What do you think?
Rate this book
Pollution Is Colonialism
In Pollution is Colonialism Max Liboiron presents a framework for understanding scientific research methods as practices that can align with or against colonialism. They point out that even when researchers are working toward benevolent goals, conducting environmental science and activism is often premised on a colonial worldview and access to land. Focusing on plastic pollution, Liboiron models an anticolonial scientific practice aligned with Indigenous, and particularly Métis, concepts of land, ethics, and relations. They draw on their work in the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR)—an anticolonial science laboratory in Newfoundland, Canada—to illuminate how pollution is not a symptom of capitalism, but a violent enactment of colonial land relations that claim access to Indigenous land. Their creative, lively, and passionate text refuses theories of pollution that make Indigenous land available for settler and colonial goals. In this way, their methodology demonstrates that anticolonial science is not only possible, it is currently being practiced in ways that enact more ethical modes of being in the world.
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2021
158 people are currently reading
3826 people want to read
About the author
Max Liboiron
3 books26 followersMax Liboiron is Associate Professor of Geography at Memorial University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
August 2, 2021
This is the best academic book I've ever read and also the first written review I've left on this website. Thank you, Max Liboiron.
August 17, 2021
Max Liboiron writes:
"Indigenous Land relations, delicious as they may be for “thinking with” or “drawing upon,” are not for consumption or appropriation by settlers. In earlier drafts of this chapter, I had framed the discussion around the thesis that “Plastics Are Kin,” but I changed this after conversations with various Indigenous thinkers and Elders about complex issues of kinmaking with bad kin and the already rampant fetishization of nonhumans as kin by academics as acts of possession and redemption. I removed conversations that were not fit or ready for public consumption, changing the chapter to “Plastics Are Land.” But even that left a lot of room for creepiness, so I instead reframed the chapter around scale as relationships that matter, with only a small introduction to Land-plastic relations with an indigenous frame, here.
When I say creepy, I’m not being glib. Creepiness is a relation directed by the intense desire of one party toward another, with that desire so obfuscated, unknowable, or such a bad fit that the originating desires do not quite make sense to the object of desire and can even constitute violation. The increasing popular academic conversations among and emanating from settlers about kin and Land are hella creepy. I can never tell what most people mean by kin or Land, especially because both are usually positioned as inherently good (which is weird if you have any experience with family members or weather, to name two obvious manifestations of kin and Land that can be monumentally shitty and even dangerous)."
"Indigenous Land relations, delicious as they may be for “thinking with” or “drawing upon,” are not for consumption or appropriation by settlers. In earlier drafts of this chapter, I had framed the discussion around the thesis that “Plastics Are Kin,” but I changed this after conversations with various Indigenous thinkers and Elders about complex issues of kinmaking with bad kin and the already rampant fetishization of nonhumans as kin by academics as acts of possession and redemption. I removed conversations that were not fit or ready for public consumption, changing the chapter to “Plastics Are Land.” But even that left a lot of room for creepiness, so I instead reframed the chapter around scale as relationships that matter, with only a small introduction to Land-plastic relations with an indigenous frame, here.
When I say creepy, I’m not being glib. Creepiness is a relation directed by the intense desire of one party toward another, with that desire so obfuscated, unknowable, or such a bad fit that the originating desires do not quite make sense to the object of desire and can even constitute violation. The increasing popular academic conversations among and emanating from settlers about kin and Land are hella creepy. I can never tell what most people mean by kin or Land, especially because both are usually positioned as inherently good (which is weird if you have any experience with family members or weather, to name two obvious manifestations of kin and Land that can be monumentally shitty and even dangerous)."
Read
February 8, 2023Comps reading. This book was really hot as I was starting grad school in 2021. I had an assignment for one of my courses to write a book review (which we were encouraged to submit for publication afterwards) and I initially proposed writing a review for this book. My professor was not as enthusiastic about the idea, saying she did not think this was a good book; that Max had some good papers out there and Duke usually put out very good stuff fairly consistently, but this was not a book she was impressed by and it would not be a good idea to publish a very critical review of a book as a junior scholar. I am perhaps glad I took her advice in this case, not because I necessarily think this was a bad book (like she did), but there were a few things I objected to on grounds not of principal concern to STS scholars (but are important to me nonetheless). For that reason I am also leaving this book unrated.
I’ll start with things I appreciated about this book. Firstly, it is written very clearly and accessibly. It takes very little for granted and avoids jargon where possible, and where not possible, takes good effort to explain terms as clearly and concisely as possible. The style is casual and the prose is economical, but the writing was not always as beautiful or pleasurable for me, but it was almost always engaging. Secondly, Max Liboiron is not an armchair observer of science. They are a practicing Métis scientist running CLEAR, a marine science lab that is producing scientific knowledge on plastic waste and its ecological impacts, and attempting to do so in ways that are both critical of currents scientific methods as well as aligned with ongoing anticolonial struggles. Thirdly, Liboiron makes useful and clarifying comments throughout about:
1.) environmentalism’s relationship with colonialism (“Environmentalism does not usually address colonialism and often reproduces it.”) Liboiron discusses a large Richard Grove excerpt that is useful:
“For instance, colonialist states and powers have at times sided with environmental conservation over capitalist gains. Historians have documented how, as Richard Grove (unmarked) puts it, “Paradoxically, the colonial state in its pioneering conservationist role provided a forum for controls on the unhindered operations of capital for short-term gain which, it might be argued, brought about a contradiction to what is normally supposed to have made up the common currency of imperial expansion. Ultimately, the long-term security of the state, which any ecological crisis threatened to undermine, counted for far more than the interests of private capital bent on the destruction of the environment.”
2.) this may be obvious, but for some reason it evades conversations about colonialism far too often: “Colonialism, first, foremost, and always, is about Land” Liboiron also says: “Whether motivated by profit and growth or environmental conservation, both approaches to waste and wasting are premised on an assumed entitlement to Indigenous Land. That’s colonialism.” And Liboiron includes this Edward Said excerpt:
“To think about distant places, to colonize them, to populate or depopulate them: all of this occurs on, about, or because of land. The actual geographical possession of land is what empire in the final analysis is all about.”
3.) following this (narrower) definition of colonialism, Liboiron defines Land (broadly) in reference to the work of Mohawk scholar Sandra Styres (and Dawn Zinga) who “capitalize Land when we are referring to it as a proper name indicating a primary relationship rather than when used in a more general sense. For us, land (the more general term) refers to landscapes as a fixed geographical and physical space that includes earth, rocks, and waterways; whereas, ‘Land’ (the proper name) extends beyond a material fixed space. Land is a spiritually infused place grounded in interconnected and interdependent relationships, cultural positioning, and is highly contextualized” And Liboiron elaborates: “when I capitalize Land I am referring to the unique entity that is the combined living spirit of plants, animals, air, water, humans, histories, and events recognized by many Indigenous communities. When land is not capitalized, I am referring to the concept from a colonial worldview whereby landscapes are common, universal, and everywhere…”
4.) a clear specification of dominant science (not Western science per se) as their object of critique:
“I use the term dominant science instead of Western science for two reasons. First, dominant keeps the power relations front and centre, and it’s these power relations I am usually discussing. Western science is a cultural tradition where ways of knowing start with the Ancient Greeks, get influenced by various forms of Christianity and Judaism, and move through the Enlightenment. Generally, I have no problem with that culture. The problem is when it becomes dominant to the point that other ways of knowing, doing, and being are deemed illegitimate or are erased. Second, not all Western science is dominant. Mid-wifery, alchemy, and preventative medicine are part of Western science that suffer at the hands of dominant science.”
