Discard Studies is a young field of research 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 March 2022.

Recent Discard Studies Posts

• Sorting It Out: Sustainability in Higher Education by Kathy Zhang
• Acts of Occlusion by Korede Akinkunmi
• Discard Studies Staffing Changes
• Copyright on the Farm by MC Forelle
• Reading Lists: Residential Schools

Peer-reviewed 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.

We have begun posting the gender parity of The Dirt, especially given evidence that COVID-19 is increasing the skew in knowledge production to be ever more male, white, and childless. According to the Summers Gender Balance Assessment Tool, the bibliography for The Dirt in March 2022 is approximately 27.43% percent women-authored.

Reviews

• Basura: Cultures of Waste in Contemporary Spain; Samuel Amago, University of Virginia Press, 2021 // Reviewed by Kathleen Kole de Peralta
• Cultivating Nature: The Conservation of a Valencian Working Landscape; Sarah R. Hamilton, University of Washington Press, 2018 // Reviewed by Antonio Ortega Santos
• Fresh Kills: A History of Consuming and Discarding in New York City; Martin Melosi, Columbia University Press, 2020 // Reviewed by Stephen Conn
• Disposing of Modernity: The Archaeology of Garbage and Consumerism during Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair; Rebecca S. Graff, University Press of Florida, 2020 // Reviewed by Mark P. Leone.
  
• Wastelands: Recycled Commodities and the Perpetual Displacement of Ashkali and Romani Scavengers; Eirik Saethre, University of California Press, 2020 // Reviewed by Michele Filippo Frontefrancesco

Special Issues

• Industry and Waste: Toward a Circular Economy. Veolia Institute, 2021.
• The Administrative State in the 21st Century. Daedalus 150(3) — Summer 2021

Calls for Papers/Proposals/Submissions

• Unsettling Landscapes: American Anthropological Association Annual Conference, Seattle, WA, 9-13 November; deadline 30 March
• Biennial Conference of the International Water History Association Hybrid Conference, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, 29 June-1 July; deadline 31 March
• Transformation, Hope and the Commons: European Association of Social Anthropologists Conference 2022, Queens University, Belfast, 26-29 July; deadline 31 March
• Special Series on Water and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, UCL Open: Environment; deadline April
• Digital Ecologies in Practice, Bonn, Germany; 28-29 July; deadline 15 April
• Chernobyl as a Historical Caesura: Environment, Politics, and Science, University of Naples Federico II, 9-10 December; deadline 15 April
• Animals in the American Popular Imagination Virtual Conference, 12-16 September; Austrian Association for Cultural Studies, Cultural History, and Popular Culture; deadline 24 April
• Call for Input on the Impact of Toxics on Indigenous Peoples, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights; deadline 25 April
• Integrated Social-Ecological-Infrastructural Management for Urban Resilience — special issue of Resources, Conservation & Recycling; deadline 30 June

Conferences & Symposia

• Critical UX: Lifting the Curtain on Ethical Theater
• Automated Fields & Rides: The Future of Technical Systems Designed for Worker Well-being & Agency; 8 April
• Traditional Ecological Knowledge National Virtual Summit, Oregon State University, 10-12 May
• Undoing the Crisis | York University Graduate STS Conference; 3 June
• European Society for Environmental History Conference, Bristol, UK; 4-8 July

Positions

• Post-doc | Indigenous Politics | University of Toronto | Review beings 1 April
• The Dept. of Sociology at Queen’s University is seeking to fill a tenure-track position in Digital Justice starting July 1, 2022. Preferred areas of scholarship and teaching are environmental justice, racial justice, and immigration/migration. PhD in Sociology or cognate discipline is required. Application deadline: 31 March, 2022. More details here.
• Princeton University — High Meadows Environmental Institute: Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities.
• Permanent Research Fellow | Interdisciplinary Social Sciences for Sustainability | Anglia Ruskin | deadline 28 March
• Research Assistants — part-time; must be Inuit from or in Nunavut; College North by North Research Program, Newfoundland

New Patrons

Discard Studies is funded, in part, by the generous patronage of our readers, via Patreon. New patrons include:

• Shosha Capps. Thank you!
• MYGray. Thank you!
• Lily Baum Pollans. Thank you!

If you have an item to add to The Dirt, please contact editors@discardstudies.com. 

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