The Dirt
Discard studies is an emerging field that takes systems of waste and wasting as its topic of study, including but beyond conventional notions of trash and garbage. 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 August 2019.
Recent Discard Studies Posts
- PSA: Beware of Easy Narratives by Josh Lepawsky
- The Tragedy of the Tragedy of the Commons by Matto Mildenberger
- Rethinking Remediation by Caitlynn Beckett and Arn Keeling
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.
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Arefin, Mohammed Rafi. (2019). Infrastructural Discontent in the Sanitary City: Waste, Revolt, and Repression in Cairo.” Antipode 51 (4), 1057–78.
- Doherty, Jacob. (2019). Filthy flourishing: para-sites, animal infrastructure, and the waste frontier in Kampala. Current Anthropology, 60(S20), S000-S000.
- De Loughry, Treasa. (2019). Polymeric chains and petrolic imaginaries: world literature, plastic, and negative value. Green Letters, 1-15.
- De Loughry, Treasa. (2017). Petromodernity, petro-finance and plastic in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Through the Arc of the Rainforest. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 53(3), 329-341.
- Demaria, Federico, Giorgos Kallis, & Karen Bakker (2019). Geographies of degrowth: Nowtopias, resurgences and the decolonization of imaginaries and places. Environment and Planning E 2(3): 431–450
- Gan, Elaine, Tsing, Anna, & Sullivan, Daniel. (2018). Using Natural History in the Study of Industrial Ruins. Journal of ethnobiology, 38(1), 39-55.
- Edwards, Ferne. & Davies, Anna R. (2018) Connective Consumptions: Mapping Melbourne’s Food Sharing Ecosystem, Urban Policy and Research. DOI: 10.1080/
08111146.2018.1476231. - Gerling, Daniel Max. (2019). Excrementalisms: revaluing what we have only ever known as waste. Food, Culture & Society, 1-17.
- Greed, Clara. (2019). Join the queue: Including women’s toilet needs in public space. The Sociological Review, 67(4), 908-926.
- Guthman, Julie. (2019) Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry. University of California Press.
- Hoag, Colin, Bertoni, Filippo, & Bubandt, Nils. (2018). Wasteland ecologies: Undomestication and multispecies gains on an Anthropocene dumping ground. Journal of ethnobiology, 38(1), 88-105.
- Holmberg, Tora. (2019). Animal waste work. The case of urban sewage management in Sweden. Contemporary Social Science, 1-15.
- Hughes, Bill. (2019). The abject and the vulnerable: the twain shall meet: Reflections on disability in the moral economy. The Sociological Review, 67(4), 829-846.
- Jones, Bradley M. (2019). (Com) Post-Capitalism: Cultivating a More-than-Human Economy in the Appalachian Anthropocene. Environmental Humanities, 11(1), 3-26.
- Klein, Resia. (2018). Networked Scars: Tattooed Bodies after Breast Cancer. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 4(1).
- Kuyvenhoven, Cassandra. (2018). ‘Gaining Access: Barriers to Conducting Interviews Within the Waste Management Industry.’ in Sage Research Methods: Cases. London: SAGE Publications Cases Ltd.
- Landecker, Hannah. (2019). A metabolic history of manufacturing waste: food commodities and their outsides. Food, Culture & Society, 1-18.
- Lee, Rachel. (2019). Metabolic aesthetics: on the feminist scentscapes of Anicka Yi. Food, Culture & Society, 1-21.
- Little, Peter C., & Akese, Grace Abena. (2019). Centering the Korle Lagoon: exploring blue political ecologies of E-Waste in Ghana. Journal of Political Ecology, 26(1).
- Lang, Luciana. (2019). ‘That’s What Fishers Do Now, We Collect Rubbish’: The Making of Environmental Subjects in A Human-Disturbed Environment in Rio de Janeiro. Ethnos, 1-22.
- Mather, Charles., & Fanning, Lucia. (2019). Is social licence “going rogue”?. The Geographical Journal.
- Nirmal, Padini & Dianne Rocheleau. (2019). Decolonizing degrowth in the post-development convergence: Questions, experiences, and proposals from two Indigenous territories. Environment and Planning E, 2(3), 465-492.
- Owen, Jennifer. Big yellow sanctuary: cross-dressing, gender, and performance in self-storage in the UK, Gender, Place, and Culture, advanced proof
- Schönbauer, Sarah & Sven Bergmann. (2019). Microplastics by other means? How microplastics can be a tool for inter/trans-disciplinary engagement. Marine Coastal Culture. 12 June.
