Course Syllabus

Trash Culture: Consumption, Waste and Re-use

 

Semester & Location:	SU18- DIS Stockholm
Type & Credits:	Core Course - 4 credits
Core Course Study Tours:	London, United Kingdom
Major Disciplines:	Anthropology, Sociology, Sustainability
Faculty Members:	Frederik Larsen
Program Director:	Neringa B. Vendelbo- nb@dis.dk
Time & Place:	TBA

Description of Course

Applying various approaches to the realm of the discarded in contemporary cultures, this course explores the practices of wasting. While wastefulness is often seen as a sign of prosperity, the threat of resource scarcity has generated new interest in the area. Looking at the history of consumption and people’s relationship with what they throw away we examine what abject objects say about us. Resource management, archaeology, cultural theory and anthropology all provide insight into this overlooked area of everyday life which is often seen as dirty and improper. With a greater attention on the harmful effects of wasteful consumption, people are engaging in a variety of practices such as reusing, recycling and repairing to prolong the life of things, and in the course we will address these practices to understand their historical and societal context. In this way the course will provide a comprehensive introduction to the subject and shed new light on the dark side of consumption.

Learning Objectives

Participation in the course will generate an understanding of the relationship between waste and consumption in contemporary consumer culture. By the end of the semester you will be able to assess and discuss different approaches to the subject of how people and societies make sense of dirt and waste. We will discuss the theoretical underpinnings of discard studies as well as the practices of discarding, re-using and recycling. The course will provide a situated perspective on managing and re-valuing waste that puts individual actions and cultural understanding at the center.

Faculty

Frederik Larsen holds a PhD in Organization Studies from the Copenhagen Business School and a MA in Visual Culture from the University of Copenhagen. He does research on the subject of second-hand industries and reuse practices and acts as an advisor to organizations and institutions on matters of reuse.

Readings

• Douglas, M., 1985 [1966]. Purity and Danger –an analysis of the concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London: Ark.
• Gillian Pye (ed) 2010. Trash Culture: Objects and Obsolescence in Cultural Perspective. Oxford, Bern: Peter Lang.
• Graeber, D. 2012. ‘Afterword –the apocalypse of objects-degradation, redeptiom and transcendence in the world of consumer goods’, in, Alexander, Catherine, & Joshua Reno, (eds.) Economies of Recycling: Global Transformations of Materials, Values and Social Relations. London: Zed Books.
• Gregson, N., Crang, M., Ahamed, F., Akhtar, N. & Ferdous, R. 2010. ‘Following things of rubbish value: end-of-life ships, ‘chock-chocky’ furniture and the Bangladeshi middle class consumer’, Geoforum. 41:846-854.
• Gregson, N., Metcalfe, A. & Crewe, L. 2007. Moving things along: the conduits and practices of divestment in consumption. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. 32:187-200.
• Jackson, S.J. 2014. Rethinking Repair, in T. Gillespie, P. J. Boczkowski, and K. A. Foot (eds.), Media Technologies – Essays on Communication, Materiality and Society, Cambridge, MIT Press.
• Nagle, R, 2013. Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
• Norris, Lucy 2010. Recycling Indian Clothing –Global Contexts of Reuse and Value. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Moore, Sarah A. 2012. ‘Garbage matters: Concepts in new geographies of waste’, Progress in Human Geography 36: 780-799.
• Parsons, E. 2008.  ‘Thompson’s Rubbish Theory: Exploring the Practices of Value Creation’ European Advances in Consumer Research 8: 390-93.
• Shaffer, G. Camp, Discard Studies Compendium, http://discardstudies.com/discard-studies-compendium
• Shove, E. 2003. Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience: The Social Organization of Normality Oxford: Berg. p 395.
• Strasser, S. 2000. Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, New York: Henry Holt and Company.
• Wrap UK 2011. Report: Realising the Reuse Value of Household Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment.

Field Studies

The two field studies will include a visit to a second-hand sorting facility and a waste collection point. The field study will give in-depth understandings of the practices of wasting, collecting and sorting and provide embodied understandings of the materiality of discard culture.

Approach to Teaching

The teaching will consist of a mix of lectures, discussions and exercises as well as field trips and guest lectures.

Expectations of the Students

Students are expected to come prepared for class and to participate in discussion. Critical reflection on the readings is encouraged.

Evaluation

 The course will include 3 assignments of equal importance:

Assignment 1: Biography of a wasted object: Based on field notes and visual documentation,  describe the journey an object takes from the hands of the consumer through the waste stream.

Assignment 2: Living London Oral presentation and notes for classmates on selected sites in London. The presentations should include general information on the site as well as a discard perspective developed in class.

Assignment 3: Ethnography of Repair: Taking a broken object as the starting point, research what needs to be repaired and either engage in repairing or deliver the object to a professional. Based on the experience, put together a presentation reflecting on what repairing entails on an individual and a societal scale using the readings fro the syllabus.

Grading

Assignment	Percent
Engaged Participation	50%
Assignment 1	10%
Assignment 2	10%
Final Assignment	30%

Disability and Resource Statement  

Any student who has a need for accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the Office of Academic Support (acadsupp@dis.dk) to coordinate this.  In order to receive accommodations, students should inform the instructor of approved DIS accommodations within the first two weeks of classes.

Policies

Attendance

You are expected to attend all classes, guest lectures, workshops and field studies. If you must miss a class for religious holidays, medical reasons, or other valid reasons, you must let us know as far in advance as possible of the absence and obtain information about the work you must do to keep up in class. If you miss a class for any other reason (sudden illness, family emergency, etc.), you should get in touch with us as soon as possible and arrange to make up the work missed.

It is crucial for your learning that you stay on task and hand in assignments on or before the due date. All work– including in-class projects – have to be completed in order to pass the class. Late papers or projects will be marked down with 1/3 of a grade for each day it is late.

Academic Honesty

Plagiarism and Violating the Rules of an Assignment

DIS expects that students abide by the highest standards of intellectual honesty in all academic work. DIS assumes that all students do their own work and credit all work or thought taken from others.   Academic dishonesty will result in a final course grade of “F” and can result in dismissal. The students’ home universities will be notified. DIS reserves the right to request that written student assignments be turned in electronic form for submission to plagiarism detection software.  See the Academic Handbook for more information, or ask your instructor if you have questions.

Preliminary Course Schedule

Session 1: Introduction: What is Trash Culture?

Session 2: Consumption and use

Session 3: Following the thing – Analysis of consumption and discard practices

Home assignment: Biography of a wasted object

Session 4: Society and the history of discarding

Session 5: Managing waste in the city: Visit to a resource facility

Home assignment: Assigning presentations for study tour visits

Session 6: Consumption, comfort and convenience

Session 7: Rubbish Theory – waste, value and thrift

Session 8: Secondhand cultures and global reuse industries

Session 9: Visit to a secondhand sorting facility

Session 10: Invisible waste – marginalized practices and queer responses

STUDY TOUR

Session 11: Making do- Bricollage and situated approaches to over-consumption

Session 12: Understand Repair in the 21 century

Home assignment: Ethnography of Repair

Seession 13: Waste, reuse and the environment

Session 14: Circular Economy and ressource perspectives

Session 15: Wrap-up

 

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