The Dirt

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Discard Studies is an interdisciplinary 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 December 2022.

Special Note: Discard Studies offers a public Zotero library of references collected from The Dirt.

The Zotero library is updated with the publication of each new edition of The Dirt and can be found on the Resources page.

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Recent Discard Studies Posts

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 December 2022 is approximately 26.79% Women, 59.82% Men, and 13.39% Unknown.

  • Abram, Simone, Karen Waltorp, Nathalie Ortar, and Sarah Pink. Energy Futures: Anthropocene Challenges, Emerging Technologies and Everyday Life. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2022.
  • Ali, S. Harris, Creighton Connolly, and Roger Keil. Pandemic Urbanism: Infectious Diseases on a Planet of Cities. John Wiley & Sons, 2022.
  • Alt, Suvi. “Environmental Apocalypse and Space: The Lost Dimension of the End of the World.” Environmental Politics, November 23, 2022, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2022.2146935.
  • Andolfatto, Lorenzo. “Suffer a Waste Change: Reading Chen Qiufan’s The Waste Tide and Wu Ming-Yi’s The Man with the Compound Eyes along the Lines of Discard.” GeoHumanities 0, no. 0 (November 28, 2022): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566X.2022.2141132.
  • Arnold, Nadine. “Standards and Waste: Valuing Food Waste in Consumer Markets” 5, no. 1 (September 5, 2022): 2. https://doi.org/10.5334/wwwj.84.
  • Arora, Saurabh, Ajit Menon, M Vijayabaskar, Divya Sharma, and V. Gajendran. “Everyday Politics of Care and Exclusion: Conceptualising Agency in Rural South India.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, December 19, 2022, 251484862211359. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486221135989.
  • Atchison, Jennifer, and Mary Pilkinton. “Abject Life and Disaster: Opportunity and Invasive Species Governance Following the 2019–2020 Australian Bushfires.” Political Geography 99 (November 1, 2022): 102774. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102774.
  • Au, Yung. “Data Centres on the Moon and Other Tales: A Volumetric and Elemental Analysis of the Coloniality of Digital Infrastructures.” Territory, Politics, Governance, December 16, 2022, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2022.2153160.
  • Ball, Kirstie, and Stephen Graham. “Surveillance Studies in Retrospect and Prospect: Recollections and Thoughts to Mark the 20th Anniversary of Surveillance & Society.” Surveillance & Society 20, no. 4 (December 16, 2022): 333–45. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v20i4.15892.
  • Barlow, Matt. “Burning Wet Waste: Environmental Particularity, Material Specificity, and the Universality of Infrastructure.” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 0, no. 0 (December 6, 2022): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/14442213.2022.2146179.
  • Bomm, Laura. “Composting Plastic-Packaged Food Waste: A Note on Classifications and Temporalities.” EASST (blog), 2022. https://www.easst.net/article/composting-plastic-packaged-food-waste-a-note-on-classifications-and-temporalities/.
  • Bunnell, Tim, Huiying Ng, and Si Jie Ivin Yeo. “Re‐engaging Psychology for (More) Human Geographies of the Future.” Geography Compass, November 30, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12673.
  • Busch, Hans-Christian, and Judith Wiemann. “Lokale Wertschöpfungsstrategien in global vernetzter Kreislaufwirtschaft – Eine Analyse des brasilianischen Elektroschrott-Recyclings.” Standort, December 7, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00548-022-00819-w.
  • Butt, Waqas H. Life Beyond Waste: Work and Infrastructure in Urban Pakistan. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023.
  • Cidrás, Diego, and Marien González-Hidalgo. “Defining Invasive Alien Species from the Roots up: Lessons from the ‘De-Eucalyptising Brigades’ in Galicia, Spain.” Political Geography 99 (November 1, 2022): 102746. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102746.
  • Corvellec, Hervé, and Alexander Paulsson. “Resource Shifting: Resourcification and de-Resourcification for Degrowth.” Ecological Economics 205 (March 1, 2023): 107703. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107703.
