Engaging with the World of Waste

Discarding is an increasingly morally charged act, a means through which people articulate an ethics of care as well as their ‘modern’ orientation. Yet, “they don’t care” is an often-made accusation against the garbage behavior of poor sections of the population and people in the Global South. We tend to blame the carelessness of others, though the ecological footprint of middle-class people in the Global North is much bigger and in spite of the fact that we co-produce much of the waste in the Global South.

This paper is based on anthropological fieldwork in Java. What counts for individuals there is not an abstract responsibility for nature but their immediate social environment. Therefore, the mobilisation of the local social and moral world is crucial when it comes to engagement with the waste problem. Bottom-up initiatives such as
community-based ‘waste banks’ and ‘recycle fashion’ street carnivals that address various social, economic, and emotional aspects of waste have proven efficient. They may stimulate us to reflect on local sociocultural entanglements of a planetary problem.

Zoom registration link: https://uni-bielefeld.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUrcOqgrTstG9dAwxx8BISGDgxA1BMt1BIx

Wann	24.11.2021 von 16:00 bis 18:00
Wo	Zoom
Termin übernehmen	vCal iCal