Accretion as a Way to Understand Residues in Spaciality

• In Event: Residues: Rethinking Chemical Environments - II

Abstract

In this communication introduces the notion of accretion to deal with residue as matter out of place. Residues pile up and slip away, leaving trails or accumulating as deposits multiply across the environment. Attention to the accretive properties of residues draws us to processes of accumulation as residues travel and to the transformations that can occur along the way. Based on three examples, we suggest a range of different accretive dynamics and spatial patterns. We begin with a plot of urban land once used as a gas station and then redeveloped into green space as part of an urban college campus. We consider what happens – or doesn’t happen – to displaced residues, over time, as property owners and land uses change. From local sites and land uses, we move next to global production and use of asbestos and its accumulation in buildings and construction sites, onto the clothes and into the bodies of construction workers and then, when work for the day ends, into their homes and the bodies of family members. As we chart this course, we see how a known hazard becomes invisible as it moves from domains of industrial production to domains of domestic consumption. Our third example follows rare earth minerals used in electronics and the massive environmental and health costs their use entails. The extraction, production, trade, and disposal of rare earths is a global activity that leaves toxic traces, especially in the major supplier, China, at every step. Accretion shows us how, literally and figuratively, residue covers ground.

Authors

• Soraya Boudia, University Paris Descartes

• Scott Frickel, Brown University

• Emmanuel Henry, Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL University