WEBVTT Kind: captions; language: en-us NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:00:00.800 --> 00:00:07.800 The topic for this week is toxicity and exposure, and I think this is an especially interesting 00:00:07.800 --> 00:00:14.400 aspect of the world today the anthropocene and it's something that a lot of anthropologists have 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:22.050 taken an interest in, in recent years. It's a phenomenon which can let us highlight something very 00:00:22.050 --> 00:00:28.900 interesting namely how experiences with certain things in the world can make us think differently 00:00:28.900 --> 00:00:30.550 about ourselves. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:00:30.550 --> 00:00:38.200 and I'd like to point out one thing briefly at the beginning That place the readings that you have in 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:40.200 some context. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:48.800 So simply put there are two common approaches to toxicity and exposure and both of them are are 00:00:48.800 --> 00:00:53.200 present in the reading that you have this week but I'm choosing to highlight one more than the 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:54.450 other. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:00:54.450 --> 00:01:01.300 So you can say that there's a political economy approach which is very prevalent in studies of toxicity 00:01:01.300 --> 00:01:07.600 And exposure which says that toxicity and exposure is an effect produced by the global 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:14.800 economic system it is one more thing that shows interconnections long distances and other structures 00:01:14.800 --> 00:01:22.500 of the world system and harms some people more than others. On the other hand you have what you might 00:01:22.500 --> 00:01:24.900 call an experiential approach where NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:01:24.900 --> 00:01:33.700 the focus is more on toxicity and exposure and experiences of having been exposed to or being exposed 00:01:33.700 --> 00:01:42.300 to toxicity and how this may be is something that changes what it feels like to be you in the world 00:01:42.300 --> 00:01:48.800 and to have a body and it changes what it feels like to relate to your own body and the world. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 71% (MEDIUM) 00:01:48.800 --> 00:01:55.800 So you readings have elements of both these, but I'm going to emphasise the second one more than 00:01:55.800 --> 00:02:02.400 the first one. So I've called this video anthropocene bodies and and to have a body in the 00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:08.400 anthropocene and to have a body in the anthropocene is to have a body that is exposed to chemicals 00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:15.600 and toxicity of various kinds but more generally it is a body that is unfixed NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:02:15.600 --> 00:02:24.300 sort of distributed and also porous and our experiences with our own bodies in the anthropocene can 00:02:24.300 --> 00:02:32.400 challenge how we conventionally think of bodies and persons in modern Western societies. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:02:32.400 --> 00:02:39.500 So one of your readings this week by a Vanessa Jones shows us one example of anthropocene 00:02:39.500 --> 00:02:48.050 bodies she emphasises how bodies are in systems anthropocene bodies are bodies that are in systems, 00:02:48.050 --> 00:02:54.400 and she draws on an anthropologists called Michel Truillot and one of his most significant 00:02:54.400 --> 00:03:01.400 interventions was to focus on world systems not from the center but rather from the point of view of 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:03.000 their supposed NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:05.650 margins and fringes. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:03:05.650 --> 00:03:14.700 So we get a really a different view of the world systems like global capitalism if we start out from 00:03:14.700 --> 00:03:23.400 a little village located on the margins somewhere, rather than focusing on say Wall Street or the UN 00:03:23.400 --> 00:03:28.800 headquarters we're going to look at world systems from the point of view of a small village in 00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:36.100 Martinique and Jones takes this a step further in a sense or maybe perhaps a NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:03:36.100 --> 00:03:42.600 Step closer is a better word and asks what if we instead start with bodies. So bodies are 00:03:42.600 --> 00:03:48.900 Signs of encounter and they can be signs of encounters that have happened in the past or 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:52.850 encounters that occur over very great distances. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:03:52.850 --> 00:04:01.500 Exposure and and bodies that have signs of exposure then reveal the system we might think of a body 00:04:01.500 --> 00:04:09.300 as the sort of a sensor that picks up and records other strains of history then what gets written 00:04:09.300 --> 00:04:15.700 down which is an idea we'll get back to in relation to Kate Brown's article about the 00:04:15.700 --> 00:04:17.149 Chernobyl. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:04:17.149 --> 00:04:24.800 The global ask viewed and not just from villages but from particular bodies gives other stories 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:33.650 of the world so your body my body each of our bodies tells a story about the world Jones' 00:04:33.650 --> 00:04:42.100 informant Mark is one such body from which to see the global, she writes and I quote as we scale inward 00:04:42.100 --> 00:04:47.100 to his body most mundane functions we are also NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 76% (HØY) 00:04:47.100 --> 00:04:53.700 scaling outward to talk about farming in Martinique about policy parody in France and about the 00:04:53.700 --> 00:05:01.300 circulation of agricultural products in the global economy, all of these larger things affect 00:05:01.300 --> 00:05:08.600 Mark's body and the way it functions and his body then is a place from which to get a different 00:05:08.600 --> 00:05:11.900 kind of view of these large systems. