Michelle Murphy Talk: "What is Chemical Violence?"

Is a chemical pollutant a molecule, or something else? This talk considers the ways chemical pollution contributes to land and atmosphere disruption, enacts colonialism and racism, as well as distributes mortality to beings and their relationships. Thus, it suggests that chemical pollution might better be understand as part of land/body relations. Through Indigenous feminist approaches that activate responsibilities to Indigenous jurisdiction, land and intergenerational being on the lower Great Lakes, this talk reconsiders what makes up chemical violence.

Michelle Murphy is a science and technology studies scholar whose research concerns feminist and decolonial approaches to environment, reproduction and data. Their current research focuses on the relationships between pollution, colonialism and technoscience on the lower Great Lakes. At the University of Toronto, Murphy is Professor of History and Women & Gender Studies, a tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Science & Technology Studies and Environmental Data Justice, as well as Co-Director of the Technoscience Research Unit, which hosts an Indigenous led Environmental Data Justice lab. They are Métis from Winnipeg.