  • Dey, Tridibesh. “Beyond Plasticity.” EASST (blog), 2022. https://www.easst.net/article/beyond-plasticity/.
  • Ehgartner, Ulrike, and Helen Holmes. “Changing Understandings of Waste Reduction and Avoidance in Moralities of Thrift: A Comparison of Mass Observers’ Narratives Three Decades Apart.” Geoforum 137 (December 2022): 105–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.10.014.
  • ———. “Changing Understandings of Waste Reduction and Avoidance in Moralities of Thrift: A Comparison of Mass Observers’ Narratives Three Decades Apart.” Geoforum 137 (December 1, 2022): 105–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.10.014.
  • Eitel, Kathrin. “In a Speculative Mood: Affective Waste-Knowledge and Sluggish Science Practices.” EASST (blog), 2022. https://www.easst.net/article/in-a-speculative-mood-affective-waste-knowledge-and-sluggish-science-practices/.
  • ———. Recycling Infrastructures in Cambodia: Circularity, Waste, and Urban Life in Phnom Penh. 1st ed. London: Routledge, 2022. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003244264.
  • Engelmann, Sasha, Sophie Dyer, Lizzie Malcolm, and Daniel Powers. “Open-Weather: Speculative-Feminist Propositions for Planetary Images in an Era of Climate Crisis.” Geoforum 137 (December 1, 2022): 237–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.09.004.
  • Fletcher, Robert. Failing Forward: The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Conservation. Univ of California Press, 2023.
  • Godłowska, Jolanta, Monika J. Hajto, Bozena Lapeta, and Kamil Kaszowski. “The Attempt to Estimate Annual Variability of NOx Emission in Poland Using Sentinel-5P/TROPOMI Data.” Atmospheric Environment 294 (February 2023): 119482. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2022.119482.
  • Grusin, Richard, and Maureen Ryan. The Long 2020. U of Minnesota Press, 2023.
  • Gumbert, Tobias. “Contextualizing Responsibilit(Ies) in Food Waste Governance.” In Responsibility in Environmental Governance: Unwrapping the Global Food Waste Dilemma, edited by Tobias Gumbert, 205–37. Environmental Politics and Theory. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13729-7_8.
  • Guo, J., and P. Shao. “Analysis on the Global Used Clothing Trade Value and Network Characteristics.” Journal of Silk 59, no. 10 (2022): 55–61. https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1001-7003.2022.09.008.Harris, Dylan M. “The Trouble with Modeling the Human into the Future Climate.” GeoHumanities 8, no. 2 (July 3, 2022): 382–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566X.2022.2043764.
  • Hickel, Jason, Giorgos Kallis, Tim Jackson, Daniel W. O’Neill, Juliet B. Schor, Julia K. Steinberger, Peter A. Victor, and Diana Ürge-Vorsatz. “Degrowth Can Work — Here’s How Science Can Help.” Nature 612, no. 7940 (December 2022): 400–403. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04412-x.
  • Holleran, Samuel, and Max Holleran. “9/11 Steel: Distributed Memorialization.” Journal of Material Culture, November 28, 2022, 13591835221139676. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591835221139676.
  • Holmberg, Tora, and Malin Ideland. “The (in)Visibility of Sewage Management and Problematization as Strategy for Public Awareness.” The Sociological Review, November 21, 2022, 003802612211364. https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261221136417.
  • Hope, Jessica, and Murat Arsel. “Infrastructure & Latin American Environmental Geographies: An Introduction to Our Special Issue.” Journal of Latin American Geography, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.0.0192.
  • Hurley, Jessica. “Nuclear Settler Colonialism at Sea, or How to Civilize an Ocean.” American Quarterly 74, no. 4 (2022): 969–95. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2022.0065.
  • Inverardi-Ferri, Carlo, and Tim Brown. “Territories, Politics and Governance of the Covid-19 Pandemic.” Territory, Politics, Governance 10, no. 6 (November 2, 2022): 751–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2022.2129469.
