Living contamination: Indigenous monitoring and toxic politics in the Peruvian Amazon

This dissertation analyses how Indigenous communities in the northern Peruvian Amazon monitor oil spills and engage with regulatory science to render oil-related contamination legible. It explores the possibilities that this engagement and epistemic encounter might afford for Indigenous demands for accountability and repair, considering the complex dependencies generated by extractivism and contamination.

The analysis is informed by extended ethnographic research with Quechua, Kichwa, Achuar, and Kukama Indigenous federations, whose territories have been affected by five decades of oil extraction.