Rouyn-Noranda citizens' experience of Glencore's Horne smelter operations

Between 2018 and 2020, the completion and publication of studies demonstrating the arsenic impregnation of citizens in the Notre-Dame district of Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec, shook the local population. Citizen mobilization developed, making national and international headlines and revealing a certain polarization between health values and economic interests. This paper presents the results of research carried out in the summer of 2023 as part of my Master's thesis, in which I explored the lived experience of fifteen citizens who considered themselves victims of industrial pollution. My research question was: “How is proximity to a polluting industry articulated in the lived experience of citizens?”. I will present the findings and recommendations put forward by the people I met, particularly with regard to the repercussions on their physical health or that of their loved ones, the constraints experienced and the perpetual stress, leading for some to a deterioration in their well-being and mental health. The need to be heard and listened to, to be considered and involved in decision-making concerning their health and the preservation of their territory are among the themes that will be presented; opening the way to a reflection on changes in practices in order to eliminate structural violence and the resulting social division.