Toxic bodies, among environmental violence, injustices and stories of social engagement

Abstract

The author reflects, within the critical perspective of cultural anthropology, on the issue of the impact of pollutants on human bodies transformed into toxic bodies, ecological alterities characterized by social vulnerabilities and inequalities, but for this reason living texts able to tell stories about global environmental contamination, disease, power, exploitation, injustice and oppression. The toxic bodies reveal the inevitable intertwining between human subjects and non-human materials, requiring a significant collective responsibility, a total rethinking of the relationship between culture and nature and more appropriate ethical and political strategies of which, as the environmental historians show, women have already been active supporters from long time.