Anthropology of Toxicity

Abstract

Uncertainty, disavowal, forgetting, and stigmatisation are common responses to toxicity: dumping grounds are habitually portrayed as ‘strange, alien spaces with no comprehensive histories’ (Little and Akese 2024). How can we best face this strangeness? What are the methodological and theoretical tools we would need to do so? Three recent volumes offer provocations for anthropologists of toxicity from phenomenological, activist, and heritage management standpoints