Thread by @ashleygjovik

🧵 Luke Munn, "Chip, body, earth: Toxic temporalities of Intel processor production" (2020)

"The worker’s body becomes a vessel of labour-power to be exhausted, poisoned, & then dispensed with; land & water become an industrial resource to be depleted, contaminated & discarded."

They "used TCE & benzene in production & degreasing of processor chips. Working intimately w/ the chemicals workers internalized burns & bleaching w/ long-term injuries to organs. Chemicals seeped into the earth below factories. Processor production enfolds chip, body & earth."

"In close quarters, day after day, gases infused into organs, solvents seeped into tissues, toxins accumulated in bloodstreams. The slow-motion destruction of bodies: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, headaches, chest pains, aggressive menstrual cycles, miscarriages, & cancer."

"The toxicity of semiconductor manufacturer took years to leak out into the public consciousness. But this is unsurprising given that these messy bodily by-products had been sealed into bodies that management seemingly deemed dispensable and docile."
researchgate.net/publication/36…

"Chip fab was made possible by a lineage of bodies that silently took its toxicity into themselves. The waste of manufacture was sealed from the chip, & into the body, causing it to waste away. The pristine clean room & the acquiescent, internally ravaged body go hand in hand."

"For those ex-employees with breathing issues, burnt skin, & permanent reproductive problems - the job is over & the work long since completed, but the damage remains tangibly & painfully in the present. In other words, time of production was permanently inscribed into the body."

"...Working intimately with toxic chemicals, semiconductor production workers internalised burns and bleaching as well as long-term injuries to organs. At the same time, these chemicals seeped into the earth below production facilities, contaminating the soil and water tables..."

The semiconductor "production conditions put chemicals and bodies alongside each other. In close quarters, day after day, gases infused into organs, solvents seeped into tissues, toxins accumulated in bloodstreams. The result was the slow-motion destruction of bodies..."

"...For those ex-employees with breathing issues, burnt skin, permanent reproductive problems...the time of production's permanently inscribed into the body...The debilitation, disease, or cancer are often a latency embedded in the labourer, a time lag triggered years later..."