Ludwig Fleck Book Prize Committee Report 2020
The Fleck Committee received 81 books and shortlisted 10 works for this year’s prize, from which the 2020 Fleck Prize was awarded to Noémi Tousignant for her book Edges of Exposure: Toxicology and the Problem of Capacity in Postcolonial Senegal (Duke University Press 2018).
From the Prize citation:
Edges of Exposure was selected for its careful, unique ethnographic exploration of the sites, material histories and inequalities in the testing and management of toxic exposure and risk in Senegal. An inheritor of the works of Rachel Carson, Gabrielle Hecht and Rob Nixon, the study explores how the postwar development of pollution science has played out in one African country, from the decolonial era in the 1960s, through the eras of Structural Adjustment, health philanthropy and contract science, examining how toxicology, as a global health science, has been only partly capacitated.
Edges of Exposure asks why and how the situation has arisen in which toxicology is not able to offer protection, drawing attention to what Tousignant calls “unprotection”.
Fleck Committee members are in accord with Carson Committee that “the volume of books to review has become unmanageable” and that in future “nominations must be made by a 4s member and not by book presses.” Significantly, the number of books nominated for the 2021 prize has reduced.
Better distinguishing between the two prizes is important, as the Carson Committee report has noted, since books are often submitted for both. This warrants further discussion by Council.
The 2020 Fleck Prize Committee was Lesley Green (chair), Maka Suarez, Noortje Marres and Gloria Baigorrotegui.
Published: 08/06/2020
