The Dirt
Discard studies is an emerging field that takes waste and wasting as its topic of study. To keep practitioners up-to-date, Discard Studies publishes The Dirt, a monthly compilation of recent publications, positions, opportunities, and calls for proposals in the field. Here is The Dirt for April 2019.
Recent Discard Studies Posts
- Queering chemicals (EDCs): A bibliography
- Climate Change Ain’t the First Existential Threat
- Mapping USA electronics manufacturing pollution
Publications (articles & books)
Note: If an article is behind a paywall, email the author. They are almost always authorized by copyright to distribute their own work.
- Baderoon, Gabeba. (2018). Surplus, excess, dirt: slavery and the production of disposability in South Africa. Social Dynamics, 44(2), 257-272.
- Behrsin, Ingrid. (2019). Rendering Renewable: Technoscience and the Political Economy of Waste-to-Energy Regulation in the European Union. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 1-17.
- Bragard, Véronique. (2018). Reclaiming the future:(In) visible dirt borders in Sammy Baloji’s mining photomontages. Social Dynamics, 44(2), 273-290.
- Brinkley, Catherine. (2019). Hardin’s imagined tragedy is pig shit: A call for planning to recenter the commons. Planning Theory, 1473095218820460.
- Day, Meagan. (2019). An Ode to Sanitation Workers. Jacobin 4/19.
- Davis, John-Michael, & Garb, Yaakov. Extended responsibility or continued dis/articulation? Critical perspectives on electronic waste policies from the Israeli-Palestinian case. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.
- Davies, T. (2019). Slow violence and toxic geographies:‘Out of sight’ to whom?. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space.
- Dini, Rachele. (2019). “Resurrected from its Own Sewers”: Waste, Landscape, and the Environment in JG Ballard’s 1960s Climate Fiction. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment.
- Doherty, Jacob. (2019). Maintenance Space: The Political Authority of Garbage in Kampala, Uganda. Current Anthropology 60(1): 24-46.
- El Maarouf, Moulay Driss. (2018). Waste’s dominion: the gymnastics of value in informal markets. Social Dynamics, 44(1), 38-54.
- Giles, David Boarder. (2018). Sketches for a theory of abject economies. Arena Journal, (51/52), 207.
- Jackson, Shannon, & Robins, Steve. (2018). Making sense of the politics of sanitation in Cape Town. Social Dynamics, 44(1), 69-87.
- Jolly, Rosemary J. (2018). Effluence,“waste” and African Humanism: extra-anthropocentric being and human rightness. Social Dynamics, 44(1), 158-178.
- Kirby, Peter Wynn. (2019). Materialities meet the mangle: Electronic waste scavenging in Japan and China. Geoforum, 102, 48-56.
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Kim, Eunjung. (2019). Continuing presence of discarded bodies: Occupation harm, necro-activism, and living justice. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 5(1), 1-31.
- Kreitman, P. (2018). Attacked by Excrement: The Political Ecology of Shit in Wartime and Postwar Tokyo. Environmental History, 23(2), 342-366.
- Midgley, Jane L. (2019). Anticipatory practice and the making of surplus food. Geoforum, 99, 181-189.
- Newell, Stephanie. (2018). Screening dirt: public health movies in colonial Nigeria and rural African spectatorship in the 1930s and 1940s. Social Dynamics, 44(1), 6-20.
- Ochiagha, Terri. (2018). EH Duckworth’s Clean-Up Lagos Campaigns: the political use of ex-centric colonial discourse on African dirt. Social Dynamics, 44(1), 21-37.
- Oloko, Patrick. (2018). Human waste/wasting humans: dirt, disposable bodies and power relations in Nigerian newspaper reports. Social Dynamics, 44(1), 55-68.
- Olukoju, Ayodeji. (2018). “Filthy rich” and “dirt poor:” social and cultural dimensions of solid waste management (SWM) in Lagos. Social Dynamics, 44(1), 88-106.
- Pacheco-Vega, Raul. (2019). (Re) theorizing the Politics of Bottled Water: Water Insecurity in the Context of Weak Regulatory Regimes. Water, 11(4), 658.
- Smith, Constance. (2018). Accumulating history: dirt, remains and urban decay in Nairobi. Social Dynamics, 44(1), 107-127.
- Uwa, John. (2018). Transcultural tension and the politics of sewage management in (post) colonial Lagos. Social Dynamics, 44(2), 221-238.
- Wagner-Lawlor, Jennifer. (2018). Poor theory and the art of plastic pollution in Nigeria: relational aesthetics, human ecology, and “good housekeeping”. Social Dynamics, 44(2), 198-220.
- Wenzel, Jennifer. (2018). “We have been thrown away”: surplus people projects and the logics of waste. Social Dynamics, 44(2), 184-197.
- Wong, Alice. (2019). The Rise and Fall of the Plastic Straw. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 5(1), 1-12.