- Spackman, Christy. (2019). Ordering volatile openings: instrumentation and the rationalization of bodily odors. Food, Culture & Society, 1-18.
- Tracy, Sarah. E. (2019). Tasty waste: industrial fermentation and the creative destruction of MSG. Food, Culture & Society, 1-18.
- Tracy, Sarah. E., & Vaughn, Rachel. (2019). Guest editors’ introduction: on the creative destruction of food as science. Food, Culture & Society.
- Vaughn, Rachel. (2019). Food, blood, nutrients: on eating placenta & the limits of edibility. Food, Culture & Society, 1-18.
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Zhang, Amy. (2019). Invisible Labouring Bodies : Waste Work as Infrastructure in China.” Made in China Journal, July 22.
Special Issues & Collections
- Feral Dynamics of Post-Industrial Ruin (2018). Edited by Anna Tsing and Nils Bubandt, Journal of Ethnobiology.
- Geographies of Degrowth (2019). Edited by Federico Demaria, Giorgos Kallis, Karen Bakker. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.
Dissertations & Theses
- Gorman, Sarah Magdelene. (2019). The Role of Waste in Modern Political Philosophy. Doctoral dissertation, Vanderbilt University.
Book Reviews
- Freegans: Diving into the Wealth of Food Waste in America by Alex V. Barnard, by Ferne Edwards
- Inevitably Toxic: Historical Perspectives on Contamination, Exposure and Expertise by Brinda Sarathy, Vivien Hamilton and Janet Brodie (eds). by Alex Souchen
- The River is in Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community by Elizabeth Hoover by Sierra Ramirez
Calls for Proposals & Participation
- Anthropocene Islands, Call for papers. Special issue of Island Studies. Deadline for paper abstracts: 31 January 2020.
- Dangerous Consumptions Colloquium, Call for participants. University of Sydney, 21-22 November 2019. Deadline for abstracts: Sept 27, 2019
- Network in Canadian History & Environment, Call for contributions: blog posts, audio/video media, and events. Rolling deadline.
- Pollution and Toxicity, Call for papers. Special issue of Environment and Society: Advances in Research. Deadline for paper abstracts: Oct 1, 2019.
- Re-Opening the Bin: Waste, economy, culture and society, Call for abstracts and special sessions. 11-13 June 2020. University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Deadline for contributions: 15 January 2020
- Resources for a Better Future, Call for submissions. Online glossary for Uneven Earth. Rolling deadline.
- Science Under Occupation, Call for papers. Special issue Science for the People. Deadline: 8 September 2019
Audio-Visual
- Canadaland Crude: Tar Teck: The Final Frontier
- Media Indigena: Conversations on the Climate Crisis
- New Podcast: Antipod: A Radical Geography Podcast
- New Podcast: The Received Wisdom, a podcast challenging the received wisdom of science, technology, politics and society
Conferences & Talks
- Sara Ahmed: If the Doors Could Talk? Diversity, Complaint and Institutions, Mon, September 30, 2019, 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM, University of Alberta.
- STS Underground Symposium: Petrochemicals and Citizen Science, Thu, September 5, 2019 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM CDT, New Orleans
- Chemical kinships, RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, Wednesday 28 August 2019, Session 1 (09:00 – 10:40), London
Positions and Opportunities
- Assistant/Associate/Full Professor in Critical Disabilities: Transnationalism, Human Rights, Black Disability Studies, School of Health Policy and Management, York University
- Assistant Professor: Sociology (tenure-track, two positions), University of British Columbia (Vancouver Campus). The substantive area of specialization for these two positions is OPEN although the department has identified preferential areas including sociology of health and illness, gender/feminist sociology, and migration.
- Tenure Track Position in Environmental Studies, Davidson College, North Carolina
- Assistant Professor in Environmental Studies, Bates College
- Assistant Professor – Human Geography (health and climate change, with emphasis on socio-spatial disparities and/or environmental justice), University of Washington
- Assistant Professor, Black Geographies, Department of Geography, Florida State University
- Assistant Professor of Science & Technology Studies: Global STS, Department of STS, Cornell University
- Assistant Professor – Feminist Biosciences, Depts of Science & Technology Studies and of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Cornell University
- Postdoc (one year), Junior Research Fellowship, research theme of “waste,” The Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL
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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