| Abstract: | Located in Ecuador's southern Amazonia, the Condor Mountain Range is the home of the Shuar people, who have been living for the last three decades amid increasing colonization and expanding mineral extraction. In these mined lands, gold is constantly brought into being through chemical manipulations. After state authorities declared the valleys a zone of environmental destruction, these chemical compounds in soils, waters and bodies have been widely documented. The Shuar villagers are concerned with the evident destructive effects of cyanide on aquatic life. However, the invisible hazardous effects of mercury and manganese, the evidence of which can be sensed neither in fish's flesh nor on their bodies, remain unsettled. This article explores how toxic chemicals are made perceptible or imperceptible. Toxicological and biomedical knowledge practices produce (im)perceptibility through chains of associations and disassociations. Such practice intertwines with colonization projects that ignore the importance of fish and fishing to the Shuar. |
