Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: Scrap: The Social Life of Recyclable Metals in the United States and India

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University of California-Irvine doctoral student Matthew Lane, with guidance from Dr. William M. Maurer, will undertake research on how commodities change in value through their global circulation and the mechanisms that facilitate the interconnections among people that are necessary for this process to take place. Lane will focus particularly on scrap metal, which moves from being trash in United States dumpsters to being a tradeable commodity after transport halfway around the world. Scrap metal, not always viewed by the general population as a commodity and often neglected in curbside recycling, nonetheless operates as a formal object of circulation that is tied to the economic livelihood of millions of people. The researcher will track scrap metal from the alleyways of Chicago to the freight ships that transport it to India and to a steel refinery in India where it helps to fuel India's industrial expansion. He will use a mix of social science methods including participant observation, interviewing, and archival research. Interviews will be conducted with a broad range of participants, including informal waste collectors in the United States ("scrappers"), a waste management company, scrap metal haulers and transporters, informal sorters ("ragpickers") and metal dealers in India, and officials at an Indian steel company.The research is important because it will provide social science data on contemporary transnational economic processes and the populations that make those processes possible. Findings will also be useful to future environmental and waste management policy. Funding this project supports the education of a social scientist.