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:05:11.900 --> 00:05:17.400 I'll get back to Mark in a little bit but first I wanted to show you the Vaval. 00:05:17.400 --> 00:05:25.600 Jones is writing about and so the Vaval is this carnival figure that they have in parades in 00:05:25.600 --> 00:05:32.400 Martinique and is this large Effigy made from papier-mâché and what you see here is actually a 00:05:32.400 --> 00:05:38.800 photo of that actual Vaval that Jones describes in the article from the carnival on Martinique in 00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:41.900 2013 and here it moves on the float NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:05:41.900 --> 00:05:49.000 through the streets of Martinique. You can see the cars and people in the background there. So the 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:55.500 Vaval this carnival figure represents the spirit of colony while on the island but it also acts 00:05:55.500 --> 00:06:02.800 as a kind of representation or a commentary on some current issue. It is decorated doing things that 00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:10.000 that refer to current issues in Martinique and we can say that there are at least two comments that 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:11.799 this Vaval expresses, that NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 84% (HØY) 00:06:11.799 --> 00:06:18.750 we can relate to the notion of bodies in systems and they both revolve around the 00:06:18.750 --> 00:06:25.500 pesticide klordecone which you see written on the champagne glass there and 00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:31.800 these comments are about the pesticide the chemical pesticide klordecone as tied to the world 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:37.800 system on one hand and about klordecone as tied to the functioning of local people's bodies on 00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:39.400 the other hand. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:06:39.400 --> 00:06:48.650 In other words there are two ideas about anthropocene bodies that this carnival figure expresses NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:06:48.650 --> 00:06:55.700 first the fact the fact of exposure to a chemical because of the relation between France and 00:06:55.700 --> 00:07:03.000 Martinique and second the concern that this has an effect on who you are and what your body is to 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:12.200 you as a local Martinique person. So first Martinique is is part of the overseas territorial collectivity 00:07:12.200 --> 00:07:13.500 of France NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 82% (HØY) 00:07:13.500 --> 00:07:19.900 so it's a colony basically and the klordecone is there in the soil and in the food and in 00:07:19.900 --> 00:07:28.200 bodies in part because the French government neglected to impose the same regulations on food 00:07:28.200 --> 00:07:34.300 and agriculture to protect people in Martinique as they have in France so the presence and the 00:07:34.300 --> 00:07:42.300 large concentrations of this chemical in the environment in Martinique is a sign of martinique's 00:07:42.300 --> 00:07:43.700 position in the world NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 86% (HØY) 00:07:43.700 --> 00:07:53.100 system and to the second point the Vaval expresses a concern with how klordécone effects 00:07:53.100 --> 00:07:56.450 Martinique's people's bodies NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:07:56.450 --> 00:08:05.100 so klordècone is a pesticide and what is used as a pesticide it seeps into the soil the water and 00:08:05.100 --> 00:08:11.650 eventually ends with food that's grown and from there it gets into people's bodies, it is also 00:08:11.650 --> 00:08:19.100 carcinogen it can cause cancer and its so-called environmental estrogen it's a 00:08:19.100 --> 00:08:27.000 hormone altering chemical and it has been linked to male infertility so because NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:33.600 it generates estrogen it can change the way their body functions and it is felt especially acutely 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:34.950 by men. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:08:34.950 --> 00:08:42.400 In a sense to put it bluntly we can say that the Vavals social commentary is that Klordècone is a 00:08:42.400 --> 00:08:49.800 French neglect which leads to sterilization among Martinique in men. The Vaval expresses in a 00:08:49.800 --> 00:08:55.800 symbolic form the fact that there are connections through Klordècone between the geopolitical 00:08:55.800 --> 00:09:01.550 positioning of Martinique and the functioning of bodies like Mark's Body NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:09:01.550 --> 00:09:09.000 Mark's Body then because of Klordècone becomes Troublesome for him his body acts in 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:16.300 unpredictable ways and his troublesome and unpredictable body is a sign of encounters encounters 00:09:16.300 --> 00:09:21.250 between the French state and its colonies between Martinique and global commodity chains 00:09:21.250 --> 00:09:27.000 political decisions and economic structures leave traces in the soil and in the drinking water and 00:09:27.000 --> 00:09:32.000 ultimately in the bodies of people like Mark he is in a position where he doesn't NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 71% (MEDIUM) 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:39.800 have a choice but to ingest klordècone it's in the water and in the soil and these traces manifest 00:09:39.800 --> 00:09:46.200 in experiences of the body as something that has become unruly how to lose control he is sort of 00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:54.100 experiences a lack of control over his own body, and this lack of control in turn is a reminder or 00:09:54.100 --> 00:10:01.200 a sign Mark is reminded of something about a fact about his own body he is reminded that his 00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:01.950 body is NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 78% (HØY) 00:10:01.950 --> 00:10:09.800 porous that it has openings he knows that he is ingesting klordècone without being able to notice 00:10:09.800 --> 00:10:16.200 it as it's happening he doesn't notice or feel it when it happens but he knows that is almost 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:22.600 certainly present in the food that he eats so when his body acts strangely when it causes him 00:10:22.600 --> 00:10:27.500 trouble it is a reminder that he is being exposed to this chemical. