Contested Worldings of E-Waste Environmental Justice: Nonhuman Agency and E-Waste Scalvaging in Guiyu, China

Kun Wang, Junxi Qian and Shenjing He

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2021, vol. 111, issue 7, 2165-2184

Abstract: Current environmental justice (EJ) research is moving beyond the distributional paradigm to embrace frameworks that emphasize the plurality of EJs. This study proposes that actor-network theory (ANT), which foregrounds nonhuman agency and heterogeneous associations, holds great potential for pushing forward this research agenda. It presents an ANT-informed analysis of the plural epistemologies of EJ by focusing on a global e-waste scalvaging hub—Guiyu in China. E-waste is considered a fluid and emergent material actant. The multiplicity of e-waste materialities coconstitutes the disparate worldings of EJ, with a wide range of actors involved in the knowledge-making practices. Disparate EJ realities concerning e-waste scalvaging have been worlded and enacted through the heterogeneous associations among numerous nonhuman actors, including discarded electronic devices, environmental conditions, pollutants, toxic substances, artifacts, discourses, tools and techniques, and a variety of human stakeholders, ranging from nongovernmental organizations, media, and academics to local scalvagers relying on e-waste for livelihood and wealth. In tracing these heterogeneous associations, this study juxtaposes two competing EJ worldings related to the ontological indeterminacy of e-waste. It first problematizes the worlding of North-to-South dumping that not only mispresents the complex geographies of e-waste, but also epitomizes a simplified distributional model of EJ.Then it ventures to theorize an often-neglected and underresearched dimension: EJ as situated capabilities and functionings concerned by the local community. This study thus adds to ongoing efforts to advance pluralist epistemologies of EJ.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2021.1889353

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