Available to Be Poisoned: Toxicity as a Form of Life

In Available to be Poisoned: Toxicity as a Form of Life, Dipali Mathur contends that the saturation of the planet with toxic chemicals is not the inevitable price of progress but marks a deliberate, violent relationship with the Earth and its others, born of colonialism and capitalism’s entwined histories. Mathur offers the innovative concept of toxicity as a form of life to signpost the normalization of toxic exposure. Mathur analyzes how states use toxicity to control populations on the fringes of our global political economy. Drawing on three case studies from India, Mathur shows how exposure to toxicity is weaponized to make certain populations available for poisoning.