Now for some things I found less useful:
1.) the passing commentary on Marxism, particularly related to commodities:
“As Sandy Grande (Quechua) has argued, “Both Marxists and capitalists view land and natural resources as commodities to be exploited, in the first instance, by capitalists for personal gain, and in the second by Marxists for the good of all.” Eve Tuck (Unangax) and Wayne Yang (diaspora settler of col- our) have pointed out, “Socialist and communist empires have also been settler empires (e.g., Chinese colonialism in Tibet).” Colonialism is not one kind of thing with one set of techniques that always align with capitalism. Marxism, socialism, anticapitalism, capitalism, and other economic systems can, though certainly don’t have to, enact colonial relations to Land as a usable Resource that produces value for settler and colonizer goals, regardless of how and by whom that value is produced.”
"To make capitalism and colonialism synonymous, or to conflate environmentalism and anticolonialism, misses these complex relations... Because of this nuance and its repercussions for political action, political scientist Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene) has called for scholars to shift their analysis away from capitalist relations (production, proletarianization) to colonial relations (dispossession, Land acquisition, access to Land)”
Then Liboiron goes on to include this Coulthard quote:
“When stated this way, it should be clear that shifting our position to highlight the ongoing effects of colonial dispossession in no way displaces questions of distributive justice or class struggle; rather, it simply situates these questions more firmly alongside and in relation to the other sites and relations of power that inform our settler-colonial present.”
I agree with Coulthard completely, I just think Liboiron is mischaracterizing what Coulthard is saying when suggesting he wants people “to shift their analysis away from capitalist relations.” I am also uncommitted about relations between colonialism and capitalism, because this is a very expansive ongoing debate among the left, but I still think that Sandy Grande quote is not useful, not when Tuck and Yang cited it and not here either. Footnote 89 is also addressed to “Marxist geeks,” a label they perhaps identify with, and the footnote's an extensive summary of M-C-M’ in Capital. But for some reason this is compared with Heidegger and his notion of “standing reserve” in the same footnote (and I'm just not a fan of the comparison).
2.) This may come out of left field, but I feel Liboiron to some extent runs their lab like an anarchist collective or Occupy assembly, which is interesting and cool, but I think ‘horizontal’ structures often operate within unspoken and at times unacknowledged power dynamics, with de facto leaders or cliques who are not recognized as such, and this is something Jodi Dean has discussed extensively. One story is of Liboiron confronting a master’s student who’s invited to do ethnographic research at CLEAR. On her first day she is confronted by Liboiron for taking notes without the permission of everyone, but is clearly taken by surprise and is very apologetic. Max literally says “That’s stealing.” I don’t know how things operate, and there isn’t a lot of context detailed, but I would presume that labs often clarify what an ethnographer would or would not be allowed to do in advance of visiting in-person. If she knowingly violated consent, that seems like a sensible thing to do, but I get the sense this was not the case. Making this master’s student write a formal apology to everyone on her first day in the lab for taking notes, for what seemed like a misunderstanding, seems like a bit much. This person had been taking notes for some time during the day, and someone could easily have said something when they saw her take out a pen and paper, telling her to pause and wait for everyone to consent before writing anything, instead of waiting for her to write notes for a while and making a small spectacle out of it. Again, this to me speaks more about the power dynamics that exist in labs like this, which is fine to have. But these power relations and hierarchies can often be obscured in the guise of radical rhetoric about equity for example. Again it’s easy for me to mistake what is going on from the outside, and there’s certainly something to be said about extractive white anthropologists operating around Indigenous-led projects. So I can see many situations where that sort of confrontation is necessary. It’s just the specific case here felt heavy handed.
Anyway, I’ve written way too much and should begin concluding. One of the primary things Liboiron takes up in this book that I think is worth emphasizing and this is something Michelle Murphy has discussed extensively elsewhere (and is therefore cited extensively in here), is regarding scientific rationalizations used for producing pollution thresholds (read environmental violence thresholds), which Liboiron describes as: “bad relations of a scientific theory that allows some amount of pollution to occur and its accompanying entitlement to Land to assimilate that pollution. I mean colonialism.”
This is a useful framing for thinking about the three main arguments advanced in this book:
1.) Pollution is “an enactment” of persisting colonial Land relations, not merely a side effect of colonialism. Pollution is violence and not the more indirect symptom of violence, which we call “environmental damage.” This violence can be reproduced by activists and environmental scientists with good intentions.
2.) There are specific place-based (environmental science) methods for action against pollution that can be taken now without having to wait for full decolonization (rematriation of Land) to occur first, but these methods focus on Land relations and obligations. And any decolonizing project is about Land Back (though Liboiron does not claim that descriptor for CLEAR, only that they are an anticolonial and feminist science lab).
3.) All methodologies (scientific, literary, etc.) are always a part of Land relations, and are an important site to enact good relations.
Anyway, this was a book that I found useful, but not one I think everyone else will.
I’ll start with things I appreciated about this book. Firstly, it is written very clearly and accessibly. It takes very little for granted and avoids jargon where possible, and where not possible, takes good effort to explain terms as clearly and concisely as possible. The style is casual and the prose is economical, but the writing was not always as beautiful or pleasurable for me, but it was almost always engaging. Secondly, Max Liboiron is not an armchair observer of science. They are a practicing Métis scientist running CLEAR, a marine science lab that is producing scientific knowledge on plastic waste and its ecological impacts, and attempting to do so in ways that are both critical of currents scientific methods as well as aligned with ongoing anticolonial struggles. Thirdly, Liboiron makes useful and clarifying comments throughout about:
1.) environmentalism’s relationship with colonialism (“Environmentalism does not usually address colonialism and often reproduces it.”) Liboiron discusses a large Richard Grove excerpt that is useful:
“For instance, colonialist states and powers have at times sided with environmental conservation over capitalist gains. Historians have documented how, as Richard Grove (unmarked) puts it, “Paradoxically, the colonial state in its pioneering conservationist role provided a forum for controls on the unhindered operations of capital for short-term gain which, it might be argued, brought about a contradiction to what is normally supposed to have made up the common currency of imperial expansion. Ultimately, the long-term security of the state, which any ecological crisis threatened to undermine, counted for far more than the interests of private capital bent on the destruction of the environment.”
