Bodies, toxins, and e-waste labour interventions in ghana: Toward a toxic postcolonial corporality?

Abstract

This article explores the lived experience of electronic waste (e-waste) workers in Agbogbloshie, a primary e-waste recycling center and scrap metal market in Accra, Ghana, that has been described by international environmental organizations as one of the most polluted places on Earth. To formulate a more critical and contextual understanding of the lives of these e-waste workers and their embodied toxic experience, the article introduces the concept of “toxic postcolonial corporality”, a term deployed to navigate and confront the contentious intersection of bodies, toxins, and “green” recycling interventions in a postcolonial urban scrapyard. After introducing the social, economic, and toxic dimensions of Agbogbloshie, I discuss the problems and politics of permeability in general and the precarious boundaries of bodies, environments, and risk mitigation practices in a postcolonial context in particular. It will be argued that the notion of toxic postcolonial corporality offers a possible critical environmental health perspective that can inform anthropological engagements with the embedded lives navigating the permeable and intersecting worlds of pollution, postcolonization, and decontamination.