Overview

In the industrialized nations of the global North, well-funded agencies like the CDC attend to citizens' health, monitoring and treating for toxic poisons like lead. How do the under-resourced nations of the global South meet such challenges? In Edges of Exposure, Noemi Tousignant traces the work of toxicologists in Senegal as they have sought to warn of and remediate the presence of heavy metals and other poisons in their communities. Situating recent toxic scandals within histories of science and regulation in postcolonial Africa, Tousignant shows how decolonization and structural adjustment have impacted toxicity and toxicology research. Ultimately, as Tousignant reveals, scientists' capacity to conduct research-as determined by material working conditions, levels of public investment, and their creative but not always successful efforts to make visible the harm of toxic poisons-affects their ability to keep equipment, labs, projects, and careers going.

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Reviews

Noemi Tousignant's innovative historical ethnography of Senegalese toxicology moves science and technology studies in Africa beyond familiar images of postcolonial domination and simplified historical continuities by carefully attending to the fragments of past efforts and their valence for present and future relations between science, state, and citizens. Without losing view of global exploitation and violence, her scrutiny of African scientific institutions' failure to protect citizens retains profound respect for the sustained efforts and achievements of African scientists, and their striving for civic and professional virtue, public service, and professional advancement. A must-read for all interested in twenty-first-century Africa, toxic exposures, and global science. --Paul Wenzel Geissler, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo An impressive contribution to the historical record and an urgent call to action, Noemi Tousignant's account of toxicological research in Senegal is both riveting and horrifying. Her analysis of the impacts of structural adjustment on scientific capacity in postcolonial Senegal--interwoven with stories about individual toxicologists attempting to keep their labs, research, and education going--adds considerably to discussions about the anthropology of science and the history of public health (and thus the state) in postcolonial Africa; gender in science; and the social dimensions of environmental health sciences. --Kim Fortun, author of Advocacy after Bhopal: Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders

An impressive contribution to the historical record and an urgent call to action, Noemi Tousignant's account of toxicological research in Senegal is both riveting and horrifying. Her analysis of the impacts of structural adjustment on scientific capacity in postcolonial Senegal-interwoven with stories about individual toxicologists attempting to keep their labs, research, and education going-adds considerably to discussions about the anthropology of science and the history of public health (and thus the state) in postcolonial Africa; gender in science; and the social dimensions of environmental health sciences. -- Kim Fortun, author of * Advocacy after Bhopal: Environmentalism, Disaster, New Global Orders * Noemi Tousignant's innovative historical ethnography of Senegalese toxicology moves science and technology studies in Africa beyond familiar images of postcolonial domination and simplified historical continuities by carefully attending to the fragments of past efforts and their valence for present and future relations between science, state, and citizens. Without losing view of global exploitation and violence, her scrutiny of African scientific institutions' failure to protect citizens retains profound respect for the sustained efforts and achievements of African scientists, and their striving for civic and professional virtue, public service, and professional advancement. A must-read for all interested in twenty-first-century Africa, toxic exposures, and global science. -- Paul Wenzel Geissler, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo

Author Information

Noémi Tousignant is Lecturer in Science and Technology Studies at University College London.

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