Burning Matters: Life, Labor, and E-Waste Pyropolitics in Ghana

Burning Matters: Life, Labor, and E-Waste Pyropolitics in Ghana
ISBN-10
0190934549
ISBN-13
9780190934545
Category
Science
Pages
246
Language
English
Published
2021
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Author
Peter C. Little

Description

"This book explores the complex cultural, economic, and environmental health politics of electronic waste (e-waste) in Ghana. Global trade in e-waste has led to various global e-waste management challenges and many regions of the Global South, like Ghana, have suffered the consequences. Based on ethnographic research, the book exposes the lived experience of Ghana's e-waste workers, as they navigate the health, social, and economic challenges of e-waste labor, especially e-waste workers burning electrical wires to extract copper, a valuable and ubiquitous tech metal. With a particular focus on e-waste workers working in an urban scrap metal market known as Agbogbloshie, the book examines the ways in which this labor practice has raised concerns about toxic exposures and urban environmental contamination and has drawn the attention of international organizations seeking to find "green" solutions to severe environmental and health risks posed by these e-waste burning. Addressing the practices and risks of e-waste burning and the politics and optimism of environmental health interventions, the book explores the theoretical import of the "pyropolitical ecology of e-waste," an approach developed to augment and synthesize the emerging anthropology and political ecology of e-waste ruination, environmental justice, and uncertainty in the Global South"--

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