An Anthropology of the
Transformers of Waste
Convenors:
Lucy Norris, University
College London
Jean-Sébastien
Marcoux, HEC Montréal
Discussant:
Susanne Küchler,
University College London
In recent years, an
increasing amount of attention has been
devoted in anthropology and
material culture studies to the
creation of value, and to
its objectification under different
material forms.
Anthropologists are now moving beyond the
study of the uses of
objects originally designed as artefacts and
commodities, so as to
better account for the social relations
coming into existence in
the wake of consumption. In the light
of recent theoretical work
on the flow of objects within and
between the local and the
global, the study of the re-creation of
networks of people and
objects is revitalised by the consideration
of materiality and the
potential of hybrid forms to impact upon
configurations of social
and economic relations. Along this line,
this workshop aims at
exploring how waste objects (namely
objects that have been
divested by their original consumers) are
put back in circulation,
and by whom. It focuses on the people,
the actors and the
institutions working at transforming waste: the
intermediaries who operate
in the shadow of producers, and who
are often neglected in
consumption studies. This session aims to
bring together social
anthropologists working on recycling and
recuperation in different
cultural contexts. We particularly seek
input from people working
on charity organisations, art recycling
alongside the
informal/industrial economy, etc. What roles do
these intermediaries play
in the transformation of waste objects?
What kinds of relations
between people take shape through the
transformation of waste
objects? How do these intermediaries
help connecting people from
different contexts? Or, on the
opposite, contribute to
keep them at distance?
“Fayuca
Ormiga”. The Cross-Cultural Trade of Used Clothing on
Mexico-United States
Border
Mélissa Gauthier,
Concordia University
“Mutilated
Hosiery”: The Recycling of Clothing in the Punjabi
Shoddy Trade
Lucy Norris, University
College London
Isabelle Hanifi,
Université de la Sorbonne
Jean-Sébastien
Marcoux, HEC Montréal
Things Go Round and
Round, Round and Round
Inge Maria Daniels, Royal
College of Art
Recuperation and
Abandonment
Nicky Gregson, University
of Sheffield
Ships of
Relations: Navigating Between the Local and the Global in Cornish
Recycled
Maritime Art
Patrick Laviolette,
University College London
From Nuclear Waste to a
Temple of Consumerism
Mélanie Van der
Hoorn, University of Utrecht