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SUMMARY:Discussion session: Urban political ecology of waste - Dr. Tatiana
  Thieme\, Dept. of Geography\, University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20131112T130000Z
DTEND:20131112T140000Z
UID:TALK47913@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Judith Schleicher
DESCRIPTION:The world’s least urbanized countries have been the most rap
 idly urbanising ones since the 1960’s. As the waves of wage migration in
  rapidly urbanising cities in the Global South outpace the availability of
  formal wage labour and housing provisions\, most urban growth in infrastr
 uctural and economic terms is marked by makeshift forms of improvisation a
 nd adaptation. One of the material signs of rapid urbanisation and its ass
 ociated challenges concerning availability of housing\, wage labour\, and 
 basic services is the abundance of garbage. The production and visibility 
 of various forms of waste in cities like Mexico City\, Mumbai\, Nairobi\, 
 or Sao Paolo\, elicit paradoxical responses: on the one hand\, alarmist na
 rratives evoke the public and environmental hazards as entire neighbourhoo
 ds live in close proximity to dumpsites and landfills and ill-served (if a
 t all) by the municipality\; and on the other hand grassroots strategies t
 o cope with\, manage\, and live alongside ‘garbage’ indicate that ther
 e are growing waste economies providing both work opportunities\, local se
 rvices\, and innovative ways to re-use and re-purpose seemingly discarded 
 materials. What if we saw beyond the paralyzing apocalyptic scenario of 
 “wastelands” and re-examined the very notion of waste in political eco
 logy terms? While the scholarship on the political ecology of rural enviro
 nments\, agricultural livelihoods and conservation practices is well estab
 lished\, applying the language and lens of political ecology to urban envi
 ronments\, particularly waste\, has not received as much scholarly attenti
 on.\n\n \n\nIn this session\, I propose we consider the unlikely and gener
 ally overlooked “resource” of waste\, to discuss the ways in which was
 te becomes the locus for contested power struggles and politics over the m
 anagement of resources\, reflective of contradictory notions of value\, ec
 ology\, worthlessness\, consumption\, boundaries of the self\, as well as 
 the material\, infrastructural and practical logistics of discarding\, col
 lecting\, re-using and re-inserting use and exchange value into “rubbish
 ” materials. Paying particular attention to the discourses\, production 
 and reproduction of wasted goods and the invisible sanitation workers who 
 take garbage “away\,” I will draw on my PhD research in Nairobi\, Keny
 a to ground the discussion\, in particular relating to the complex power r
 elations at different levels of the city that shape the urban waste econom
 y and the particular narratives of youth self-proclaimed “hustlers” of
  waste work. I suggest that these waste-based “hustle” economies in th
 e urban informal sector might be considered as post-capitalist alternative
 s\, reflecting certain aspects of the “peasant moral economy” in their
  diversification of risk and emphasis on the small-scale and limits to gro
 wth\, but very much entangled with and replicating capitalist relations. \
 n\nFor some background reading\, please see Garth Myers’s Chapter 1: Tow
 ards a Political Ecology of African Cities in Disposable Cities: Garbage\,
  Governance and Sustainable Development in Urban Africa (2005). 
LOCATION:Seminar Room
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