2.) this may be obvious, but for some reason it evades conversations about colonialism far too often: “Colonialism, first, foremost, and always, is about Land” Liboiron also says: “Whether motivated by profit and growth or environmental conservation, both approaches to waste and wasting are premised on an assumed entitlement to Indigenous Land. That’s colonialism.” And Liboiron includes this Edward Said excerpt:
“To think about distant places, to colonize them, to populate or depopulate them: all of this occurs on, about, or because of land. The actual geographical possession of land is what empire in the final analysis is all about.”
3.) following this (narrower) definition of colonialism, Liboiron defines Land (broadly) in reference to the work of Mohawk scholar Sandra Styres (and Dawn Zinga) who “capitalize Land when we are referring to it as a proper name indicating a primary relationship rather than when used in a more general sense. For us, land (the more general term) refers to landscapes as a fixed geographical and physical space that includes earth, rocks, and waterways; whereas, ‘Land’ (the proper name) extends beyond a material fixed space. Land is a spiritually infused place grounded in interconnected and interdependent relationships, cultural positioning, and is highly contextualized” And Liboiron elaborates: “when I capitalize Land I am referring to the unique entity that is the combined living spirit of plants, animals, air, water, humans, histories, and events recognized by many Indigenous communities. When land is not capitalized, I am referring to the concept from a colonial worldview whereby landscapes are common, universal, and everywhere…”
4.) a clear specification of dominant science (not Western science per se) as their object of critique:
“I use the term dominant science instead of Western science for two reasons. First, dominant keeps the power relations front and centre, and it’s these power relations I am usually discussing. Western science is a cultural tradition where ways of knowing start with the Ancient Greeks, get influenced by various forms of Christianity and Judaism, and move through the Enlightenment. Generally, I have no problem with that culture. The problem is when it becomes dominant to the point that other ways of knowing, doing, and being are deemed illegitimate or are erased. Second, not all Western science is dominant. Mid-wifery, alchemy, and preventative medicine are part of Western science that suffer at the hands of dominant science.”
Now for some things I found less useful:
1.) the passing commentary on Marxism, particularly related to commodities:
“As Sandy Grande (Quechua) has argued, “Both Marxists and capitalists view land and natural resources as commodities to be exploited, in the first instance, by capitalists for personal gain, and in the second by Marxists for the good of all.” Eve Tuck (Unangax) and Wayne Yang (diaspora settler of col- our) have pointed out, “Socialist and communist empires have also been settler empires (e.g., Chinese colonialism in Tibet).” Colonialism is not one kind of thing with one set of techniques that always align with capitalism. Marxism, socialism, anticapitalism, capitalism, and other economic systems can, though certainly don’t have to, enact colonial relations to Land as a usable Resource that produces value for settler and colonizer goals, regardless of how and by whom that value is produced.”
"To make capitalism and colonialism synonymous, or to conflate environmentalism and anticolonialism, misses these complex relations... Because of this nuance and its repercussions for political action, political scientist Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene) has called for scholars to shift their analysis away from capitalist relations (production, proletarianization) to colonial relations (dispossession, Land acquisition, access to Land)”
Then Liboiron goes on to include this Coulthard quote:
“When stated this way, it should be clear that shifting our position to highlight the ongoing effects of colonial dispossession in no way displaces questions of distributive justice or class struggle; rather, it simply situates these questions more firmly alongside and in relation to the other sites and relations of power that inform our settler-colonial present.”
I agree with Coulthard completely, I just think Liboiron is mischaracterizing what Coulthard is saying when suggesting he wants people “to shift their analysis away from capitalist relations.” I am also uncommitted about relations between colonialism and capitalism, because this is a very expansive ongoing debate among the left, but I still think that Sandy Grande quote is not useful, not when Tuck and Yang cited it and not here either. Footnote 89 is also addressed to “Marxist geeks,” a label they perhaps identify with, and the footnote's an extensive summary of M-C-M’ in Capital. But for some reason this is compared with Heidegger and his notion of “standing reserve” in the same footnote (and I'm just not a fan of the comparison).
2.) This may come out of left field, but I feel Liboiron to some extent runs their lab like an anarchist collective or Occupy assembly, which is interesting and cool, but I think ‘horizontal’ structures often operate within unspoken and at times unacknowledged power dynamics, with de facto leaders or cliques who are not recognized as such, and this is something Jodi Dean has discussed extensively. One story is of Liboiron confronting a master’s student who’s invited to do ethnographic research at CLEAR. On her first day she is confronted by Liboiron for taking notes without the permission of everyone, but is clearly taken by surprise and is very apologetic. Max literally says “That’s stealing.” I don’t know how things operate, and there isn’t a lot of context detailed, but I would presume that labs often clarify what an ethnographer would or would not be allowed to do in advance of visiting in-person. If she knowingly violated consent, that seems like a sensible thing to do, but I get the sense this was not the case. Making this master’s student write a formal apology to everyone on her first day in the lab for taking notes, for what seemed like a misunderstanding, seems like a bit much. This person had been taking notes for some time during the day, and someone could easily have said something when they saw her take out a pen and paper, telling her to pause and wait for everyone to consent before writing anything, instead of waiting for her to write notes for a while and making a small spectacle out of it. Again, this to me speaks more about the power dynamics that exist in labs like this, which is fine to have. But these power relations and hierarchies can often be obscured in the guise of radical rhetoric about equity for example. Again it’s easy for me to mistake what is going on from the outside, and there’s certainly something to be said about extractive white anthropologists operating around Indigenous-led projects. So I can see many situations where that sort of confrontation is necessary. It’s just the specific case here felt heavy handed.
Anyway, I’ve written way too much and should begin concluding. One of the primary things Liboiron takes up in this book that I think is worth emphasizing and this is something Michelle Murphy has discussed extensively elsewhere (and is therefore cited extensively in here), is regarding scientific rationalizations used for producing pollution thresholds (read environmental violence thresholds), which Liboiron describes as: “bad relations of a scientific theory that allows some amount of pollution to occur and its accompanying entitlement to Land to assimilate that pollution. I mean colonialism.”
This is a useful framing for thinking about the three main arguments advanced in this book:
1.) Pollution is “an enactment” of persisting colonial Land relations, not merely a side effect of colonialism. Pollution is violence and not the more indirect symptom of violence, which we call “environmental damage.” This violence can be reproduced by activists and environmental scientists with good intentions.
2.) There are specific place-based (environmental science) methods for action against pollution that can be taken now without having to wait for full decolonization (rematriation of Land) to occur first, but these methods focus on Land relations and obligations. And any decolonizing project is about Land Back (though Liboiron does not claim that descriptor for CLEAR, only that they are an anticolonial and feminist science lab).
3.) All methodologies (scientific, literary, etc.) are always a part of Land relations, and are an important site to enact good relations.
Anyway, this was a book that I found useful, but not one I think everyone else will.
