The Waste of the World

Mid-Point Conference – April 30th, 2009: Royal Geographical Society, London

The Programme’s Mid-Point Conference will be held on Thursday 30th April 2009, at the Royal Geographical Society in London. The conference is designed to disseminate project-specific research conducted within the programme and features a mixture of formal papers, poster sessions and opportunities for participants to discuss research more informally with research teams.

Speakers and papers:
Nicky Gregson (Sheffield): Inextinguishable fibres: demolition and the vital materialisms of asbestos
Farid Ahamed (Durham): Death and the phoenix: end-of-life ships, ‘chock-chocky’ furniture and the Bangladeshi consumer
Romain Garcier (Sheffield): Ordering of matter and value generation in the nuclear waste industry
John Walls (Durham): Public and stakeholder engagement in nuclear decommissioning and radioactive waste management in the UK: current practice and future directions
Fionn Mackillop (Durham): Recycling controversies: waste, technology and working practices in the UK steel industry
Dan Swanton (Durham): The steel plant as assemblage
Joby Williams, Anna Krzywoszynska & Annabel Townsend (Sheffield): Materiality, knowledge and regulation: the complexities of waste in the production and retail of organic wine, coffee and artisan cheese
Catherine Alexander (Goldsmiths): The alchemy of waste management, or how to turn muck into brass
Lucy Norris (UCL): Dereliction and decay in Kerala: industrial ruins as contested spaces

Discussants: Andrew Barry (Oxford), Gay Hawkins (New South Wales), Susanne Küchler (UCL), Nigel Thrift (Warwick) Arrival and registration: 10, for 10.30 Lunch is provided There will be a reception from 5 – 7 pm Attendance is free, but we do need to know numbers: to register, please contact Kate Schofield – k.schofield@shef.ac.uk

10th March, 2009: The Life and Death of HMS Intrepid – a performance event

As part of the 2009 ESRC Festival of Social Science, a group of Year 7 pupils from High Storrs School Sheffield have been researching the life and death of HMS Intrepid. A performance event based on this research, involving drama, dance and documentary film footage, will take place at High Storrs School, Sheffield on Tuesday 10th March – 6.30 pm, followed by a reception.

Attendance at the event is free, but we do need to know numbers. Anyone interested in coming to the event should contact Kate Schofield: k.schofield@shef.ac.uk or 0114 222 7903.

Project 6. Mutilation and Mutability: The destruction of clothing in India. 9thSeptember 2008, Department of Anthropology, UCL

Team: Daniel Miller, Lucy Norris, Bodil Oleson

The morning session addressed the shoddy recycling industry. Lucy Norris began by outlining research to date into the flow of unwanted clothing from rag dealers in the UK to shoddy mills in north India, and set out a prospective agenda for fieldwork in India in 2009. Research will focus upon both the market in Delhi and with factory workers in Panipat to understand the socio-economic dynamics and technological aspects of fibre recycling and its effect upon the lives of those who come into contact with it. Bodil Oleson then presented a paper on the transformation of post-consumer denim in America through a case study of Cotton Incorporated's†so-called denim drive. Through a description of the drive, the way in which the handling and transformation of post-consumer material excess is productive of a particular worldview, with its attendant socio-cultural, political economic and technical and material aspects, illustrates the complexity and multitude of ways in which this worldview is produced and sustained. The afternoon session highlighted some of Lucy Norris’ recently completed fieldwork in Kerala. It addresses the question of what does one do with a whole textile industry in decline and in particular its material remains, such as seemingly ruined buildings, wasted livelihoods and apparently missed opportunities, and asks whether elements of these can be productively recycled once more? Daniel Miller introduced the general discussion with a summary of key points, and our thanks go to all participants and their helpful comments, in particular our three discussants, Emma Tarlo (Goldsmiths), Lou Taylor (Brighton), and Suzanne K¸chler (UCL).

The Waste of the World programme organised two sessions at the 2008 RGS-IBG conference.

The first session – Cultural political economy, new materialisms and the world of waste – explored some of the bigger questions tackled within the programme, notably various perspectives on thinking materiality. It was also intentionally multidisciplinary in structure and international in its empirical coverage. The second session – Matters of waste: meanings, flows and spaces – provided the opportunity for some of the researchers on the WotW team to present preliminary findings from the on-going research. Thanks to all speakers and discussants: Adam Minter, Zsuzsa Gille, Catherine Alexander, Gay Hawkins, Tim Cooper, Nicky Gregson, Mike Crang, Ray Hudson, Helen Watkins, Romain Garcier, Fionn MacKillop and Steve Guilbert. Thanks too to audience participants for the lively discussion at the end of the first session, and to Nicky Gregson and Karen Bickerstaff for organising and convening these events. We hope to have some of the papers from the first session, plus a few more, included in a theme issue in the not too distant future.

