Genitourinary Systems Entangled with Shifting Environments in a Salvadoran Subsistence Farming Community

Failing kidneys: Hotspots, blind spots and biopolitics of indifference

Chronic kidney disease of non-traditional cause (CKDnt) is commonly associated with monocropping agriculture, heat stress and impoverished working conditions, referred to as CKDnt "hotspots." The condition is also emerging in various sites of environmental contamination, raising questions as to whether multiple variants of the condition exist as a result of different ecologies and different human-environment interactions. This paper examines the emergence of CKDnt around Lake Chapala in Mexico, where we document local efforts to gain recognition and reparation for CKDnt. We follow the ways patients, families and activists have mobilized specific and interlocking infrastructural failures to enact complaint and confront state inaction and neglect of their bodies, communities, and environments. Though their labors have formally achieved little, we discuss how they make visible a biopolitics of indifference, one bound to the production of structural "blindspots."

Characterization of Lifetime Agrichemical Exposure Sequences Relative to International Migration in Foreign Born Latinx Agricultural Workers Living in South Florida

There is a limited understanding of how toxic exposures to agrichemicals vary relative to international migration over the life course. A life history calendar (LHC) was piloted to explore sequences of agrichemical exposure relative to international migration. LHCs were administered to 41 foreign born individuals from Mexico and Central America who had agricultural work experience during their lifetime and who were living in South Florida. Social sequence analysis was used to explore occupation-by-agrichemical events relative to migration. A three-cluster solution was used to classify low, moderate, and high lifetime exposure sequences. The odds of any perceived effects of agrichemicals on the body increased with time prior to migration in the moderate and high exposure sequence clusters and continued to increase 20% with each year following migration in the moderate exposure cluster. Workers with high lifetime agrichemical exposures prior to migrating internationally showed lower likelihoods of a perceived effect on the body following migration despite continued exposure. Further research on instrument validity is warranted.