August 23, 2025
I honestly need more time with this one. It's absurdly brilliant and explains colonialism in a new way. He shows through the course of the book that decolonizing the land starts with decolonizing the mind and mental practice. Change our habits in thinking about pollution. What defines a pollutant? How do thresholds protect us or not? What can be done about land etc. that has become overburdened with pollutants? How do we prevent these? *Should* we prevent them. For sure, it's a fascinating read, and not as cynical as many of the science books I've been reading recently.
I found an audiobook copy of POLLUTION IS COLONIALISM by Max Liboiron on Libby. All views are mine.
I found an audiobook copy of POLLUTION IS COLONIALISM by Max Liboiron on Libby. All views are mine.
January 6, 2022
An essential, paradigm shifting book thats changed my perspective on all things science, purpose and the responsibility of asking the right questions. Liboiron explains with clarity (and humor!) the issues with environmentalism, frames their claims in decolonization literature, presents examples of how to transform scientific practices and leads by example in their citations (using citations as a relational practice). Above all, this book has deepened my understanding of larger systems, how they interact, and the need for specificity.
Highly recommend to all humans (and specifically scientists) that work on land, in the field or with communities especially those working from or in settler colonial states.
Highly recommend to all humans (and specifically scientists) that work on land, in the field or with communities especially those working from or in settler colonial states.
June 10, 2023
Pollution is not a manifestation or side effect of colonialism, but is rather an enactment of ongoing colonial relations to land. That is, pollution is best understood as the violence of colonial land relations, rather than environmental damage, which is a symptom of violence. These colonial relations are reproduced through even well-intentioned environmental science and activism.
December 23, 2021
Having read this book as part of a university assignment (a book review of a book of our choice), I felt very called out (in an important way). Every sticky tab I placed and quote I circled felt part of the 'extractive reading' that was referenced as a type of colonial practice. Not only that, but I was reading this book as part of a module on 'Environmental Knowledges', and yet after 10 weeks of learning I had had no real engagement on the kind of environmental knowledge discussed in the book. I am so glad to have come across this book and I believe this to be an essential text for those who engage principally with questions of 'environmentalism'. The focus on methodology meant that this wasn't solely a theoretical book, but one that can be put in practice by providing clarity around what an anti-colonial methodology, rooted in good land relations, can look like in the sciences. I look forward to re-reading it after this assignment and practice non-extractive reading and just sit with the words further.
May 24, 2023
Perhaps the first thing you notice about this book is its footnotes, which often take up most of the page. I actually really liked them, especially how the author explained them in the introduction. They have their roots in what are called Indigenous Land Acknowledgements, and ultimately they act as a way to expand that even more, acknowledging all sorts of indebtedness, all the webs of interconnectedness and interdependency we all experience. As Liboiron says early on, "No intellectual work is authored alone." I especially appreciate how the author used these footnotes to break the fourth wall and get us as readers to re-evaluate how we approach texts. We often treat texts as mere raw materials to be used/quoted and then discarded, and Liboiron ties this to how us westerners often treat nature. One of Liboiron's main arguments is the distinction between Land and land, Nature and nature, etc. By this, they're implying that indigenous and colonial peoples view nature totally differently (which definitely is true, especially in the move from God AS nature to God CREATING nature (above and outside, instead of within and throughout). More specifically, Liboiron discourages viewing land as a resource to manage rather than a person/entity with which to have a reciprocal relationship. Similarly, books should be treated more humanely, less as a means to an end and more as something which not only exists within a complex web of authorship, but also which is more than just a resource for readers. It exists on its own and for itself, rather than centering the reader as almighty (which seems strongly at odds with many relativistic, subjective modern and postmodern thinkers!).
This shift from resource to relationship is essentially another way of pointing out what C. S. Lewis did near the end of the Abolition of Man, where our hubris about "conquering" nature betrays us insofar as we destroy all "unnatural" morality and replace it with selfish, animalistic desires. This shift from resource to relationship also therefore extends to plastics, the main topic of the book. Liboiron argues we can't just ban plastic, it's here to stay; in other words, we're in a relationship with it, and even if we could train some bacteria to eat it, it's in too many things and that would become extremely dangerous extremely quickly. Also, they helpfully point out that banning plastic is also ableist, because disabled people often need straws and medical equipment which is plastic-based.
I was pleasantly surprised early on in the book when Liboiron generously clarified that "Western culture...is not synonymous with colonialism," even if it might have colonialistic tendencies. I think the humility displayed by those footnotes (which repeatedly thank others for their contributions) adds greatly to the text's ethos, helping us to trust the author more. The only thing which consistently hurts that ethos is Liboiron's edgy use of swearing throughout, which just comes across as unnecessary and unprofessional the vast majority of the time. But I've noticed Duke University Press allowing that in a few recent books, so I don't think it's anything new.
I did have quite a few problems with the book, as you can imagine, especially with some of the assumptions (politically motivated or otherwise) which Liboiron relies heavily upon. Especially important is the broader Indigenous Study's sense of entitlement to (land) sovereignty (which Black studies [I think rightly] is suspicious of). For example, I'd like to ask: what is the expiration date on land ownership claims? Do victims still have to be alive? And if so, why the chronological bias? How different must the two cultures be? (Cf. Palestine & Israel). Also, how old is colonialism? Was Genghis Khan a colonizer? What about the Romans? The Aztecs? Probably I'm just ignorant, but I'm not sure why only recent injustices matter; what about those which stretch back centuries? What about those enacted by indigenous people upon other indigenous people? I have a lot of unanswered questions.
In general, I'm quite skeptical and suspicious of science (not in a vaccine-hostile way, but in a philosophical and political way), and generally speaking I support Liboiron's attempt at decolonizing science; this includes alternative approaches to the "problems" within science, an emphasis on storytelling (anecdotal evidence), and much more. For example, although I appreciate Liboiron's pushback against assuming all of nature is a lab, I think they hyperfixate on demanding consent to gather even basic information, and I'd blame this on a secular leftist fallback to (and thus pathological exaggeration of) consent as the only virtue. Overall, their approach challenges capitalistic/western scientific (what they call "dominant science") methods/approaches to dealing with the issue of plastic pollution, including how we measure it [threshold theories], who we place the blame on [consumers vs producers], what sorts of solutions we even consider [bans, recycling, perspective changes], etc. While doing this, Liboiron passive aggressively labels all people mentioned in the book by their tribal affiliation (and in the case of white people and other non-natives, they're labelled as "settler" or "unmarked"). I understand the point they were making here, and it was certainly interesting to see the ratios of white to indigenous sources (and what sorts of statements/arguments each made); in the end, I think this was fine insofar as it helped make the reader aware of the sorts of sources that they rely upon, instead of viewing all information and all sources as on an equal playing field. But this brings up another problem: the book also conflates universalism/absolute truth with imperialism, but I found that argument quite lacking, especially when you bring up the obvious point that contemporary science is scientific insofar as it is replicable, i.e. that it can be done over and over in different places and times. I appreciate the attempt to knock the ego of scientists down a peg or seventeen, but this isn't how to do it.
