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Changing Bodies in Toxic Landscapes (completed)

Through this comparative project postdoc María A. Guzmán-Gallegos explored the intersections of personhood, environmental change and degradation, economic relations and state formation in Southern Ecuadorian and Northern Peruvian Amazonia.

Two boys in the Amazon rainforest. They wear shorts and t-shirts and stand next to a fallen tree. Photo: Maria A. Guzmán-Gallegos

Photo: Maria A. Guzmán-Gallegos

The environmental consequences of extractive activities and the lack of grounded knowledge and state recognition of the concerns of affected populations are identified as serious challenges by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. These challenges go beyond Latin America. Oil extraction and mining, environmental degradation and the displacement of populations are creating socio-environmental conflicts all over the world. Water and soil contamination may limit severely people’s access to clean water and may threaten their food security.

The project "Changing Bodies in Toxic Landscapes: Environmental degradation and intersecting knowledges in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazonia" addressed these issues by producing a fine-grained ethnography of the connections people establish between their gendered bodies and the bodies of valued aquatic species and cultivated plants affected by contamination. It linked these perceptions and practices to knowledge production and to the politics through which culturally diverse communities frame contamination (especially its toxicity), contest state projects and, at the same time, negotiate their inclusion. Through a comparison between different localities and different national contexts this project created an “ethnographic site” that allowed to link environmental concerns, to open ended socio-natural configurations and to state formations.

Financing

The project was funded by the Research Council of Norway.

Published Feb. 8, 2016 3:47 PM - Last modified Dec. 7, 2023 11:18 AM

Participants

  • Maria A. Guzmán-Gallegos
Detailed list of participants