Johanna Degering

“I travelled regularly by train through the region of the Middle German Chemical Triangle and have always been fascinated by the smoking chimneys, at the same time I often wondered about the impact of the by-products of this chemical industry. Our group work gave me the opportunity to investigate this question. It showed me how much we, as living in a ‘late industrialism’ (Fortun 2012), are used to take the by-products of industry for granted. In addition, it broadened my sense of how toxicity can be studied from an anthropological perspective that focuses on its social entanglement. I am surprised about the range of information we were able to gather, despite the difficulties we faced while trying to obtain data from official institutions, how little research has been done on the subject and how much of the situation’s description or historical reappraisal has just mainly be taken over by civil society.

The field research gave me a practical understanding of the topic of chemical entanglement and social life of toxicity as discussed in the seminar. It showed me how toxicity is carried through the history of the factories to the present day, thereby facing a lack of responsibility for chemical by-products that ultimately affect those who can hardly escape it: Workers and especially forced labourers who kept the industry going as well as local residents who were deliberately denied information about the condition of the plants for decades. Acknowledging this would be a first step towards questioning the normality of toxicity in ‘late industrialism’ (ibid.).”

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