Project objectives were formulated based on previous research and the incidental observation of significant articulations between concerns with ordinary toxic exposures emanating from products and infrastructures characteristic of industrialized life, namely those involving endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), and concerns with the long-term intake of synthetic hormones, namely the contraceptive pill. Without assuming that the current disenchantment with the contraceptive pill in France was due solely to this particular articulation, the researcher carried out fieldwork consisting in participant observation in public events where sexual and reproductive health, feminisms and different forms of environmentalism intersected, as well as in-depth interviews with key interlocutors. Eco-feminist events, self-help and auto-gynaecology groups turned out to be key spaces of inquiry, as they represented spaces of contestation of the dominant contraceptive model, in which hormones are deeply engrained from the constitution of the gynaecological profession to the doctor-patient relationship. Two major themes emerged as deeply relevant during the course of this project: The first one concerns the bodily and affective apprehension of everyday toxicity, which in this context is critically attuned to the effects of EDCs and contraceptive hormones. The second is an ontological exploration of hormones and hormone-like chemicals, from a social sciences perspective: taken as objects that do not stays in bodies but circulate into landscapes and other organisms, the boundaries of hormones as objects of inquiry blur, becoming difficult to identify clear-cut distinctions between hormones produced in the body, synthetic hormones, and hormone-like chemicals such as EDCs.
Finally, the third specific objective materialized in a documentary exploring the intersections between toxic chemicals, fertility and the future in what at first seems a somewhat unrelated context but that emerged as a recurrent theme and concern during fieldwork with young feminists: the toxicity of the landscapes they inhabit, and where their personal and political practices take place. The short documentary thus explores the fertility and toxicity of the deeply polluted soil in a brownfield in the Parisian periphery, and the possibility that this soil can sustain new life and projects in the future. Two additional specific objectives were explored in the making of the documentary and accompanying activities, the first one focusing on the possible avenues for transdisciplinary collaboration in anthropology, and the second one on the role of sound and film in anthropology.
This project has had a significant impact in the career of the researcher, who is engaged in various projects to pursue the exploration of issues having to with toxicity, the study of chemicals as ethnographic objects and the everyday apprehension of the environmental crisis. Project insights have and are being shared through articles (published, accepted and under review); book chapters (accepted and to be published during 2021 and 2022); a short documentary film and their screenings; three soundscapes hosted in a radio blog and disseminated as part of a collective residency festival; through the participation of the researcher in three different networks working from an anthropological and transdisciplinary perspective on hormones, hormone-like chemicals and their intersections with environmental and reproductive justice; through social media and a research page.
