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."
Dipali Mathur is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Introduction: "Available to Be Poisoned" Chapter 1. Living in the Toxcene: Unnatural Histories of Our Toxic Present Chapter 2. Peddlers of Poisons: Chemical Colonialism and Precarious Lives Chapter 3. Manufacturing Disaster: Bhopal as a Regime of Truth Chapter 4. Ecological Death-Worlds: Pandemic Politics and Repeating the Toxic Past Conclusion: India's Precarious Present
"Available to Be Poisoned is an extraordinary book about the fact that toxicity is an ordinary fact of life of people everywhere in the world today due to the pervasive distribution of toxic chemicals into our food, water, and air. It shows that the so-called 'Green Revolution' was anything but and has in fact seeded a long-term health catastrophe for India that the government seems unwilling to confront. It is an important book about a neglected topic." -- Ian Buchanan, University of Wollongong "Today, India is one of the most polluted countries in the world, and contamination of air, water, and bodies is only getting worse. In this outstanding and thoroughly researched work by Dipali Mathur, we encounter toxicity as a form of life in contemporary India. Yet, Mathur shows that contamination is not simply an inevitable cost of societal development but that toxic politics is now a prerequisite for maintaining inequality. This is a must-read for critical scholars of environmental justice and environmental humanities in the new, exciting series on posthumanities and citizen futures." -- Cecilia Asberg, Linkoeping University "Available to Be Poisoned is an insightful appreciation of the way toxicity is produced and distributed through the Indian polity across generations. Mathur grounds her analysis in events and processes that have fundamentally shaped twenty-first-century India, from the Green Revolution through to the chemical disaster in Bhopal to the recent Covid-19 pandemic. This outstanding and original book is a reminder of how ecological devastation is intimately tied to enduring historical, economic, and political prejudices, which have normalized toxicity as a form of life for disadvantaged populations in the Global South." -- Assa Doron, Australian National University