In a related vein, I was extremely pleased to see that Liboiron didn't fall into the fallacy of the unified enemy (130), whereby all the leftist boogeymen ("patriarchy," "racism," etc.) are some evil huge unified enemies which are indestructible (and thus require a panicked revolution to combat); instead they had a much more nuanced and relaxed approach (which brings up the truth of "slower is faster"). Lastly, I found Liboiron's warning very helpful: "The problem...is that we can never really remove the tools from their underlying beliefs" (135); in other words, any technology (whether that be physical, such as a smartphone, or metaphysical, such as a religion or political ideology) carries with it myriad assumptions about the world and our place in it. For example, a smartphone carries with it the assumption that multitasking and convenience are good, and thus that using one item for one task or taking extra steps are bad. I'll let you be the judge if those are good assumptions. Similarly, religions assume that there is something nonphysical and/or spiritual that must be accounted for, and those who attempt to jettison this technology do so at their own peril.
I do hope that I didn't treat this book "as a resource" (p. 156) per the author's reasonable request, and I'd challenge you dear reader to not treat my review merely as a resource. Makes things feel different, doesn't it? I think it's good to sometimes get knocked out of those ruts, those comfortable ways of interacting with the world and with various technologies; not all the time, of course, that would be too much chaos to survive, but at the very least let's shake things up a lil bit. Ok bye.
This shift from resource to relationship is essentially another way of pointing out what C. S. Lewis did near the end of the Abolition of Man, where our hubris about "conquering" nature betrays us insofar as we destroy all "unnatural" morality and replace it with selfish, animalistic desires. This shift from resource to relationship also therefore extends to plastics, the main topic of the book. Liboiron argues we can't just ban plastic, it's here to stay; in other words, we're in a relationship with it, and even if we could train some bacteria to eat it, it's in too many things and that would become extremely dangerous extremely quickly. Also, they helpfully point out that banning plastic is also ableist, because disabled people often need straws and medical equipment which is plastic-based.
I was pleasantly surprised early on in the book when Liboiron generously clarified that "Western culture...is not synonymous with colonialism," even if it might have colonialistic tendencies. I think the humility displayed by those footnotes (which repeatedly thank others for their contributions) adds greatly to the text's ethos, helping us to trust the author more. The only thing which consistently hurts that ethos is Liboiron's edgy use of swearing throughout, which just comes across as unnecessary and unprofessional the vast majority of the time. But I've noticed Duke University Press allowing that in a few recent books, so I don't think it's anything new.
I did have quite a few problems with the book, as you can imagine, especially with some of the assumptions (politically motivated or otherwise) which Liboiron relies heavily upon. Especially important is the broader Indigenous Study's sense of entitlement to (land) sovereignty (which Black studies [I think rightly] is suspicious of). For example, I'd like to ask: what is the expiration date on land ownership claims? Do victims still have to be alive? And if so, why the chronological bias? How different must the two cultures be? (Cf. Palestine & Israel). Also, how old is colonialism? Was Genghis Khan a colonizer? What about the Romans? The Aztecs? Probably I'm just ignorant, but I'm not sure why only recent injustices matter; what about those which stretch back centuries? What about those enacted by indigenous people upon other indigenous people? I have a lot of unanswered questions.
In general, I'm quite skeptical and suspicious of science (not in a vaccine-hostile way, but in a philosophical and political way), and generally speaking I support Liboiron's attempt at decolonizing science; this includes alternative approaches to the "problems" within science, an emphasis on storytelling (anecdotal evidence), and much more. For example, although I appreciate Liboiron's pushback against assuming all of nature is a lab, I think they hyperfixate on demanding consent to gather even basic information, and I'd blame this on a secular leftist fallback to (and thus pathological exaggeration of) consent as the only virtue. Overall, their approach challenges capitalistic/western scientific (what they call "dominant science") methods/approaches to dealing with the issue of plastic pollution, including how we measure it [threshold theories], who we place the blame on [consumers vs producers], what sorts of solutions we even consider [bans, recycling, perspective changes], etc. While doing this, Liboiron passive aggressively labels all people mentioned in the book by their tribal affiliation (and in the case of white people and other non-natives, they're labelled as "settler" or "unmarked"). I understand the point they were making here, and it was certainly interesting to see the ratios of white to indigenous sources (and what sorts of statements/arguments each made); in the end, I think this was fine insofar as it helped make the reader aware of the sorts of sources that they rely upon, instead of viewing all information and all sources as on an equal playing field. But this brings up another problem: the book also conflates universalism/absolute truth with imperialism, but I found that argument quite lacking, especially when you bring up the obvious point that contemporary science is scientific insofar as it is replicable, i.e. that it can be done over and over in different places and times. I appreciate the attempt to knock the ego of scientists down a peg or seventeen, but this isn't how to do it.
In a related vein, I was extremely pleased to see that Liboiron didn't fall into the fallacy of the unified enemy (130), whereby all the leftist boogeymen ("patriarchy," "racism," etc.) are some evil huge unified enemies which are indestructible (and thus require a panicked revolution to combat); instead they had a much more nuanced and relaxed approach (which brings up the truth of "slower is faster"). Lastly, I found Liboiron's warning very helpful: "The problem...is that we can never really remove the tools from their underlying beliefs" (135); in other words, any technology (whether that be physical, such as a smartphone, or metaphysical, such as a religion or political ideology) carries with it myriad assumptions about the world and our place in it. For example, a smartphone carries with it the assumption that multitasking and convenience are good, and thus that using one item for one task or taking extra steps are bad. I'll let you be the judge if those are good assumptions. Similarly, religions assume that there is something nonphysical and/or spiritual that must be accounted for, and those who attempt to jettison this technology do so at their own peril.
I do hope that I didn't treat this book "as a resource" (p. 156) per the author's reasonable request, and I'd challenge you dear reader to not treat my review merely as a resource. Makes things feel different, doesn't it? I think it's good to sometimes get knocked out of those ruts, those comfortable ways of interacting with the world and with various technologies; not all the time, of course, that would be too much chaos to survive, but at the very least let's shake things up a lil bit. Ok bye.
February 2, 2023
This was a dense read that I didn’t agree with many times, but that challenged my thought processes and inspired me to seek further challenges to those thoughts. This is why I think it’s a 4star book. The idea of avoiding “extractive reading” and the concept of doing fully anti colonial science (including the use of NO hazardous chemicals) is almost entirely counter to what I do every single day lol. I think that what the CLEAR lab does is so interesting and noble, and even if I could never do science the way that they do, I can always take steps in that direction. I will say that max’s tone is kind of condescending and exclusionary at times which can be alienating, but I choose to walk away thinking yes, sometimes I will do bad things. I will never do work as conscientiously as CLEAR because I work in a colonial country at a colonial university and literally can’t answer my research questions without chemicals. BUT I can incorporate as many parts of anti colonial research practices as possible.
