Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Financialization of Industrial Waste Recycling

工业环境中产生了大量废物，人们经常努力更有效和更有利可图地回收废物。跨国机构之间的废物商品化对从事废物贸易的社区具有广泛的经济、环境和健康影响。这项研究特别侧重于造船业的废金属回收，该行业在国内和国际范围内雇用了大量工人。在多个地点，研究人员使用民族志方法的补充来研究工作条件，社会组织和生态因素如何受到废物跨国流动及其金融化波动的影响。相关研究结果与不同的利益相关者分享，以改善当地和全球回收基础设施的方式，提高劳动者在该行业的工作条件，同时最大限度地减少环境影响。本博士论文项目研究废金属废物商品化变化的社会和生态后果。研究人员对在国际废金属市场工作的金融专业人士进行了参与式观察。类似的人种学方法也用于拆船厂的工人。除了参与观察外，还将在两个地点对关键的举报人进行半结构化访谈。对废金属政策和经济变化的调查和档案研究提供了补充数据，使人种学研究成为背景。这项研究的结果有助于经济人类学，科学和技术研究的辩论，以及金融，工作和浪费人类学的学术研究。该项目还有助于社会科学研究生的教育。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Considerable waste is generated in industrial settings, and efforts are frequently made to recycle waste more efficiently and profitably. The commoditization of waste among transnational institutions has broad economic, environmental, and health implications for communities that engage in the trade of waste. This study focuses in particular on the recycling of scrap metal from the shipbuilding industry, which employs large numbers of workers in domestic and international contexts. At multiple sites, the researchers use a complement of ethnographic methods to examine how working conditions, social organization, and ecological factors are impacted by fluctuations in the transnational flows of waste and its financialization. Relevant findings are shared with diverse stakeholders to improve local and global recycling infastructures in ways that enhance the working conditions of laborers in the industry while minimizing environmental impacts.This doctoral dissertation project examines the social and ecological consequences of changes in the commoditization of scrap metal waste. The researchers employ participant observation among financial professionals working in international scrap-metal markets. Similar ethnographic methods are used among workers at a ship-breaking yard. In addition to participation observation, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with a sample of key informants at both sites. Surveys and archival research on changes in the policies and economics of the scrap-metal provide complementary data that contextualize the ethnographic research. The findings of this research contribute to debates in economic anthropology, science and technology studies, and scholarship on the anthropology of finance, work, and waste. The project also contributes to the education of a graduate student in the social sciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.