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Paper short abstract

This contribution foregrounds the chemical relations mediated by water in and around the chip industry in Hsinchu. Drawing from an understanding of water through embodiment and toxicity as embedded in systems of power, I examine how local residents sense, know, contest and live with water pollution.

Paper long abstract

“The semiconductor industry is a chemical industry.” I follow this provocation from Po-jen Hsu of Taiwan Environmental Rights Foundation to examine chemical relations through water pollution in the semiconductor industry in Hsinchu, Taiwan, home of the chip manufacturer TSMC. In an ethnographic case study, I trace the knowability and contestability of water pollution through shifting chemical relations between chip production, rivers, toxicants, humans and nonhumans.

Decades ago, residents used bodily sensing techniques to make visible and sense-able copper and ammonia pollution caused by the chip industry, organizing sniffing groups and coordinating campaigns to demand corporate accountability and government regulation (Chiu, 2011). With the AI boom and the era of “2nm” chips, the dominant pollutant is PFAS, a group of “forever chemicals” both invisible and imperceptible. Citizens, researchers and activists have to conceptualize new ways of testing discharged wastewater and proof of damage to fight for their right to clean drinking water.

Building on existing research in environmental justice and high-tech industry development (Chiu, 2011 & 2014; Chuang, 2021; Gabrys, 2013; Jobin, 2023; Pellow & Park, 2002), as well as a hydrofeminist understanding of water through embodiment (Neimanis, 2017) and a decolonial feminist STS understanding of chemical relations in the context of pollution (Liboiron et al., 2018; Murphy, 2008 2017), I ask: what does it mean to live with and contest water pollution? How does an embodied relation with water inform understanding and knowledge of water quality? What are the new techniques and strategies in testing for water pollution?