Full session abstracts and details are available via the following links:
Cultural political economy, new materialisms and the world of waste pdf
Matters of waste: meanings, flows and spaces pdf

Project 5: Technologies of European Waste Management, 7th July 2008, Sheffield University

Team: Catherine Alexander (Goldsmiths), Nicky Gregson (Sheffield), Steve Guilbert (Sheffield), Alan Metcalfe (Sheffield), Josh Reno (Goldsmiths)

Since Project 5 is at an early stage, the workshop aimed to present initial findings and emerging themes to Programme participants and three invited discussants, Tim Cooper (Exeter), Martin O’Brien (Central Lancashire), and Matt Watson (Sheffield). Catherine Alexander introduced the project, describing its theoretical contributions to the Programme and to Science and Technology Studies more broadly. Alan Metcalfe introduced some of the histories that are told within the waste management industry about how it began and where it is headed, these included topics such as the historical origins of the sanitary engineer as public health expert, the rise of the Chartered Institute for Wastes Management, and more recent narratives about shifts in regulation and privatization. Josh Reno presented an internal history of the changes in waste disposal technology that occurred in the UK from the Victorian period to the present day, highlighting the ways in which technologies of dumping, burning, and reuse have competed with one another while a tendency toward industrial mass disposal has come to dominate western waste regimes. Steve Guilbert discussed these issues from the standpoint of a particular site, that of Sheffield, and the way in which its waste management practices and flows have become structured around its controversial incinerator and the company that operates it, Veolia Environmental Services. Catherine Alexander drew on the themes from each of these papers to address some of the ‘black boxes’ of waste management and technologies that cause certain forms to appear and disappear from view, emphasizing the sociality of technology, the multidirectionality of waste flows, and the aesthetics of waste. The discussion that followed clarified these themes further, explored the ethnographic material that informed the papers, and identified opportunities for future research.

Project 3: Steel: material transformations and the pressures of globalising markets, 16th May 2008, Sheffield Univeristy

Team: Ray Hudson (Durham), Fionn MacKillop (Durham), Dan Swanton (Durham), Richard Thackray (Durham)

The workshop provided an opportunity to present the Project 3 themes and ongoing research to the Waste of the World programme and four invited discussants - Jonathan Aylen (Manchester Business School, University of Manchester), Jon Aumonier (Mineral Industries Research Organisation), Gavin Bridge (Geography, University of Manchester) and Dean Stroud (Sociology, Cardiff University). Ray Hudson introduced Project 2, locating it conceptually and thematically within ‘The Waste of the World’ programme. Richard Thackray then provided an introduction to steelmaking for a non-specialist audience, focussing on the physical flows and transformations of matter under different routes to steel production. Fionn MacKillop presented ongoing research on what are commonly referred to as ‘problem wastes’ on steel plants. Fionn’s paper drew on empirical evidence to examine whether this designation of ‘problem wastes’ was based on the unruly or hazardous nature of the materials themselves, or working practices. Dan Swanton presented an outline of proposed research that emphasised three areas of work: a.) conceptually rethinking the smooth representations of flows of matter from raw material to finished product by drawing on the concept of assemblage to trace residual and neglected geographies and materialities of steelmaking; b) tracking how bodies encounter material flows and transformations on steel plants; and c.) mapping the ‘globalising pressures’ in the steel industry by examining the emerging geographies of steel making in India. The papers formed the basis for a productive set of discussions, providing valuable feedback to ongoing research and ways to take the research forward.

Project 2: The nuclear waste economy: (im)mobility, risk and materials science, 14th March 2008, Sheffield University

Team: Catherine Alexander (Goldsmiths), Karen Bickerstaff (Durham), Romain Garcier (Sheffield), Nicky Gregson (Sheffield) John Walls (Durham)

The team presented core Project 2 themes and research to date to the wider WotW programme group and a number of external discussants - Peter Phillimore (Newcastle), Peter Simmons (UEA) and Divya Tolia-Kelly (Durham). Romain Garcier outlined his work on mapping the material and economic ‘flows’ associated with various steps in the nuclear fuel cycle, the geographical locations connected through these flows and the key stakeholders involved. John Walls presented his research on the emerging market in the decommissioning of nuclear sites in the UK and France – which traces the role of national and international capital in creating and profiting from the transformations of value and matter bound up with practices of decommissioning. Karen Bickerstaff provided an overview of the ethnographic work to be undertaken in the Borough of Copeland (home to the Sellafield nuclear complex), which is aimed at exploring the ways in which flows associated with ‘wasting’ – reprocessing, decommissioning, disposal – impact on collective notions of risk, place, identity and the future. This set of issues touches on the cultural / embodied as well as material aspects of contamination and its effects on particular people and places. The papers led to a really stimulating and productive set of discussions about these core areas of work, links between the project elements and taking the research forward.

Project 1: From Hartlepool to Chittagong: the life and death of ships, Workshop 1 – 25th January 2008, Department of Geography, University of Sheffield

The workshop featured three papers, presented by Nicky Gregson, Melania Calestani and Helen Watkins, with three discussants: Ian Cook (Exeter, Geography), Kevin Hetherington (Open, Geography) and Sharon Macdonald (Manchester, Cultural Anthropology). Paper titles are as follows: ‘Matter contained/matter unbound: the situated practices of ship breaking’ (NG); ‘International legislation and ship breaking: global perspectives, local realities’ (MC); and ‘Beyond toxic waste and rusting hulks: the life of ghosts’ (HW). The first of these papers is available as a download via the ‘Working Papers and Conversations’ button on the front page.

Launch Event – 29th May 2007

The programme was officially launched at the Royal Geographical Society, London. We thank the RGS for their generous hospitality and their agreement to act as a ‘London home’ for programme events, and look forward to future events to be held in 2009 and 2011.

Following an opening address from Adrian Alsop (ESRC), Peter Jones (Biffa) and Tim Jackson (Surrey) gave two stimulating presentations, highlighting respectively the policy and academic challenges addressed by the programme. Tim has very kindly agreed to allow us to reproduce his presentation, which is downloadable as a pdf here.

The reception afterwards provided the opportunity to look at various poster materials and to talk with investigators and guests. If you would like to receive a copy of the launch brochure you can either download a print-friendly version or, alternatively, request a ‘glossy’ hard copy via the Programme Administrator, email K.Schofield@Sheffield.ac.uk.

Click here for photographs of the launch.