How is toxicity constructed? When do chemicals become toxic? What kind of human and more-than-human actors participate in creating narratives of toxicity, and how? Are alternative framings to understand toxicity and pollution possible, and how do they reshape environmental justice? How, then, can researchers collaborate with exposed communities to narrate alternative framings of toxicity?

Moving away from a harm-based approach to an understanding of pollution as embedded in processes of reproduction of power and justice is pivotal to also expanding notions of agency and action (Liboiron et al 2018). This decolonial approach to environmental justice surpasses the neoliberal framings that simultaneously animate the structures of power oppressing fenceline communities and the modes of knowledge production dominating academic research.

This one-day workshop aims to unpack conceptualisations of environmental justice that “suspend damage” (Tuck 2009) on polluted communities and create possibilities for more inclusive and epistemically diverse environmentalisms. Building on the participants’ work, the aim of the workshop is to unsettle activist and academic assumptions that simultaneously benefit yet restrict communities severely affected by industrial activity.