Biographical Disruption and Local Anti-Toxics Activism.

Medical sociologists have long studied the sociological importance of critical junctures in people?s lives, specifically with respect to the onset and diagnosis of chronic illness. The work of Mike Bury (1982: 1991) and others on ?biographical disruption? can be extended to explore the personal and phenomenological turbulence recounted by local, anti-toxics activists. Biographical disruption suggests that certain events have the potential to unseat taken-for-granted assumptions, breach explanatory mechanisms used to understand the world, and finally demand new routines as a result of changed resources and physical circumstances. By drawing from this rich literature and applying it to retrospective interview data of local anti-toxics activism, this project looks at the complex effects on self, family and community that activism and social organization in response to toxics can have. This paper contributes to the growing body of work on the subjective experience of collective action especially around toxics, as well as emerging work on the role of emotions and narrative in social movement scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]