Special Issues & Collections
- Catalyst 5(1): Special Section on Crip Technoscience edited by Kelly Fritsch, Aimi Hamraie, Mara Mills and David Serlin
Dissertations
- Mangeon, Michaël (2018). Conception et évolution du régime français de régulation de la sûreté nucléaire (1945-2017) à la lumière de ses instruments : une approche par le travail de régulation. PhD Dissertation, PSL Research University
- Wishart, Lucy. (2015). A Resourceful Aspiration: Understanding the Governmentality of Zero Waste in Scotland. PhD Dissertation. University of St. Andrews.
Other resources
- Global inventory of 146 chlor-alkali plants & 113 PVC plants, completed in March 2019: Chlorine & Building Materials Project: Phase 2 Asia Including Worldwide Findings
Calls for Proposals
- Literature and Extraction. Call for papers. Special issue of Modern Fiction Studies. Deadline for paper abstracts: 1 May 2019.
- Political Ecologies of the Far Right, Call for contributions. Academic-Activist conference, 15-17 November 2019, Lund University, Sweden. Deadline for contributions: 16 May 2019.
- Workshop for the History of Environment, Agriculture, Technology & Science (WHEATS 2019). For Graduate students in any discipline. Deadline for applications: April 5, 2019.
- Seventh Annual HBCU Climate Change Conference, Call for contributions. November 13-16, 2019. New Orleans, LA. Deep South Center for Environmental Justice and Texas Southern University. Deadline for contributions: 15 July 2019.
- Network in Canadian History & Environment, Call for contributions: blog posts, audio/video media, and events (rolling deadline)
- Maintainers III: Practice, Policy, Care. Call for contributions. Academic conference, 6-9 October 2019, Washington DC. Deadline for contributions: 13 May 2019.
- Riskscapes: the Challenge of Climate Change. Call for papers. Special issue of Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy, and Society. Deadline for abstracts: 1 May 2019.
- Spaces and Politics of Aesthetics, Call for papers. Social and Cultural Geography Research Group Symposium, 10–11 June 2019, Cardiff University. Deadline for papers: 29 April 2019.
Reviews
- Garbage Citizenship by Rosalind Fredericks. Review by Jennie Olofsson
- Garbage Citizenship by Rosalind Fredericks’ Audio review by Dannah Dennis.
- “Germ City: Microbes and the Metropolis” at the Museum of the City of New York. Exhibit review by Robert B. Carey
- Reclaiming the Discarded: Life and Labor on Rio’s Garbage Dump by Kathleen M. Millar, Review by Dagna Rams
Audio-Visual
- S-Bend “The S-bend was a bit of pipe with a curve in it. This simple invention became the missing ingredient to create the flushing toilet – and, with it, public sanitation as we know it.”
- “Is Cyberspace Biodegradable?” How Did We Get Here?“It is clear that the environmental impact of cyberspace is anything but ‘virtual.'”Dr. Josh Lepawsky–a geographer and e-waste technology researcher–takes us into the world of our tech. Pull out your phones for this adventure through cyberspace–and, it turns out, our own backyards.
- Media Indigena Episode 156: Liberal Smugness in the Face of Slow-Motion Genocide: “After an advocate interrupts a recent partisan fundraiser to implore Canada’s prime minister to do right by a First Nation ravaged by industrial pollution, Justin Trudeau thought it’d be funny to thank her for her ‘donation’ as security escorted her out.”
- Giftiges Erbe in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Sanierung von DDR-Altlasten. “Die DDR-Chemieindustrie in Bitterfeld und Wolfen hat Grundwasser und Böden nachhaltig verseucht. 200 Millionen Kubikmeter giftiges Grundwasser warten 30 Jahre nach dem Fall der Mauer immer noch auf eine nachhaltige Sanierung.”
- Our chemicalized world, new podcast series. E1: European pesticide authorization and chlorothalonil ban; E0: Introduction to Our chemicalized world.
- Canadland COMMONS Crude “This season, COMMONS is focusing on Canada’s relationship with the oil industry.”
- CBC Sunday Edition, “Why your recycling may not actually get recycled“.
Awards
- Leopold-Hidy Prize for best article in Environmental History: Kreitman, P. (2018). Attacked by Excrement: The Political Ecology of Shit in Wartime and Postwar Tokyo. Environmental History, 23(2), 342-366.
Positions and Opportunities
- Assistant Professor Environmental Justice/International Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Senior Fellow in Materials & Waste, Project Drawdown, University of Edinburgh
- Researcher, Plastic Pollution, Circular Economy & Waste Management, Common Seas, Bristol, UK
- Summer Retreat Program at Shin Pond, Maine for Animal/Humane/Environmental Studies
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Two PhD positions in Environmental history/Environmental humanities, focusing on energy, Chalmers University of Technology
If you have an item to add to The Dirt, please contact editors@discardstudies.com. We are especially interested in non-English language submissions, and those from outside North America.
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