Fluid Toxicities: Violent Affective Ecologies in Cartagena, Colombia

Abstract

Water is at the centre of climate change emergency concerns in coastal cities. It constitutes here a fluid entry point to investigating the socio-ecological politics of toxicities for residents dwelling with and against contaminated waters in Cartagena, Colombia's urban extensions. We propose the concept of ‘fluid toxicities’ to refer to the wateriness of toxic contamination in amphibious urban spaces marked by histories of harm linked to the city's colonial-racial formations. Drawing on ethnographic work, we argue the unrelenting flows of toxicities dilute historical trajectories of racialised dispossession, overlapping forms of violence and environmental degradation, shaping both embodied endurance, mundane relations of care and collective forms of contestation. We further introduce the concept of ‘violent affective ecologies’ to show how the violence of toxic environments is mediated through sensory, emotional and relational engagements with contaminated waters. Environmental futures are imagined through entanglements of racial ecologies and toxic ecologies.