Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic research in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, this paper explores legacies of synthetic chemicals as part of both material processes and stories about a past that continues to infringe on a present experienced as increasingly, albeit unevenly, toxic.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the material, political, and social legacies of past usage of synthetic chemicals as experienced by urban residents living in Dar es Salaam. Drawing on twelve months of ethnographic research highlights the different temporalities and layers of toxic exposures that, though considered ubiquitous, have, and continue to render some parts of the world more exposed while continuing to enclose on the future. While foods, such as pesticide residues lingering on vegetables and imported toxic fish, is of central concern in conversations over routine exposures and the porosity between bodies and broader ecologies, this paper takes soil as its point of departure. Drawing on research with a group of female urban organic farmers and their practices of care for soils, it discusses how health is situated beyond the individual body, and how soil is viewed as playing a central role in ensuring the future commons. Ultimately, this paper brings attention to the ways in which the past is inscribed in both contemporary and future bodies and landscapes, thus calling for broader recognition of the risks and threats still posed by past usage of toxic synthetic chemicals on the future.