we are all contaminated - Sistema de Bibliotecas de la Universidad ...

Figure 1. La Teja and Montevideo Poverty. The map shows La Teja in relation to
Montevideo and general poverty levels. Source: Observatorio Municipal (Intendencia
Municipal de Montevideo)
1.1 Research questions, methods, and reflexivity
In eighteen months of dissertation fieldwork from January 2004-June 2005, and November
2005 I investigated the social production, socio-political impacts and broad-based responses
to this lead contamination discovery. I was interested in exploring the conditions and
processes that made possible the presence, creation and collective recognition of the lead
problem. What was happening economically, politically and socially in turn of the
millennium Uruguay to facilitate these processes, from the entrenchment of neoliberal
policies, the rise of the center-left Frente Amplio coalition to national power and the
proliferation of newly circulating discourses and ideologies? How was the environment
opened as a space of political mobilization at the grassroots level, and how did social and
institutional actors adapt new and old laws, protocols and paradigms to address this newly
defined problem? I found the environmental health epidemic of lead poisoning, in addition to
presenting a tragic case of human suffering, to offer an interesting window through which to
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