  • Janowicz, Krzysztof, Renée Sieber, and Jeremy Crampton. “GeoAI, Counter-AI, and Human Geography: A Conversation.” Dialogues in Human Geography 12, no. 3 (November 2022): 446–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/20438206221132510.
  • Kallianos, Yannis, and Dimitris Dalakoglou. “The Distant Proximity of Infrastructural Harm: The Contested and (in)Visible Dynamics of Waste Politics in Athens, Greece.” Globalizations, December 15, 2022, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2022.2139136.
  • Kallis, G., and S. Paulson. “Degrowth but, Where? The Case for Degrowth.” ARQ 2022, no. 111 (2022): 150–52. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0717-69962022000200150.
  • Keeling, Arn, and Thierry Rodon. “Doing ‘Dirt Research’ in Northern Mining Towns: An Overview.” The Extractive Industries and Society 12 (December 2022): 101182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2022.101182.
  • Kinnunen, Veera, and Melisa Duque. “From Waste Management to Waste Care.” In Infrastructural Being: Rethinking Dwelling in a Naturecultural World, edited by Jarno Valkonen, Veera Kinnunen, Heikki Huilaja, and Teemu Loikkanen, 147–70. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15827-8_7.
  • Kornherr, Elisa, and Robert Pütz. “Othering, Governing, and Resistance of Abject Urban Animals: Egyptian Geese and Their Right to the City.” Political Geography 99 (November 1, 2022): 102775. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102775.
  • Kosnoski, Jason. The Political Theory of Salvage. State University of New York Press, 2022.
  • Kuksa, Iryna, Tom Fisher, and Anthony Kent. “Persons Repairing: Reficio Ergo Sum.” In Understanding Personalisation: New Aspects of Design and Consumption, 229. Cambridge: Chandos Publishing, 2023.
  • Laakkonen, Ville. “Deaths, Disappearances, Borders: Migrant Disappearability as a Technology of Deterrence.” Political Geography 99 (November 1, 2022): 102767. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102767.
  • Lacey-Barnacle, M., A. Smith, and T.J. Foxon. “Community Wealth Building in an Age of Just Transitions: Exploring Civil Society Approaches to Net Zero and Future Research Synergies.” Energy Policy 172 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113277.
  • Laser, Stefan, Anne Pasek, Estrid Sørensen, Mél Hogan, Mace Ojala, Jens Fehrenbacher, Maximilian Hepach, Leman Celik, and Koushik Ravi Kumar. “The Environmental Footprint of Social Media Hosting: Tinkering with Mastodon.” EASST (blog), 2022. https://www.easst.net/article/the-environmental-footprint-of-social-media-hosting-tinkering-with-mastodon/.
  • Leemput, Dirk van de, and Harro van Lente. “Caring for Decline:  The Case of 16mm Film Artworks of Tacita Dean.” In Technologies in Decline, by Zahar Koretsky, Peter Stegmaier, Bruno Turnheim, and Harro van Lente, 185–200, 1st ed. London: Routledge, 2022. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003213642-8.
  • Levidow, Les. “Beyond Climate Fixes: From Public Controversy to System Change.” EASST (blog), 2022. https://www.easst.net/article/beyond-climate-fixes-from-public-controversy-to-system-change/.
  • Llavaneras Blanco, Masaya. “Intimate Bordering: Intimacy, Anti-Blackness and Gender Violence in the Making of the Dominican Border.” Political Geography 99 (November 1, 2022): 102743. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102743.
  • Lu, Juliet, Laura Dev, and Margiana Petersen-Rockney. “Criminalized Crops: Environmentally-Justified Illicit Crop Interventions and the Cyclical Marginalization of Smallholders.” Political Geography 99 (November 1, 2022): 102781. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102781.
  • Lucy, Meghann. “Divestment as Investment: ‘Kondo-Ing’ Selves in the Context of over Accumulation.” Journal of Consumer Culture, November 25, 2022, 14695405221140544. https://doi.org/10.1177/14695405221140545.
