Write about something you’ve observed where waste disrupts your perception of how things should ‘normally’ function. What does this disruption reveal about the forms of domination and violence in ‘normal’ everyday social systems? Think about examples from the readings this week, such as waste being used as a resistance tactic in social movements, or police using waste to justify aggression against social groups, or the utopian imaginings of waste in future societies, but feel free to go beyond these. 

Readings for this week:

Moore, Sarah A. (2009) “The excess of modernity: Garbage politics in Oaxaca, Mexico.” Professional Geographer 61: 426–437.

“Lebanese Say #YouStink to Government’s Garbage Crisis and Corruption.” PBS NewsHour, August 31, 2015. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/lebanon-trash.

Kohn, Alice. “Trash Crisis Forces Lebanon’s Environmental Awakening.” Deutsche Welle, December 27, 2016. http://www.dw.com/en/trash-crisis-forces-lebanons-environmental-awakening/a-36765579.

Liboiron, Max. “Tactics of Waste, Dirt and Discard in the Occupy Movement.” Social Movement Studies 11, nos. 3-4 (2012): 393-401.

Asimov, Isaac. “Strikebreaker.” In Robot Dreams. New York: Ace, 1986, 127-138.

Morris, William. News from Nowhere. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1918. (Chapters 6,7,15; pages 45-62, 117-126.)