Environmental Injustice Case Study Sarnia, Ontario, July 2021
Notes on "Everyday Exposure"
-denial of environmental heath issues, blaming the sick
-box ticking ans cover up, red tape bureaucracy
-"sensing policy": embodied, place-based,relational, responsible
Safe Side Off the Fence
EfeCengizThe documentary is missing because the documentary is as safe as the fence it mocks in its title.
In the beginning we are asked to bear witness to the construction and use of the most devastation weapon of indiscriminate death the world has ever seen, and all the harm the construction of such a tool, yet its construction and its use is justified near instantaneously by repeating the same old propaganda.
In continuation, we are asked to bear witness to the continuous production of similar weapons and the devastation caused by the mishandling of the waste that accumulated in their production, yet why such a production took place is not only left unquestioned, but simple hints of cold war propaganda is left in their places for safekeeping.
In the end, we are asked to bear witness to a sombre victory, same spectres of patriotism and nation-of-God watching over our shoulder, yet how the pitiful situation of being forced to celebrate even such a small victory is never explored.
To sum up, we are shown people, good people, who struggle against the symptoms of a disease, yet this disease itself never named, nor challenged. It could not have been challenged, as it would force a complete change in their discourse.
If we sincerely would like to critique how the bodies of these workers were made disposable; used, harmed, dislocated and discharged as deemed necessary; if we wish to explore this topic as the necropolitical issue it is, we cannot stop halfway through. This inability to stop chasing connections, relationalities wherever it fits our ideology, is not a call for “objectivism”, it’s a call to respect the term of Anthropocene with all its rhizomatic connections.
An investigation of nuclear waste, that does not factor the use of its product, the socio-political effects of said product, and the historical conditions that even led to the possibility of producing it in such ways and such quantities, are of no use for us. It cannot penetrate the barrier of capitalist realism. If it could, at least a single mention of workers unions would have existed. Instead, it has confessionals by atomic weapons lawyers whose heart goes out to these workers.
An America that refuse to face up to the fact that it is what it is by the great necropolitical project it led for hundreds of years, I struggle to accumulate sympathy for, what I can easily accumulate is rage however, which this documentary is missing..
Wish the documentary would have at least attempted to say something radical, instead of praising these disposable bodies for being patriotic about it. There are lives who never had false fences built as idols for safety, the collective idols of old America, the patriotic nation under God were built upon their broken bodies, what would you ask of them?
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Andreas_Rebmann"Soviet scientists, too, were unprepared, but they did not admit their ignorance. In an August 1986 meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), they presented a crude analysis of the distribution of radiation in the Zone of Exclusion and in the Soviet Union: "assessments were made of the actual and future radiation doses received by the populations of towns, villages, and other inhabited places. As a result of these and other measures, it proved possible to keep exposures within the estab- lished limits."
"In this daily bureaucratic instantiation of Chernobyl, tensions among zone workers, resettled individuals and families, scientists, physicians, legislators, and civil servants intensified. Together, these groups became invested in a new social and moral contract between state and civil society, a contract guaranteeing them the right to know their levels of risk and to use legal means to obtain medical care and monitoring. The suf- ferers and their administrators were also supported by the nonsuffering citizens, who paid a 12 percent tax on their salaries to support compensations. The hybrid quality of this postsocialist state and social contract comes into view."
"He told me, how- ever, that "when a crying mother comes to my laboratory and asks me, Professor Lavrov, 'tell me what's wrong with my child?' I assign her a dose and say nothing more. I double it, as much as I can." The offer of a higher dose increased the likeli- hood that the mother would be able to secure social protection on account of her potentially sick child."
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Andreas_RebmannGood begins with explaining his own experiences working with patients suffering from epilepsy in Turkey, and his struggle to better understand the history of their illness
He then proceeds to give an in-detail explanation of one such patient, going into the specifics of the lack of clarity, and explaining the cultural connotation of different aspects of the patient-provided story, explaining why they might be muddled or less than accurate.
Next he looks at the work of others in the field, trying to get a better way of assessing the experiences of others and understanding their narrative without knowing everything they know.
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Andreas_RebmannIn this case, the main point of the article was to be rpepared ahead of time so that the damage during and after the disaster would be minimized. With education for the communities, after a disaster it would be much easier to move and treat people without as much confusion as there might have been.
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Andreas_RebmannShe references multiple articles and drew on her own knowledge and experience in order to argue her onclusion that humanitarianism is not equipped to handle such crimes currently.