Resisting Toxic Climates: Gender, Colonialism, and Environment

This event has sold out. Please email conference convenor Dr Rebecca Macklin ([email protected]) to inquire about the possibility of joining a waitlist.

British Academy/Wellcome Trust Conferences bring together scholars and specialists from around the world to explore themes related to health and wellbeing.

Whether it’s the spectacular event of an oil spill or the scarcely perceptible pollution of micro-plastics, toxicity is central to the environmental concerns of today. To exist in the world means being vulnerable to multiple forms of toxicity. Yet, conditions of vulnerability are unequal, shaped by enduring global histories of colonialism and capitalism.

This event will highlight the toxic valences of coloniality, asking how toxicity manifests and mutates with particular regard to gender across variously situated bodies, lands and waterscapes. While we are concerned with the interrelated forms of material toxicity that threaten the wellbeing of human and more-than-human communities, we also seek to facilitate dialogue around pertinent social, political and cultural discourses of toxification. Operating at the intersections of the medical and environmental humanities, and centering feminist, queer, decolonial and Indigenous paradigms, this interdisciplinary event brings together scholars and practitioners working across disciplines and employing creative and/or critical modes of enquiry to explore these topics.

Resisting Toxic Climates will feature a series of original artworks by Natasha Thembiso Ruwona and Caitlin Stobie, produced in response to the themes and setting of the event.

The programme will feature a tour of the exhibition Shipping Roots by Keg De Sousa, led by the exhibition curator Emma Nicolson.

Conference convenors

• Dr Rebecca Macklin, University of Edinburgh
• Dr Alexandra Campbell, University of Glasgow
• Professor Michelle Keown, University of Edinburgh

Speakers

• Professor Mishuana Goeman, University of Buffalo
• Professor Savage Bear, McMaster University
• Professor Simone M. Müller, University of Augsburg
• Dr Katucha Bento, University of Edinburgh
• Dr Meztli Yoalli Rodriguez, DePaul University
• Dr Hannah Boast, University of Edinburgh
• Professor Astrida Niemanis, University of British Columbia Okanagan
• Dr Christine Okoth, Kings College London
• Dr Treasa De Loughery, University College Dublin
• Dr Dipali Mathur, Ulster University
• Dr Jason Allen-Paisant, University of Manchester
• Dr Thandi Loewenson, Royal College of Art
• Dr Craig Santos Perez, University of Hawaii
• Dr Alycia Pirmohamed, University of Cambridge
• Professor Patricia Widener, Florida Atlantic University
• Dr J.T. Roane, Rutgers University
• Dr Caitlin Stobie, University of Leeds
• Natasha Thembiso Ruwona

Please download the programme here

UPDATE (17th July): Tickets for this conference have now SOLD OUT and new bookings cannot be processed. We apologise for any inconvenience.

If you have any questions about this event please refer to our events FAQs or email [email protected]

Image: Carolina Caycedo, 'Thanks For Hosting Us, We Are Healing our Broken Bodies / Gracias por hospedarnos. Estamos sanando nuestros cuerpos rotos', 2019.1 channel HD Video 8:48 min, color and sound. With: Marina Magalhaes (Choreography), José Richard Aviles, Tatiana Zamir, Belle Alvarez, Bianca Medina, Isis Avalos, Patty Huerta, Celeste Tavares. Photographer: Bobby Gordon. Courtesy of the artist.