Community Responses to Toxic Hazards: A Reading List

A reading list of the David and Goliath story of communities versus industries, governments, and polluting infrastructures.

Four salaried PhD positions in Oslo on toxicology and global waste

AnthroTox focuses initially on electronic waste and associated persistent organic pollutants in Tanzania, East Africa. Applications are invited for four Research Fellowship as PhD Candidate in Social Anthropology to be based at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo.

On (not) seeing artificial light at night: Light pollution or lighting poverty?

By Dr. Sara B. Pritchard Department of Science & Technology Studies, Cornell University So it began. This was the image that sparked my interest in light pollution and light-pollution science (Figure 1). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration released new images of Earth at night, including this one, on December 5, …

Reorganized Organ: youth mentorship project

Are you an artist, musician, hacker, tinkerer, or generally a curious person, between 18 and 24 years?

Recycling Reconsidered: A must-read text for discard studies

If I could only recommend one text in discard studies, it would be Recycling Reconsidered by Samantha MacBride (2011, MIT Press).

“Viewed as a concept by some, a framework by others, the CE is an alternative to a traditional take-make-dispose linear economy. A CE aims to keep products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value at all times. The value is maintained or extracted though extension of product lifetimes by reuse, refurbishment, and remanufacturing as well as closing of resource cycles—through recycling and related strategies.”

Powerful supermarkets push the cost of food waste onto suppliers, charities

Our research into the issue of corporate social responsibility and wastage of fresh fruit and vegetables has identified a number of tensions and contradictions, despite leading Australian supermarkets’ zero food waste targets.

Special Issue Alert! Geosocial Formations and the Anthropocene in Theory, Culture & Society

This special issue attempts to open up the categories of social thought to a deeper understanding of earth processes.

CFP: Suspensions: Atmospherics of the Anthropocene (deadline May 26)

This panel aims at expanding the theoretical scope on the Anthropocene by
attuning to air, breathe, volatility, atmospheres and suspension as modes of
attending to the more-than-solid ecologies of the Anthropocene. We ask: what
temporalities, phenomenologies, embodiments, and politics does the
Anthropocene invoke when thought in aerial, eolic, respiratory or
atmospheric terms?

Community repair: a pop-up alternative to the throwaway society

Consumers, fed up with having to throw away broken phones, toasters and other appliances, are instead meeting to learn how to repair them and to extend the lifetime of their products. These repair “pop-up parties”, where like-minded people can improve or learn new skills in a supportive environment, can prevent still-useful products from ending up in the bin, while saving money.

Putting Dirt in its Place: The Contemporary Politics of Waste (Conference in Cambridge, UK. June 2017)

This conference explores the socio-material interfaces where waste meets politics in the present. 2 June 2017 – 3 June 2017, Cambridge, UK.

Sonic Breakdown, Extinction and Memory

by Lina Dib Originally published in continent 6(1) CC BY 2.0 DOWNLOAD PDF (https://soundcloud.com/continent/lina-dib-sonic-breakdown-extinction-and-memory) This soundtrack features sounds of environmental as well as technological extinction. Of course, one cannot speak of extinction without first addressing a breakdown of sorts, a breakdown of what was once sustainable. Restoration ecology seeks to reverse …