve. This is, perhaps, the clearest and most … Continue reading My journey in environmental justice: How – or rather why – I came to work on the Toxic Expertise project…