The Anthropology of Trash
Spring 2007 – Alexx Campbell
Practices:
Collecting - Dates to be determined
At some point during the semester, I will save all garbage I generate for a given period.
This includes anything that I would throw out in a garbagecan or waste basket; it does not
include toilet paper. I’ll then bring my trash to class.
Reusing – Dates to be determined
Choose a product that you would normally discard after using. Instead of throwing it out,
save it and use it as many times as you can until it dies. Examples might be paper or
plastic shopping bags, paper coffee cups, plastic water bottles, etc. Mark the date that you
first reuse it and see how long it lasts. Also notice how many of them you save by using
one over and over.
Other practices to be decided upon.
Field Trips:
The Official Garbage System - I plan to do something where I go along with garbage
collectors as they make their rounds, somewhere in the Amherst area – either with the
College, or with the Town. I also want to visit the Town dump.
Dumpster Diving –
In one form or another, I will go dumpster diving, preferably with others who have done
it before. I will try to find something that I can actually “rescue” from the garbage and
use for myself.
Readings:
Week 1: Theories of Dirt, Disgust, and Separation
Mary Douglas
Introduction and Chapters 1-3, Purity and Danger. 1966, Pantheon.
William Miller
Chapter 3, The Anatomy of Disgust. 1998, Harvard University Press.
Week 2: Ignoring Trash and the Value of Waste
Martin O’Brien
“Rubbish-Power: Towards a Sociology of the Rubbish Society”, In J. Hearn and S.
Roseneil, eds., Consuming Cultures: Power and Resistance. 1999, St. Martin’s Press.
Edd de Coverly, et. al.
Hidden Mountain: The social avoidance of waste. 2003, International Centre for
Corporate Social Responsibility.
Igor Kopytoff
“The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process,” in Arjun Appadurai,
ed., The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. 1986,
Cambridge University Press.
Gay Hawkins
“Plastic bags: Living with Rubbish” in International Journal of Cultural Studies. 2001,
Vol. 4, No. 1, 5-23.
Michael Thompson
parts of Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value. 1979, Oxford
University Press
Week 3: A History of Trash in America
Benjamin Miller
Fat of the Land: The Garbage Of New York--The Last Two Hundred Years. 2000, Four
Walls Eight Windows
Week 4: Trash Then and Now
Elizabeth Royte
Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash. 2005, Little, Brown and Co.
Week 5: Garbage Men (and Women)
Field Trip – The Official Garbage System
This American Life
Act One and Act Three (radio segments) from Episode 249: Garbage. 2003, Public
Radio International. http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/03/249.html
Robin Nagle
“A weeklong journal of a sanitation worker in training” in Slate. October 4-8, 2004.
http://www.slate.com/id/2106849/entry/2107445/
“Why We Love to Hate San Men”, in Bad Subjects. Issue #55, May 2001.
http://bad.eserver.org/issues/2001/55/nagle.html
Edward Walsh
“Garbage Collecting: Stigmatized Work and Self-Esteem” in Roy P. Fairfield, ed.,
Humanizing the Workplace. 1974, Prometheus Books.
Week 6: Unofficial Garbage Workers, Part One
Field Trip – Dumpster Diving
Jeff Ferrell
Empire of Scrounge: Inside the Urban Underground of Dumpster Diving, Trash Picking,
and Street Scavenging. 2005, New York University Press.
Ted Botha
Mongo: Adventures in Trash. 2004, Bloomsbury USA.
Week 7: Unofficial Garbage Workers, Part Two
This American Life
Act Two (radio segment) from Episode 249: Garbage. 2003, Public Radio International.
http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/03/249.html
Eduardo Coutinho
The Scavengers (film). 1992, First Run/Icarus Films.
D.T. Sicular
“Pockets of Peasants in Indonesian Cities: The case of scavengers” in World
Development. 1991, Vol. 19, Iss. 2-3, 137-161.
Week 8: How Do Trash Systems Affect Different People Differently?
Susan Strasser
Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash. 2000, Owl Books.
Susan E. Gunn and Zenaida Ostos
“Dilemmas in tackling child labour: The case of scavenger children in the Phillipines” in
International Labour Review. 1992, 131(6), 629-646.
Marijk Huysman
“Waste picking as a survival strategy for women in Indian cities” in Environment and
Urbanization. 1994, Vol. 6, No. 2, 155-174.
Week 9: The Politics of Pollution and Global Racism
David Naguib Pellow
Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago. 2002, MIT Press.
Something about the international toxic waste trade
Week 10: Garbology
William Rathje and Cullen Murphy
Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage. 2001, University of Arizona Press.
Week 11: Recycling and Other Alternatives
Tim Edensor
“Waste Matter - The Debris of Industrial Ruins and the Disordering of the Material
World” in Journal of Material Culture. 2005, 10 (3), 311-332.
William McDonough and Michael Braungart
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. 2002, North Point Press.
Week 12: Something Really Awesome
To be decided.