I’ll think about this one for a while.
I’ll think about this one for a while.
Read
January 26, 2023a completely new perspective on pollution, and colonialism. took me by surprise because I started reading this book because I thought I knew what the author might have to say. but it was fresh and insightful. and given the same reasons, i found it overwhelming even though Max Liboiron writes with clarity and precision (and humour!). definitely a book that requires reading and rereading.
November 8, 2022
Intended for researchers and academics, but written to be accessible and even entertaining for laypeople like myself. I think I’ll read this again in its physical format since I missed out on the footnotes in the audiobook version.
Read
August 14, 2025this book is so important and one I hope that, as much as possible, sticks to my memory or at very least materializes itself in the finer details of my discourse, my practice, my values, my sensitivity, my criticality. the footnote flora in this book inspired me while writing my senior thesis, the DETERMINATION and stubbornness!!! of Liboiron is one that I look up to and hope to replicate (relatively) one day.
I have highlighted perhaps every other page.
in general, this book had me questioning the difference between Land and land, made me understand the precise claims of different kinds of Sciences. what decolonial science or practice is and why most of us aren't practicing it. it had me re understanding how and why we define pollution in metrics, graphs, theory. threshold theories and S graphs. about doing good research. about relationships and obligations and violence.
and language. how important our language is but also not at all.
about process.
I have highlighted perhaps every other page.
in general, this book had me questioning the difference between Land and land, made me understand the precise claims of different kinds of Sciences. what decolonial science or practice is and why most of us aren't practicing it. it had me re understanding how and why we define pollution in metrics, graphs, theory. threshold theories and S graphs. about doing good research. about relationships and obligations and violence.
and language. how important our language is but also not at all.
about process.
December 7, 2022
Really fantastic and thought-provoking. More about how to do science differently than I was expecting from the title, rather than finger-pointing at institutions. Written in an engaging and conversational way with amazing and at times hilarious footnotes, but deeply thought- and felt-out as well as well-researched.
January 6, 2024
Funny and fantastic. Essential reading for anyone using science or plastic, or breathing air, or standing on L/land - so all of us! A real life changing book for me ! I’ve already dropped it in the bath and hope to be nourish by it and be changed by it for years to come !
April 30, 2022
Incredible.
It took me months to read because it's so rich. I could only read a few pages at a time before coming to an idea that delighted or challenged me or both, and then I would need to put the book down and digest for a while.
And the footnotes! My god, the footnotes! Half the book is in the footnotes and I am HERE for it!
I don't have anything helpful or constructive to say about this book other than Max Liboiron is my new academic hero.
It took me months to read because it's so rich. I could only read a few pages at a time before coming to an idea that delighted or challenged me or both, and then I would need to put the book down and digest for a while.
And the footnotes! My god, the footnotes! Half the book is in the footnotes and I am HERE for it!
I don't have anything helpful or constructive to say about this book other than Max Liboiron is my new academic hero.
September 12, 2022
4.75/5
November 23, 2023
This book begins with two engineers in the 1950s, Earl Phelps and H. W. Streeter's threshold model of prediction on how much toxicity a river could take before it could no longer purify itself, drawing a clear line between contamination and pollution through a too-neat sigmoid curve. Liboiron asks: what does it mean for one to assume entitlement to Land as a sink, to Land as an assimilative space for pollution (p. 5)?
Elsewhere, a parallel story unfolds. This book also begins in Newfoundland, with the collection of fish guts by CLEAR (Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Reach). Specifically, cod guts at the docks, discarded by fishers. These specificities matter - the story behind CLEAR and their research unfolds across the three chapters. CLEAR itself has stopped using toxic chemicals in processing samples (p. 16), something that seems jarring or excessive, something unheard of. It feels almost incommensurable to what the goals of a western science lab might be. Liboiron themself acknowledges this, that the "restriction includes not using KOH, which in turn limits our ability to study bivalves, crustaceans, and other invertebrates for plastic ingestion since you need KOH to dissolve their shells" (p. 135), and yet one leaves the book fully convinced that picking through the guts of cods with a fine-mesh sieve is the thing that makes the most sense in the world.
What does it mean to embody, or try to embody, good relations in scientific practice? What might it look like, in the case of CLEAR?
Liboiron addresses this incommensurability, when one is pulled in different directions in different obligations, examples of which they cite include doing anticolonialism within dominant science, or diversity work in a racist institution. And yet, it is this ethics of incommensurability, of "working with and through" (p. 137) these different obligations and ways of seeing that morality, and a path to a non-colonial, Indigenous future lies.
This book has made me think a lot about what praxis means and how practice can look like, and the problem of appropriation: of knowledges, of Indigenous knowledges and methods. And it offers no solutions -- all solutions must be place-based, and specific to the locality and community you are enmeshed in. Something else I find myself returning to again and again is Liboiron on refusal in ethnography, on how
One of the crucial aspects of community peer review is that, like consensual sex, refusal can be indicated by something other than a clear “no.” We have watched our colleagues’ informants welcome them into their communities, feed them, give them places to stay, and then refuse at every other stage of the research by not showing up to interviews, coming late, saying questions or tasks are too complex, saying they don’t know the answer to obvious questions, or telling researchers they should talk to so-and-so, who is unavailable because they are on the Land for the next three months, the local sell-out, or dead. (p. 143)
Much needed.
Elsewhere, a parallel story unfolds. This book also begins in Newfoundland, with the collection of fish guts by CLEAR (Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Reach). Specifically, cod guts at the docks, discarded by fishers. These specificities matter - the story behind CLEAR and their research unfolds across the three chapters. CLEAR itself has stopped using toxic chemicals in processing samples (p. 16), something that seems jarring or excessive, something unheard of. It feels almost incommensurable to what the goals of a western science lab might be. Liboiron themself acknowledges this, that the "restriction includes not using KOH, which in turn limits our ability to study bivalves, crustaceans, and other invertebrates for plastic ingestion since you need KOH to dissolve their shells" (p. 135), and yet one leaves the book fully convinced that picking through the guts of cods with a fine-mesh sieve is the thing that makes the most sense in the world.
What does it mean to embody, or try to embody, good relations in scientific practice? What might it look like, in the case of CLEAR?
Liboiron addresses this incommensurability, when one is pulled in different directions in different obligations, examples of which they cite include doing anticolonialism within dominant science, or diversity work in a racist institution. And yet, it is this ethics of incommensurability, of "working with and through" (p. 137) these different obligations and ways of seeing that morality, and a path to a non-colonial, Indigenous future lies.
