Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on an activist group from Bremerhaven, Germany, which fights the extension of a landfill holding filter dusts from a local destructor station. This dust threatens people's health, but can hardly be detected. The activists speak sense to power by translating what you cannot sense.

Paper long abstract:

Big harbour cities usually smell different than other cities: the sea adds its own odours of fish and seaweed, plus a salty taste, mixed up with the exhalation of the heavy ships and marine industries. In the German city of Bremerhaven, one of those major seaports, my informants noticed a different smell in the summer of 2014: the stench of waste unloaded and temporarily stored near the city's touristic hotspot of the fishery harbour. This waste came from other European countries and was to be burnt in the local refuse incineration plant. Whilst the public outrage in reaction to this malodour forced local authorities to react swiftly and remove the waste, other places related to the city's 1970s destructor station are not sensed so easily. This paper concentrates on the work of a local activist group fighting the extension of the landfill where the plant's toxic filter dusts are deposited. Particularly this carcinogenic dust threatens people's health. However, you can hardly smell it. The activists tried to force an end to the private public partnership between the city and one of the biggest international waste corporations, which runs the landfill and the plant. A group of former scientists, they speak sense to power by translating not just what you cannot see, but even what you cannot, or can only hardly, sense into knowledge that takes centre stage in local politics. Although my informants' attempts failed time and again, the imperceptible threat to their health continued to fuel their politico-sensory agency.