Short abstract:

Horticultural greenhouses model different ways of growing food & different approaches to working with plants. This paper ethnographically investigates how new cultivation methods give rise to emergent toxic relations. How does the greenhouses shape sociocultural futures of food and chemical futures?

Long abstract:

How is toxicity brought into significance, and how is it made perceptible in specific relations? Social Studies of Science scholars have shown that human bodies do not exist in isolation; there is fluidity between bodies and their environments. This understanding of embodied ecologies becomes even more apparent when considering the chemosphere and the countless ways in which bodies absorb toxicants. Pollutants have become integral parts of human bodies, where pollution is not an out there anymore, but a within. The horticultural greenhouse, a constructed infrastructure that replicates a controlled climatic environment, is an enclosed space where living organisms are cultivated. Beyond being political spaces — spaces of hope as they manage to cultivate crops in otherwise hostile environments — greenhouses model not only different ways of growing food but also different approaches to working with plants. This paper ethnographically investigates how these new cultivation methods give rise to emergent toxic relations. Through a multi-sited ethnography in greenhouses (where workers deal with dermatological complaints and allergic reactions) and with healthcare professionals specialized in work-related issues, this paper asks: What effects is the greenhouse having on toxic relations within and beyond its walls? How are greenhouses not only reshaping the sociocultural futures of food but also the chemosphere?