Photo by Shilpa Dahake

In 2020-2021 EnviroLab members explore the annual theme of pollution, toxicity, and waste paying special attention to the kinds of socio-natural worlds produced in a permanently polluted world (Liboiron et al., 2018). We explore the ways in which pollution disrupts and sustains ways of life, creating new forms of politics and ethics to reckon with social and environmental change. In doing so, we follow the lead of scholars who have explored the emerging chemical relations in the face of pollution (Agard-Jones, 2013; Kirksey and Shapiro, 2017). We embark on this collective exploration of toxicity reimagining bodies—human and otherwise— (Neimanis, 2017; Murphy, 2017), matter, and relations. Overall, the work of the group seeks to re-examine the paths, movements, and entanglements of waste, impurities, and geography and their mutual transformation through time. Living in the aftermath of pollution, we strive to find alternative ways of narrating the legacies of pollution, toxicity, and waste that continue to make our everyday lives. We invite scholars to share their work at our monthly workshops and to join our monthly reading groups as part of our ongoing conversations on living after pollution.