A dialogic approach to Toxic Disasters: Agent Orange in A Luoi Valley

espanolEn la decada de 2000, una consultora medioambiental canadiense llevo a cabo una investigacion cientifica que impulso una campana de salud publica en el valle A Luoi de Vietnam central. En ella se informaba a los habitantes —por vez primera— sobre los riesgos y danos asociados al defoliante quimico «agente naranja» y su dioxina toxica y contaminante rociada durante la Segunda Guerra Indochina (1961-1975). En este articulo, en lugar de poner el foco en la identidad politica formada a partir de esa informacion (aproximacion «biosocial»), exploro como los habitantes experimentan el riesgo ante la sustancia toxica en encuentros dialogicos con diferentes signos ambientales, asi como con interlocutores reales e imaginarios. EnglishIn the 2000s, a scientific research by a Canadian environmental consulting firm triggered a public health campaign in A Luoi Valley of Central Vietnam. It informed its inhabitants — for the first time — about the risks and harms associated with chemical defoliant “Agent Orange” and its toxic contaminant dioxin sprayed during the Second Indochina War (1961- 1975). In this article, instead of focusing on the political identity formed by such knowledge (“biosocial” approach), I explore how the risk of toxic substance is experienced by the inhabitants in dialogic encounters vis-a-vis various environmental signs as well as imaginary and real interlocutors.