This book has made me think a lot about what praxis means and how practice can look like, and the problem of appropriation: of knowledges, of Indigenous knowledges and methods. And it offers no solutions -- all solutions must be place-based, and specific to the locality and community you are enmeshed in. Something else I find myself returning to again and again is Liboiron on refusal in ethnography, on how
One of the crucial aspects of community peer review is that, like consensual sex, refusal can be indicated by something other than a clear “no.” We have watched our colleagues’ informants welcome them into their communities, feed them, give them places to stay, and then refuse at every other stage of the research by not showing up to interviews, coming late, saying questions or tasks are too complex, saying they don’t know the answer to obvious questions, or telling researchers they should talk to so-and-so, who is unavailable because they are on the Land for the next three months, the local sell-out, or dead. (p. 143)
Much needed.
October 23, 2025
This was a good book. I struggled with it some, as much of the science differs from my own and anti colonial methodologies are all new to me. It's quite short, but the footnotes and bibliography are wonderful. I collected several books for my TBR. I enjoyed the author's narrative style, but I found that I needed to research/skim other work (with the helpful footnotes) in order to follow in some sections.
The book, while written for both a western and an indigenous audience, seemed more accessible/relevant for the latter. I found the built-in sensitivity training helpful, correcting some of the biases and perspectives I held before reading. The sampling conversation and alternative approaches to science I found the most interesting/relevant to my own work, and I picked up other tools (e.g., labeling relationality in text to foreground it) which will be helpful.
This book is much less accessible compared to Braiding Sweetgrass, and that is the intent. I do not think it was written for me, but I appreciated the attempts to write sections with readers like me in mind. I may recommend this to others, but it will not be on my frequent flyer program.
The book, while written for both a western and an indigenous audience, seemed more accessible/relevant for the latter. I found the built-in sensitivity training helpful, correcting some of the biases and perspectives I held before reading. The sampling conversation and alternative approaches to science I found the most interesting/relevant to my own work, and I picked up other tools (e.g., labeling relationality in text to foreground it) which will be helpful.
This book is much less accessible compared to Braiding Sweetgrass, and that is the intent. I do not think it was written for me, but I appreciated the attempts to write sections with readers like me in mind. I may recommend this to others, but it will not be on my frequent flyer program.
January 25, 2023
I am going to start recommending this book to anyone I think would be even remotely interested. Liboiron offers so much. This book is not just about the subject matter that is described in the book synopses. There are also threads of conversations happening in the footnotes, which are written in ways that emphasize community, humour, and the personal in ways that felt so startling to read because of how opposite it is compared to everything academia teaches about citing and engaging with existing discourses. Liboiron's text is a conversation that the reader becomes a witness to.
Read
October 4, 2024Really wishing I had more time to spend with this one (seems to be a trend with the readings for this class). This book really impressed me. While it is still really dense, like most academic texts, it’s also so incredibly self-aware. SO much thought has gone into every ounce of this text: the nuance of the argument, the footnotes, its general tone. While it was still operating within an understanding of western academia, it also existed to contradict that. Definitely hope to come back to this one.
Note to self/fans (hi mom <3): still undecided about how I want to rate books I read for class. Feels kind of wrong to drop a full rating on a book I have to speed read in a week, so I’m kinda thinking that I should leave no rating unless it feels like I’ve been able to give it sufficient attention
Note to self/fans (hi mom <3): still undecided about how I want to rate books I read for class. Feels kind of wrong to drop a full rating on a book I have to speed read in a week, so I’m kinda thinking that I should leave no rating unless it feels like I’ve been able to give it sufficient attention
May 9, 2025
this is often said about certain books, but I genuinely mean it when I say that this is groundbreaking work.
an absolutely flawless take on colonialism, land relations, science, and environmental pollution- down to the author’s ongoing side conversations with the reader in the footnotes.
max liboiron will make you question and rethink everything you’ve previously known to be true. a syllabus must-have and a recommendation for all!
an absolutely flawless take on colonialism, land relations, science, and environmental pollution- down to the author’s ongoing side conversations with the reader in the footnotes.
max liboiron will make you question and rethink everything you’ve previously known to be true. a syllabus must-have and a recommendation for all!
December 13, 2021
Max Liboiron is so much smarter than me and I was very confused for most of this and felt like I couldn’t engage as closely with it as I wanted and as they wanted me to, but it’s downloaded on my computer (thanks Purdue libraries!), so hopefully I can revisit it over break and with less deadlines in my way.
July 23, 2024
no es por ser dramática pero este libro probablemente va a cambiar mi vida. que manera tan bonita de hacer ciencia.
February 17, 2025
I don’t think Liboiron would want me to give this 5–let’s be incommensurate and go 4.5.
July 26, 2024
Read this book. This will stay with me for the rest of my life. Holy shit. Read it.
February 16, 2025
Very strong theoretical framework, but methods like CLEAR’s peer-review feel greatly insufficient to address the relations Liboiron describes. Would definitely recommend Braiding Sweetgrass and some Haraway as concurrent reading. Read the footnotes as you go, the are necessary.
February 4, 2024
I found this book an interesting, and in some places enlightening read, but largely I thought it was simplifying and essentializing in ways that Libirion never meant it to be. There was a lot I thought about the book, below are just a couple of notes I have hastily pulled together.
I wonder reading Pollution is Colonialism whether I am indigenous or a settler. While I am being slightly facetious the duality of these two categories is deeply embedded in place and context, as Libirion argues. This is not in itself problematic but I think the failure to delve deeper into what these labels mean reduce their utility in communicating Libirion’s important messages, and they are there throughout the book. I think an example of this would be the poorly defined and unpacked conception of the settler which is specific to settler colonial societies but lacks a nuance in the description of how certain groups came to be settlers, and as such who these groups are. For example, the Irish population of Newfoundland and Labrador’s ancestors are likely to have been people whose ancestors could claim to have been settled and displaced themselves. In a related sense Libirion argues that pollution is not always colonialism, but this is not very effectively fleshed out in the text (it may have been in the numerous and long footnotes). I would say that there are many places where pollution is capitalism when the colonial relationship doesn’t apply, for example in the UK. Of course, in this context pollution can also be colonialism in exporting waste and pollution, but unless land enclosure within the UK is defined as colonialism (which I am not opposed to) then this boundary needs to be better worked out. For example, in relation to who is being colonised, whether colonialism operates on class lines as well as racial/ethnic.
By labelling every person mentioned in the book I think Libirion renders them flat, creating a largely two way binary, with the exception of some diasporic identities. I struggle to believe this indigenous versus settler in the environment conceptualisation. I think it risks over-attributing to indigenous people a set of land and environmental relations, as such homogenizing and essentializing a wide range of environmental thought, experience and practice, and defining them in opposition and in conflict with a broadly constituted settler. This oppositional nature of the indigenous-settler relationship I think has some generalizability, but I am left deeply unconvinced by Libirion’s attempt at it, instead I think it reaffirms the relationship that anti-colonialism should seek to break down.
I think that centring the relationship on colonialism, rather than capitalism, has some issues. I think the separation of capitalism from colonialism as done by Libirion, while they recognise that the two are intimately related, isn’t so useful. I agree that ideas outside of capitalism also colonise, eg. Soviet and Chinese communism, but I think these exist within a similar paradigm to capitalism and colonialism sitting within a broader modernist ideology that sits at the root of a lot of these issues.
