Transforming Toxic Materialities: Microbes in Anthropogenically Polluted Soils

Theory, Culture and Society (forthcoming)
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Abstract

In this essay, I explore non-human multispecies interactions in soils polluted by electronic waste and subsequently bioremediated by plants and microbes. I argue that regenerative transformation in polluted soil environments is principally through microbial degradation, a significant process for survival amidst disaster. In doing so, I combine two separate research areas – the materiality of electronic waste and of soils – thus contributing to theorization on the persistent problem of anthropogenically polluted soils. I do so by examining the process of bioremediation, which ties anthropogenic pollution with underground soil processes, notably those that occur at the soil interface surrounding plant roots, the rhizosphere. Using empirical examples from scientific literature on the bioremediation of electronic waste-contaminated soils in China, I demonstrate that degradation, symbiosis, and sequestration are instrumental processes in polluted soils. The micro-scaled perspective of these relational processes and their toxic alterlives contributes to materialist, chemosocial understandings of toxic and polluted environments.

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Thing Theory.Bill Brown - 2001 - Critical Inquiry 28 (1):1-22.
Waste, Landfills, and an Environmental Ethic of Vulnerability.Myra J. Hird - 2013 - Ethics and the Environment 18 (1):105-124.
Wormy Collaborations in Practices of Soil Construction.Germain Meulemans - 2020 - Theory, Culture and Society 37 (1):93-112.
Waste, Environmental Politics and Dis/Engaged Publics.Myra J. Hird - 2017 - Theory, Culture and Society 34 (2-3):187-209.

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