  • MacAfee, Elizabeth. “Critically Assembling Water Quality Ethics beyond Thresholds, Hierarchies and Best Practices.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, December 21, 2022, 251484862211466. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486221146686.
  • Mair, Heather. “Wasted: Towards a Critical Research Agenda for Disposability in Leisure.” Leisure Studies 0, no. 0 (November 23, 2022): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2022.2148718.
  • Mason, Elise. “The Slow Violence of Planned Obsolescence.” Metropolitics, September 20, 2022. https://metropolitics.org/The-Slow-Violence-of-Planned-Obsolescence.html.
  • Montoya, Ainhoa. “Post-Extractive Juridification: Undoing the Legal Foundations of Mining in El Salvador.” Geoforum 138 (January 1, 2023): 103667. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.103667.
  • Morales, P., M. Flikkema, C. Castaldi, and A.-P.D. Man. “The Effectiveness of Appropriation Mechanisms for Sustainable Innovations from Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises.” Journal of Cleaner Production 374 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.133921.
  • Müller, Simone M., and May-Brith Ohman Nielsen, eds. Toxic Timescapes: Examining Toxicity across Time and Space. Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2022.
  • Munn, Luke. “Have Faith and Question Everything: Understanding QAnon’s Allure.” Platform 9, no. 1 (2022): 80–97.
  • Munten, Pauline, and Joëlle Vanhamme. “To Reduce Waste, Have It Repaired! The Quality Signaling Effect of Product Repairability.” Journal of Business Research 156 (February 1, 2023): 113457. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113457.
  • Noterman, Elsa. “Fugitive Dust: The Indeterminate Trajectories of Urban Development’s Present Past.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers, December 1, 2022, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2022.2137454.
  • Papadaki-Anastasopoulou, Artemis. “Rendering Waste (in)Visible Though Categories: A Reflection of My View on Waste.” EASST (blog), 2022. https://www.easst.net/article/rendering-waste-invisible-though-categories-a-reflection-of-my-view-on-waste/.
  • Payson, Alida, Triona Fitton, and Jennifer Lynn Ayres. “Introduction: Second-Hand Cultures in Unsettled Times.” JOMEC Journal 0, no. 17 (December 9, 2022): 1. https://doi.org/10.18573/jomec.234.
  • Peryman, Matt. “Te Wai Whau: A Kaupapa Māori Citizen Science Approach to Plastics Pollution.” Master of Arts, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa, Te Ika-a-Maui, Aotearoa (Massey University, New Zealand), 2022. https://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/17899/PerymanMAThesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
  • Russell, Jennifer D., and Nabil Z. Nasr. “Value-Retained vs. Impacts Avoided: The Differentiated Contributions of Remanufacturing, Refurbishment, Repair, and Reuse within a Circular Economy.” Journal of Remanufacturing, November 28, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13243-022-00119-4.
  • Schönbauer, Sarah. “Editorial.” EASST (blog), 2022. https://www.easst.net/article/editorial/.
  • Seikaly, Sherene, and Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins. “Introduction: Infrastructure, Environment, and Health in Palestine.” Journal of Palestine Studies 51, no. 4 (October 2, 2022): 4–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/0377919X.2022.2126202.
  • Seini, Humu-Annie. “The Role of Environmental Protection Agency Under Ghana’s Fourth Republic.” In Democratic Governance, Law, and Development in Africa: Pragmatism, Experiments, and Prospects, edited by Maame Efua Addadzi-Koom, Michael Addaney, and Lydia A. Nkansah, 669–94. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15397-6_25.
  • Semensatto, Décio, Geórgia Labuto, and Cristiano R. Gerolin. “The Importance of Integrating Morphological Attributes of Microplastics: A Theoretical Discussion to Assess Environmental Impacts.” Environmental Science and Pollution Research, December 8, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-24567-4.
