ABSTRACT
Children take me walking in their neighborhood in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. In my diary after the walk I write: The children recognize the fragility and porosity of human and non-human life and its link to the contaminated earth. Children speak often of the dust, dirt, thick uneasy air, toxic radiation—the way it infiltrates everything. To attend to, attune to, and be affected by the uneasy childearth encounters in the streets of Semipalatinsk is to recognize the porosity of matter, past radiation, and catastrophic encounters that have been and continue to be the monsters of our contaminated toxic world.
