Presentation short abstract

Using a health anthropology approach, this study examines the embodied experiences of residents of Eitzaga, a rural Basque community, who coexist with an industrial landfill, highlighting local knowledge, social conflict, and coping strategies amid environmental harm and institutional abandonment.

Presentation long abstract

In Eitzaga, a small rural neighborhood in the Basque Country, the forced coexistence with industrial waste raises urgent questions about the toxic territories and bodies within a context of institutional abandonment. Since the collapse of the Verter Recycling industrial landfill in 2020, Eitzaga has lived under the effects of a contamination that exceeds the environmental realm and permeates bodies, social ties, and the territorial fabric. More than an isolated accident, that event was yet another episode within the structural dynamics of institutional neglect and corporate collusion that have long shaped the neighborhood’s reality, durably altering the community’s living conditions.

This research focuses on how contamination is experienced beyond technical indicators, attending to local knowledge, shared memories, and embodied narratives that emerge in contexts of prolonged exposure to industrial waste. It explores the ways in which residents interpret, experience, and confront toxicity, as well as its impact on social relations and the environment they inhabit. The aim is to understand the forms of life that arise amid institutional abandonment and environmental violence, as well as the margins of agency that communities develop to confront what is often presented as inevitable. Through this lens, the project seeks to contribute to contemporary debates on environmental justice, territorial vulnerability, and embodied toxicity.