The books tone is quite a large problem for me, it is often smug and condescending. I think Libirion would probably argue that it is not a book for me or people like me, a white British ‘colonist’ (?). The book at times seems designed for a wide audience such as when Libirion writes about a particularly famous image of an albatorss that has eaten plastic, ‘It misses the wider relations, the Land relations, of albatross and plastics, and turns them into a Resource for shock, awe, and charismatic academic presentations. Please, stop. Thank you.’ P.106 but at other times has an air of ‘if you don’t like this book it’s not for you and you fail as an anti-colonist’ which seems unfair. The ‘please stop, thank you’ asides seem to me unprofessional and slightly arrogant, centering Libirion as the judge, jury and executioner of appropriate knowledge, and knowledge-use (A role I recognise has traditionally and continues to largely be held by those Libirion describes as ‘settlers’). I think this inversion is counterproductive and takes away from the pluralism that is asked for elsewhere in the text.
The footnoting is an issue, and my brief forays into the footnotes leave me with the sense that a large part of the rhetoric and argument of the book is within the footnotes. This makes it unwieldy to read despite it’s short length. Footnoting has a general problem of making it particularly hard for people with dyslexia, like myself, to build momentum in a book as it is difficult to follow the page lines, and serves to dissect arguments with more arguments. I normally have some patience for footnotes, but the sheer intensity of them in this book is slightly ridiculous.
I wonder reading Pollution is Colonialism whether I am indigenous or a settler. While I am being slightly facetious the duality of these two categories is deeply embedded in place and context, as Libirion argues. This is not in itself problematic but I think the failure to delve deeper into what these labels mean reduce their utility in communicating Libirion’s important messages, and they are there throughout the book. I think an example of this would be the poorly defined and unpacked conception of the settler which is specific to settler colonial societies but lacks a nuance in the description of how certain groups came to be settlers, and as such who these groups are. For example, the Irish population of Newfoundland and Labrador’s ancestors are likely to have been people whose ancestors could claim to have been settled and displaced themselves. In a related sense Libirion argues that pollution is not always colonialism, but this is not very effectively fleshed out in the text (it may have been in the numerous and long footnotes). I would say that there are many places where pollution is capitalism when the colonial relationship doesn’t apply, for example in the UK. Of course, in this context pollution can also be colonialism in exporting waste and pollution, but unless land enclosure within the UK is defined as colonialism (which I am not opposed to) then this boundary needs to be better worked out. For example, in relation to who is being colonised, whether colonialism operates on class lines as well as racial/ethnic.
By labelling every person mentioned in the book I think Libirion renders them flat, creating a largely two way binary, with the exception of some diasporic identities. I struggle to believe this indigenous versus settler in the environment conceptualisation. I think it risks over-attributing to indigenous people a set of land and environmental relations, as such homogenizing and essentializing a wide range of environmental thought, experience and practice, and defining them in opposition and in conflict with a broadly constituted settler. This oppositional nature of the indigenous-settler relationship I think has some generalizability, but I am left deeply unconvinced by Libirion’s attempt at it, instead I think it reaffirms the relationship that anti-colonialism should seek to break down.
I think that centring the relationship on colonialism, rather than capitalism, has some issues. I think the separation of capitalism from colonialism as done by Libirion, while they recognise that the two are intimately related, isn’t so useful. I agree that ideas outside of capitalism also colonise, eg. Soviet and Chinese communism, but I think these exist within a similar paradigm to capitalism and colonialism sitting within a broader modernist ideology that sits at the root of a lot of these issues.
The books tone is quite a large problem for me, it is often smug and condescending. I think Libirion would probably argue that it is not a book for me or people like me, a white British ‘colonist’ (?). The book at times seems designed for a wide audience such as when Libirion writes about a particularly famous image of an albatorss that has eaten plastic, ‘It misses the wider relations, the Land relations, of albatross and plastics, and turns them into a Resource for shock, awe, and charismatic academic presentations. Please, stop. Thank you.’ P.106 but at other times has an air of ‘if you don’t like this book it’s not for you and you fail as an anti-colonist’ which seems unfair. The ‘please stop, thank you’ asides seem to me unprofessional and slightly arrogant, centering Libirion as the judge, jury and executioner of appropriate knowledge, and knowledge-use (A role I recognise has traditionally and continues to largely be held by those Libirion describes as ‘settlers’). I think this inversion is counterproductive and takes away from the pluralism that is asked for elsewhere in the text.
The footnoting is an issue, and my brief forays into the footnotes leave me with the sense that a large part of the rhetoric and argument of the book is within the footnotes. This makes it unwieldy to read despite it’s short length. Footnoting has a general problem of making it particularly hard for people with dyslexia, like myself, to build momentum in a book as it is difficult to follow the page lines, and serves to dissect arguments with more arguments. I normally have some patience for footnotes, but the sheer intensity of them in this book is slightly ridiculous.
May 31, 2021
This is short but dense, jam-packed with thought-provoking ideas. It's another in my string of non-fiction reads by experts in a field that are about so much more than their basic subjects. In this case, the author is a scientist who studies plastic pollution in the food chain, working out of a feminist, anti-colonial lab in Canada. It addresses what pollution is, how different materials pollute differently, and how pollution standards intended to protect the environment became guidelines about the amount allowed, thereby giving permission to continue polluting. So there's a ton of valuable reframing, which extends to the idea of community peer review for science, giving local people a chance to veto studies on their land; addressing the complexities of scientific and scholarly ethics; and dealing with the very concept of "resources." There's a lot of interest lately in what we can do next, what we can do instead, of the status quo, and that's really what this addresses. Highly recommended!
October 30, 2022
Incredible reimagining of what a healthy science can be and where our current science came from. Liboiron’s creative, local, and ethical methodologies, constantly grounded in respect, are an antidote to a “dominant” science that serves (and is?) harmful colonial interests. The book was deeply academic and technical at times and yet approachable and casual in voice and tone. Some of the topics of discussion include a critique of the apparent decolonizing of academia, a critique of the increasingly fast and loose usage of “kin,” a reminder of the importance of addressing problems at their proper scales, and a questioning of the notion of a “lowest acceptable pollutant level.” I can’t recommend this enough to anyone interested in environmentalism, native rights, research methods, capitalism, or a general interest in a better world.
January 25, 2024
This rating doesn't really mean anything.
I learned some interesting things, and several other things went over my head.
I read this to challenge myself with non fiction and topics I'm not super familiar with.
I really appreciated how the author reflect a lot on the Land and how different areas have different practices and how they could adjust their scientific testing accordingly.
I learned some interesting things, and several other things went over my head.
I read this to challenge myself with non fiction and topics I'm not super familiar with.
I really appreciated how the author reflect a lot on the Land and how different areas have different practices and how they could adjust their scientific testing accordingly.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews