Moldy homes: Toxicity, race, and the geographies of domestic mold

TY - JOUR

T1 - Moldy homes: Toxicity, race, and the geographies of domestic mold

AU - Shurety, Elara

PY - 2024/12/24

Y1 - 2024/12/24

N2 - Situating household mold within a growing body of critical geography concerned with toxicity and exposures, this paper interrogates the racial logics and temporal dynamics of “toxic” mold. Responding to heightened public interest and governmental intervention in mold in the United Kingdom in recent years, this paper addresses the underexamination of mold in both housing and toxic geography scholarship. The “contemporary mold crisis” is located against a longer international history of toxic mold exposure, revealing toxicity as a multivalent designation through which certain homes, spaces, and bodies are rendered as toxic more readily than others. This paper argues that attuning closely to the materialities of dwelling conditions can produce generative and highly precise work through which one can attain a better understanding of modalities of violence and harm in a housing context. In parallel, it demonstrates the political value of attending to a “mundane” and “banal” toxin such as mold in geography.

AB - Situating household mold within a growing body of critical geography concerned with toxicity and exposures, this paper interrogates the racial logics and temporal dynamics of “toxic” mold. Responding to heightened public interest and governmental intervention in mold in the United Kingdom in recent years, this paper addresses the underexamination of mold in both housing and toxic geography scholarship. The “contemporary mold crisis” is located against a longer international history of toxic mold exposure, revealing toxicity as a multivalent designation through which certain homes, spaces, and bodies are rendered as toxic more readily than others. This paper argues that attuning closely to the materialities of dwelling conditions can produce generative and highly precise work through which one can attain a better understanding of modalities of violence and harm in a housing context. In parallel, it demonstrates the political value of attending to a “mundane” and “banal” toxin such as mold in geography.

KW - housing

KW - toxicity

KW - mould

KW - violence

KW - temporality

KW - race

U2 - 10.1177/27539687241307956

DO - 10.1177/27539687241307956

M3 - Article

SN - 2753-9687

JO - Progress in Environmental Geography

JF - Progress in Environmental Geography

ER -