Hazardous Travels. Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy

危险旅行。

• 批准号: 290156503
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Simone Müller
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Professur für Globale Umweltgeschichte und Environmental Humanities
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Independent Junior Research Groups
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/290156503?language=en
• 关键词: Hazardous; Travels.; Ghost; Acres; Global

Ghost acres, waste disposal sites beyond national jurisdiction, and mobility of hazardous waste provide the two key elements of todays global waste economy, and help sustain an economic system built on economic expansion, profit maximization, and environmental sustainability characteristic of post-1970s Western industrial capitalism.In theory, a material can be considered hazardous waste if discarded and able to cause substantial harm to humans or the environment. In practice there is no globally binding definition of what materials and thresholds make waste hazardous. This definitional and regulatory deficiency makes hazardous material highly mobile, both conceptually and spatially. Various actors, national governments, international institutions, businesses, NGOs, environmental activists, ascribe different political or economic values to hazardous waste. Based on these, they import or export hazardous material and so create toxic ghost acres globally. Toxic waste ghost acres are the other fundamental condition of the global waste economy. Following the environmental turn of the 1970s, industrial countries in particular started relocating their toxic industries and waste for disposal or recycling, primarily to the Global South. Conceptually, ghost acres originated within nineteenth-century British industrialization, predicated on resources from distant ghost acres of land in and beyond the British Empire (Pomeranz, 2000). These still exist, but have moved to the end of the global commodity chain. They epitomize the externalizing society of industrial capitalism, where people do not necessarily live beyond their means but beyond someone elses (Lessenich, 2015). The research group Hazardous Travels: Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy seeks to explore the dynamics of the global waste economy from the 1960s to present through the political, cultural, and socioeconomic structures that allowed its participants to give different value to hazardous waste and so enabled toxic material relocation. The project contains one overarching study (OS) on the structures and dynamics shaping the global waste economy over time, and three individual case studies of hazardous waste relocation types: (A) waste disposal between the two Germanies, (B) waste recycling in India, and (C) export of dirty industries in Ecuador. The projects goal is to (1) identify the political, cultural, and socioeconomic actors and structures that forged discourses on and practices of hazardous waste management, (2) analyze the translation processes between contesting constructions of hazardous waste, from garbage imperialism to voluntary exchange, and (3) contrast and compare these findings in global perspective. Using hazardous waste as a lens, this research group seeks to expand understanding of the myriad relationships of ecology and economy, incorporating insights of globalization theory, postcolonialism, economic intellectual thinking, and the material turn.

鬼田、国家管辖范围以外的废物处置场和危险废物的流动性是当今全球废物经济的两个关键因素，有助于维持一个建立在经济扩张、利润最大化和环境可持续性基础上的经济体系，这是20世纪70年代后西方工业资本主义的特征。如果材料被丢弃并且能够对人类或环境造成实质性危害，则可被视为危险废物。在实践中，对于何种材料和阈值使废物具有危险性，没有具有全球约束力的定义。这一定义和监管方面的缺陷使得危险材料在概念上和空间上都具有高度移动的性。各国政府、国际机构、企业、非政府组织、环境活动家等各种行为者对危险废物赋予不同的政治或经济价值。在此基础上，他们进口或出口危险材料，从而在全球范围内创造有毒的鬼田。有毒废物鬼田是全球废物经济的另一个基本条件。在20世纪70年代的环境转向之后，工业国家特别开始将其有毒工业和废物重新安置或回收，主要是全球南方。从概念上讲，鬼田起源于19世纪的英国工业化，以大英帝国内外遥远的鬼田资源为基础（Pomeranz，2000）。这些仍然存在，但已经转移到全球商品链的末端。它们是工业资本主义外部化社会的缩影，在那里，人们不一定生活在自己的收入之外，而是生活在别人之外（Lessenich，2015）。研究小组危险旅行：鬼田和全球废物经济旨在探索从20世纪60年代到现在的全球废物经济的动态，通过政治，文化和社会经济结构，使其参与者能够为危险废物赋予不同的价值，从而实现有毒物质的重新安置。该项目包括一项关于长期形成全球废物经济的结构和动态的总体研究，以及三项关于危险废物迁移类型的个案研究：（A）两个德国之间的废物处置，（B）印度的废物回收，以及（C）厄瓜多尔肮脏工业的出口。该项目的目标是（1）确定政治，文化和社会经济行为者和结构，形成了危险废物管理的话语和实践，（2）分析危险废物的竞争性建设之间的翻译过程，从垃圾帝国主义到自愿交换，（3）在全球范围内对比和比较这些发现。本课题组以危险废弃物为透镜，结合全球化理论、后殖民主义、经济思想、物质转向等观点，试图扩大对生态与经济的各种关系的理解。