About the Book
In Pollution Is Colonialism Max Liboiron presents a framework for understanding scientific research methods as practices that can align with or against colonialism. They point out that even when researchers are working toward benevolent goals, environmental science and activism are often premised on a colonial worldview and access to land. Focusing on plastic pollution, the book models an anticolonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous, particularly Metis, concepts of land, ethics, and relations. Liboiron draws on their work in the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR)-an anticolonial science laboratory in Newfoundland, Canada-to illuminate how pollution is not a symptom of capitalism but a violent enactment of colonial land relations that claim access to Indigenous land. Liboiron's creative, lively, and passionate text refuses theories of pollution that make Indigenous land available for settler and colonial goals. In this way, their methodology demonstrates that anticolonial science is not only possible but is currently being practiced in ways that enact more ethical modes of being in the world.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. Land, Nature, Resource, Property 39
2. Scale, Harm, Violence, Land 81
3. An Anticolonial Pollution Science 113
Bibliography 157
Index 187
About the Author :
Max Liboiron is Associate Professor of Geography at Memorial University.
Review :
“There are exceedingly few texts like this that ask from an Indigenous perspective: how might we consider relations between science and land and water and still practice ‘good’ science? Pollution Is Colonialism is at the leading edge of a significant turn in science and technology studies toward thinking with settler colonialism as a structure and terrain, and by bringing Indigenous studies into conversations with pollution, plastics, and lab sciences, this book makes a major contribution.” - Candis Callison, author of (How Climate Change Comes to Matter: The Communal Life of Facts) “One of the most original and compelling books I’ve read in a long time, Pollution Is Colonialism is a truly exciting intellectual achievement. It argues for, and most importantly models, a decolonial scientific practice. A must-read book for anyone concerned about land relations.” - Joseph Masco, author of (The Future of Fallout, and Other Episodes in Radioactive World-Making) “This important book challenges the very sense of what pollution is, demonstrating its deep entanglements with settler colonialism, and then generously offers us anticolonial feminist methods that might better take up pollution's colonial form. This book is a model of what engaged feminist anticolonial STS research looks like.” - Michelle Murphy, author of (The Economization of Life) "To read Liboiron is to constantly be surprised, reeducated, alarmed, and moved to practice anticolonial methodologies and interrogate everything we know.... Liboiron has written a text for the ages." - Kerri Arsenault (Orion) “If you seek a methodologically creative, provocative and politically engaged book that confronts you with your own scholarly practice, you should certainly pick up this volume.... Liboiron offers a model that exemplifies what engaged anticolonial feminist research practice should look like.” - Cæcilie Kramer (Ethnos) “Pollution Is Colonialism provides desperately needed analytic clarity on this settler colonial present.... This book invites readers first and foremost to look at knowledge practices and forms of knowledge creation, to think about their land relations, and to recognize colonial land relations in their familiar, seemingly benign practices and techniques.” - Anna Stanley (Antipode) “[Pollution Is Colonialism] should be required reading for researchers who are working in any type of laboratory setting.... I also believe that a more general audience will find this work interesting and thought provoking.” - Jacqueline Stagner (International Journal of Environmental Studies) "Max Liboiron demonstrates how science can and should be informed by Indigenous ethics and ways of understanding relations. The result is a beautifully written text that is both a handbook on method and a call to rethink how we live our lives on occupied land." - Joshua Bell (Smithsonian Magazine) "Although the book focuses on plastic pollution, it is relevant to all areas of science, because it illustrates the ways that colonialism can show up in the sciences. . . . I predict that it will inspire pragmatic yet profoundly ethical action during a time of dire news and institutional soul-searching. Untangling and resisting the Gordian knot of justifications, manipulations, and traditions that enable colonialism takes hard work and humility. I am grateful that Liboiron has written a primer to get us all started. It is rare that I read a book that so fundamentally shakes up my thinking." - Katie L. Burke (American Scientist) "An emotive, immersed commentary of the state of knowledge, research, and ethics that concern us all as social scientists, whether or not we study plastics, or indeed, pollution." - Vasudha Chhotray (Contributions to Indian Sociology) "Liboiron’s creative, lively, and passionate text refuses theories of pollution that make Indigenous land available for settler and colonial goals. Liboiron demonstrates that anticolonial science is not only possible but is being practiced in ways that enact more ethical modes of being in the world." - Michael Svoboda (Yale Climate Connections) “Pollution is Colonialism is a generative, life-giving, critical text. . . . Students inside and outside of the academy, from diverse backgrounds across university, community, and government circles, must all pick up this book and learn from it.” - Sarah Marie Wiebe (Environmental Politics) “I cannot remember the last time I read a scholarly book more compelling, persuasive, enjoyable, helpful, or important than Pollution Is Colonialism by Max Liboiron. . . . When you read it, you will have a honed sense of how you fit into the urgent collective work of unmaking colonial worlds, and an invigorated sense of how to get started.” - Eugenia Zuroski (ISLE) “Provocative and highly readable, Pollution Is Colonialism challenges readers, specifically whites and settlers and particularly those who like to think of themselves as supportive of Indigenous people’s struggles, to consider how seemingly innocent or well-intentioned research methods, techniques, and modes of dissemination can reproduce dominant science. . . . Liboiron’s contribution is of great value for STS and adjacent fields.” - Miriam Tola (Tecnoscienza) “Pollution is Colonialism is one of those rare finds. First, it is immensely, immensely readable; the sort of book one reads in a single sitting, captivated by a sense of being in conversation with the author, from cover to cover. Second, it carefully assembles and articulates-so very clearly-the histories and realities of science, scientific practices, and methods.”
- Laura Menatti (Landscape Research)