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 69% (MEDIUM) 00:10:27.500 --> 00:10:33.050 So I take this as a story about having an anthropocene exposed body NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 83% (HØY) 00:10:33.050 --> 00:10:38.900 and to be clear this is the kind of body we all have to an extent but for most of us it isn't as 00:10:38.900 --> 00:10:49.250 clear and as acutely felt that is as it is for someone like Mark and it shows just a few things 00:10:49.250 --> 00:10:56.800 in such an anthropocene body it shows that exposure and toxicity makes us notice the various ways in which 00:10:56.800 --> 00:11:03.250 the body is unfixed and open to the world, the body is porous sort of like a sponge. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 90% (HØY) 00:11:03.250 --> 00:11:09.800 There are ways into the body that we cannot control things from the environment around us 00:11:09.800 --> 00:11:17.100 effect our bodies without our awareness. Another aspect that this shows is that your body 00:11:17.100 --> 00:11:24.200 isn't just you, its workings are affected by the soil where you food grows and water that comes out 00:11:24.200 --> 00:11:31.100 of your taps and your body is you along with various quasi human agents as Jones calls it 00:11:31.100 --> 00:11:33.250 as well as chemicals and pesticides. NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 67% (MEDIUM) 00:11:33.250 --> 00:11:34.650 NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 79% (HØY) 00:11:34.650 --> 00:11:41.300 The body is a sign of past and distant encounters you can also see the body as a kind of site 00:11:41.300 --> 00:11:49.800 where widely distributed things gather and accrete and it is sort of common to say that the 00:11:49.800 --> 00:11:58.349 world is characterised by flows that are present world is one that characterized by global flows of 00:11:58.349 --> 00:12:04.700 materials and such but bodies may be one of the kinds of sites were things NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 80% (HØY) 00:12:04.700 --> 00:12:11.300 rather than flow through one of those places where flows cause sort of buildup NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 85% (HØY) 00:12:11.300 --> 00:12:18.800 and finally anthropocene bodies are often unpredictable and unruly your body's workings if you have 00:12:18.800 --> 00:12:27.800 an anthropocene body may be partly out of your control and so exposure challenges what many of us 00:12:27.800 --> 00:12:33.900 take for granted about bodies. It introduces gray zones it can complicate things it disturbs 00:12:33.900 --> 00:12:40.200 conventional boundaries and by conventional boundaries I mean the way that us here sort of in the 00:12:40.200 --> 00:12:41.550 west tend NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:12:41.550 --> 00:12:47.300 to think about the body and if we take exposure seriously it can challenge these 00:12:47.300 --> 00:12:53.500 boundaries here between me and not me there are all sorts of gray zones now that is sort of part of 00:12:53.500 --> 00:13:01.100 me but also not me and then inside and outside here and elsewhere like in the sense that larger 00:13:01.100 --> 00:13:08.650 flows that come from many other places and from across time gather and build up in me right and 00:13:08.650 --> 00:13:11.500 between human and non-human and alive NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 89% (HØY) 00:13:11.500 --> 00:13:19.150 and dead anthropocene body's sort of obliterate the myth of the discrete and bounded individual. 00:13:19.150 --> 00:13:24.600 When I did this lecture last year I talked about COVID and how our experiences would cope with 00:13:24.600 --> 00:13:31.200 may have destabilized our conventional way of thinking about our bodies in sort of similar way to 00:13:31.200 --> 00:13:39.500 exposure to have a body in like the COVID era is in many ways similar to have anybody in the 00:13:39.500 --> 00:13:41.500 anthropocene just like the anthropocene and our NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 81% (HØY) 00:13:41.500 --> 00:13:47.900 experiences with COVID having us nudged towards thinking about ourselves and our bodies as sort of 00:13:47.900 --> 00:13:57.200 extended distributed and porous, so we've all had numerous experiences that have reminded us for 00:13:57.200 --> 00:14:03.800 instance that we extend past the skin that our body doesn't end where we thought it did. Hand-washing 00:14:03.800 --> 00:14:09.000 and distance and all that are also like little reminders in the everyday life that remnants 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:11.450 of other people linger all around NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:14:11.450 --> 00:14:18.100 the world we pass through and that we can pick up remnants of other people as we go 00:14:18.100 --> 00:14:20.800 through the world and NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 87% (HØY) 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:28.500 and if we do all these things the thinking was that if we do all these things over an extended 00:14:28.500 --> 00:14:34.200 period of time that something that might change the way we think about ourselves and this year I 00:14:34.200 --> 00:14:38.700 think we can think about these questions in different way we can NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 91% (HØY) 00:14:38.700 --> 00:14:48.800 we can think about what lingers when we no longer do all of these things that tell ourselves 00:14:48.800 --> 00:14:55.000 that we are porous and that we extend past the skin when we have stopped doing that is there 00:14:55.000 --> 00:15:00.600 anything that lingers in our sense of our sense of ourselves and in our way of thinking about our 00:15:00.600 --> 00:15:08.850 own bodies maybe our experiences with COVID maybe that's made it just a tiny bit more NOTE Treffsikkerhet: 77% (HØY) 00:15:08.850 --> 00:15:14.400 Easy for us to think about ourselves as anthropocene bodies.