  • Stansfield, Rachel. “Morality, Materiality and Mystery.” Massey University, Albany, Aotearoa (New Zealand), 2022. https://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/17699/StansfieldMAThesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
  • Steenmeijer, Michelle A, João F D Rodrigues, Michiel C Zijp, and Susanne L Waaijers-van der Loop. “The Environmental Impact of the Dutch Health-Care Sector beyond Climate Change: An Input–Output Analysis.” The Lancet Planetary Health 6, no. 12 (December 2022): e949–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(22)00244-3.
  • Stokes, Kathleen, and Mary Lawhon. “What Counts as Infrastructural Labour? Community Action as Waste Work in South Africa.” Area Development and Policy, December 13, 2022, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/23792949.2022.2145321.
  • Sugimura, Y., T. Kawasaki, and S. Murakami. “Potential for Increased Use of Secondary Raw Materials in the Copper Industry as a Countermeasure Against Climate Change in Japan.” Sustainable Production and Consumption 35 (2023): 275–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2022.11.007.
  • Sun, Qiongping, Jiaer Zhang, Tieyu Wang, Yonglong Xiong, Xinyi Zhan, Hancheng Zhao, Jianwen Wang, et al. “Cooking Methods Effectively Alter Perfluoroalkyl Substances and Nutrients in Cultured and Wild Bullfrogs.” Journal of Hazardous Materials 445 (March 5, 2023): 130555. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.130555.
  • Svensson-Hoglund, Sahra, Jennifer D. Russell, and Jessika Luth Richter. “A Process Approach to Product Repair from the Perspective of the Individual.” Circular Economy and Sustainability, November 28, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-022-00226-1.
  • Thornber, Kelly, Fiona Adshead, Angeliki Balayannis, Richard Brazier, Ross Brown, Sean Comber, Caroline Court, et al. “First, Do No Harm: Time for a Systems Approach to Address the Problem of Health-Care-Derived Pharmaceutical Pollution.” The Lancet Planetary Health 6, no. 12 (December 2022): e935–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(22)00309-6.
  • Thurlow, Crispin, Alessandro Pellanda, and Laura Wohlgemuth. “The Discursive Chronotopes of Waste: Temporal Laminations and Linguistic Hauntings.” Language in Society 51, no. 5 (November 2022): 819–37. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404522000616.
  • Tilsted, Joachim Peter, Alice Mah, Tobias Dan Nielsen, Guy Finkill, and Fredric Bauer. “Petrochemical Transition Narratives: Selling Fossil Fuel Solutions in a Decarbonizing World.” Energy Research & Social Science 94 (December 2022): 102880. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102880.
  • Todd, Zoe. “Respect for Autonomy and Sovereignty of Indigenous and Local Peoples, Not Arbitrary Protection Targets, a Key to Protecting Global Biodiversity.” Critical Indigenous Fish Philosophy (blog), December 1, 2022. https://fishphilosophy.org/2022/12/01/indigenous-sovereignty-and-autonomy-not-arbitrary-protection-targets-a-key-to-protecting-global-biodiversity/.
  • Tsui, T., A. Derumigny, D. Peck, A. van Timmeren, and A. Wandl. “Spatial Clustering of Waste Reuse in a Circular Economy: A Spatial Autocorrelation Analysis on Locations of Waste Reuse in the Netherlands Using Global and Local Moran’s I.” Frontiers in Built Environment 8 (2022). https://doi.org/10.3389/fbuil.2022.954642.
  • Tyner, James A, and Stian Rice. “Along Came a Spider … and Capitalism  Killed It.” Human Geography, November 27, 2022, 19427786221140844. https://doi.org/10.1177/19427786221140843.
    Yajalin, John Ebotui. “Understanding Political Participation From the Margins: The Perspectives of Migrant Slum Dwellers in Agbogbloshie, Ghana.” Journal of Asian and African Studies, December 21, 2022, 002190962211446. https://doi.org/10.1177/00219096221144687.

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