<em>Everyday Exposure</em> provides a thorough analysis of the lack of health and environmental protections for First Nations peoples at all levels of government and identifies the need for government regulation to redress what have become complex reporting practices, a better understanding of cumulative environmental effects, and improved health services being administered by Health Canada. - Nadine Hoffman, Natural Resources, Bennett Jones Library, University of Calgary (Canadian Law Library Review (volume 43 No. 3)) Based on extensive time spent in the community learning directly from Aamjiwnaang's citizens and experiencing the community's pollution crisis in an embodied and empathetic way, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the legacies of environmental racism in Canada today. - Warren Cariou is an associate professor of English at the University of Manitoba (Canadian Literature Volume 235, Concepts of Vancouver Special Issue)
Near the Ontario-Michigan border, Canada's densest concentration of chemical manufacturing surrounds the Aamjiwnaang First Nation. Living in the polluted heart of Chemical Valley, Indigenous community members express concern about a declining rate of male births in addition to abnormal incidences of miscarriage, asthma, cancer, and cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses.
As this book reveals, Canada's dark legacy of inflicting harm on Indigenous bodies persists through a system that fails to adequately address health and ecological suffering in First Nations' communities like Aamjiwnaang.
Everyday Exposure uncovers the systemic injustices faced on a daily basis in Aamjiwnaang. Exploring the problems that Canada's conflicting levels of jurisdiction pose for the creation of environmental justice policy, analyzing clashes between Indigenous and scientific knowledge, and documenting the experiences of Aamjiwnaang residents as they navigate their toxic environment, this book argues that social and political changes require an experiential and transformative "sensing policy" approach, one that takes the voices of Indigenous citizens seriously.
Foreword: A Canadian Tragedy / James Tully
Preface
Photo Essay #1: Atmosphere
1 Skeletons in the Closet: Citizen Wounding and the Biopolitics of Injustice
2 Sensing Policy: An Affective Framework of Analysis
3 State Nerves: The Many Layers of Indigenous Environmental Justice
Photo Essay #2: Life
4 Home Is Where the Heart Is: Lived Experience in Aamjiwnaang
5 Digesting Space: The Geopolitics of Everyday Life
6 Seeking Reproductive Justice: Situated Bodies of Knowledge
7 Shelter-in-Place? Immune No More and Idle No More
Photo Essay #3: Resurgence
Appendices
Notes; References; Index