The Silica Trails

This article analyses the relationship between industrial infrastructures and chronic processes of illness. In order to do this, it is proposed to follow a mineral used as a raw material in various sectors of industry: silica. In Brazil, this mineral, which is extracted from the ground (mainly for exportation), is considered the main cause of pneumoconiosis - chronic respiratory diseases caused by inhalation of harmful substances. Through mapping the traces of silica from soil to lungs, the article seeks to (1) make visible how these slow and chronic processes of illness are direct and predictable effects of exposure to industrial dust generated in the construction, maintenance and operation of industrial infrastructures and, (2) demonstrate how these processes are deeply entwined with inequality and colonial logics. In addressing the relationship between extractive practices, industrial dust, and chronic illness processes, the article argues that toxicity operates as a slow and chronic mechanism of violence that produces shortness of breath and compromises futures, but also that industrial infrastructures are machines for the proliferation of inequalities —not only from the perspective of global power geopolitics (Global South and Global North) but also in perpetuating the structural inequalities that marks Brazil.