Anna Lora-Wainwright's Resigned Activism offers an intimate portrayal of life in polluted rural China in order to discover why people put up with such toxic living conditions. Is it because they do not know that they are being poisoned? Is it because they do not care? Lora-Wainwright visits three highly polluted villages located in different parts of China to answer this question: Baocun village in Yunnan (industrial pollution), Qiancun in Hunan (mining), and Guiyu in Guangdong (e-waste). Her conclusion is a resounding “no” to both questions: villagers do know they are being poisoned, and they do care. This brings the reader back to the original challenge. Why do they put up with such toxic living conditions? As one might expect, the answer is complex.
After an introductory chapter that helps ground the reader in the literature about environmental health, the second chapter uses data from one of Lora-Wainwright's collaborators, Chen...
