Rejects language of ‘contamination’ because this presupposes that purity existed before. The quest for purity within ecology and wellness discourse plays into colonial and white supremacist tropes, which fantasise about returning to a mystical time ‘before’ things got complicated. These dangerous ideologies can be whitewashed through cleansing language. We are entangled, implicated, dirty and rather than try to separate ourselves from the terrestrial mess which constitutes us, we should realise the inherent agency within that position.
Against Purity
For more on this:
- Alexis Shotwell Against Purity; Living Ethically in Compromised Times (2016)
- Eula Biss – On Immunity; An Innoculation (2014)
- Karen Barad – Meeting the Universe Half Way; Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. (2007)
Entangled Pathogens - Interview with Dr. Lina Moses
'Moses utilises methods from both epidemiology and ecology to understand the interface of human, animal and pathogen.' Read more
Growing a Pearl
'It’s hard to relate to an oyster, they have no brain and the most primitive of central nervous systems.' Read more
On Shrinking
In a human lifetime the period in which we grow taller is relatively short, a maximum of eighteen or nineteen years. Read more
Wet Nurses, Microbes, Milk-siblings: Milk as Liquid Conduit
'Milk impregnated the particular atmosphere of women.' Read more