
Burning Matters
Life, Labor, and E-Waste Pyropolitics in Ghana
Peter C. Little(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
Published on 30. December 2021
Book
Hardback
246 pages
978-0-19-093454-5 (ISBN)
Description
Global trade in electronic waste (e-waste) has led to various waste management challenges and many regions of the Global South have suffered the toxic consequences. In Burning Matters, Peter C. Little explores the complex cultural, economic, and environmental health politics of e-waste work in Ghana. He brings to light the lived experiences of Ghana's e-waste workers, as they navigate the health, social, and economic challenges of highly toxic e-waste labor. In particular, Little engages the experiences of e-waste workers who burn bundles of electrical cables to extract copper, a practice that contaminates bodies and the urban environment and which has attracted international organizations seeking to mitigate risk and find quick tech solutions to this highly toxic e-waste work. A nuanced perspective on e-waste burning and environmental politics in Africa at a time when global e-waste generation and trade is at an all-time high, Burning Matters contends that e-waste interventions devoid of ethnographic perspective and knowledge risk downplaying the vibrant complexities of e-waste itself and the matters of social life and labor that matter most to Ghana's e-waste workers.
Reviews / Votes
Burning Matters is ethnographically rich with Little's attention to detail and his elegant descriptions of labour and life around e-waste in Agbogbloshie. This thick ethnography sets a new bar for ethnographies of e-waste, precarious labour and urban African marginalities. In addition, the book excellently weaves together history, global forces, technologies and e-waste politics at Agbogbloshie. Burning Matters is a pioneer oeuvre and an excellent contribution to the growing body of ethnography of e-waste in urban Africa. * Anthropology Southern Africa *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
23 b/w photographs; 3 tables; 2 maps
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
537 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-093454-5 (9780190934545)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
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Book
12/2021
Oxford University Press Inc
€39.70
Shipment within 15-20 days

E-Book
10/2021
OUP eBook
€16.49
Available for download

E-Book
10/2021
OUP eBook
€16.49
Available for download
Person
Peter C. Little is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rhode Island College. He is author of Toxic Town: IBM, Pollution, and Industrial Risks (2014).
Author
Associate Professor of AnthropologyAssociate Professor of Anthropology, Rhode Island College
Content
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Figures and Tables
Introduction: From E-Waste Ashes to Ethnographic Intervention
1. Amidst Global E-Waste Trades and Green Neoliberalization
2. "We Are All North Here": Dagomba Migrations and Meanings
3. Erasure, Demolition, and Violent Obsolescence in the Urban Margins
4. Embodied Burning, E-Waste Epidemiology, and Toxic Postcolonial Corporality
5. Visualizing Agbogbloshie and Re-Envisioning E-Waste Anthropology
6. Looming Uncertainties and Neoliberal Techno-Optimism
Conclusion: New Openings, Relations, and Burning Matters
Notes
References
Index
Acknowledgments
List of Figures and Tables
Introduction: From E-Waste Ashes to Ethnographic Intervention
1. Amidst Global E-Waste Trades and Green Neoliberalization
2. "We Are All North Here": Dagomba Migrations and Meanings
3. Erasure, Demolition, and Violent Obsolescence in the Urban Margins
4. Embodied Burning, E-Waste Epidemiology, and Toxic Postcolonial Corporality
5. Visualizing Agbogbloshie and Re-Envisioning E-Waste Anthropology
6. Looming Uncertainties and Neoliberal Techno-Optimism
Conclusion: New Openings, Relations, and Burning Matters
Notes
References
Index