Chemical Agents

This article reviews interdisciplinary toxicity literature, building from Gerald E. Markowitz and David Rosner’s “deceit denial” Phil Brown’s “contested illnesses” to argue for a third, more critical analytic that I term “empire empirics.” Deceit denial pit corporate actors against antitoxins advocates, while contested illnesses highlight social movements. Empire empirics center the role of imperialism in reproducing today’s unevenly distributed toxic exposures. find this third path most generative because products production science—toxicants toxicology—are situated their sociohistorical, politico-economic, ecological, affective contexts. Revealing imperialist logics embedded into dominant ontoepistemology also illuminates alternative, liberatory pathways toward environmentally just futures. close with examples “undisciplined” action research, highlighting scholar-practitioners who study care nonhierarchical collaboration. While undisciplining is challenging, its potential realizing environmental justice far outweighs difficulties doing science differently.