Work

Negotiating the “Sins of the Past”: PFAS-Exposures and Reproduction in the Danish Commonwealth

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Kalaallit Nunaat, The Faroes, and Denmark have the highest levels of Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS)-pollution in the world. However, the ways in which these “forever chemicals” come to matter across the three geographical contexts, connected by a colonial past and present, vary significantly. This article explores how colonial relations become entangled with chemical pollution and endocrine disruption in recent scandals concerning PFAS. We ask: whose reproduction appears to be under threat from PFAS-pollution? And how does the health of Danish Commonwealth babies come to matter differently? Based on an archive of scientific, parliamentary, and popular scientific debates in Kalaallit Nunaat, The Faroes, and Denmark, we discuss how toxicity becomes, in the case of Kalaallit Nunaat and The Faroes, animated through iconic nonhuman animals (such as polar bears and whales) and Kalaallit hunters, while it, in the case of Denmark, emerges as an alarm related to the pollution of white maternal bodies and images of vulnerable white children. The article brings new insights into the ways that toxins create reproductive trouble and emerge in Danish colonial and racialized relations.

Source: NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research

DOI: 10.1080/08038740.2025.2488504

Authors: Charlotte Halmø Kroløkke, Anne Nørkjær Bang

Institution: University of Southern Denmark

Language: English

Topic: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances research

Subfield: Environmental Chemistry

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: Velux Fonden