Enacting a Waste Hierarchy: Practices of Reuse, Repair and Recycling Amongst Jua Kali, Kenya

由于中产阶级消费的扩大，全球南方城市消费后固体废物的增长被视为可持续发展的一个发展中问题。为了减少废物，干预措施的层次通常是减少，再利用，再循环。人们没有兴趣告诉新兴的全球中产阶级减少消费。大多数关于南半球废物的文献都集中在回收者--“废物收集者”--及其组织和条件上。它以肯尼亚jua kali非正规部门的工人作为案例研究。它选择肯尼亚是因为制造和修理jua kali行业规模庞大，并且有时因其面对挑战的独创性而获得官方和公众的认可。它甚至被誉为特别显示肯尼亚的品质。政客们认为这是受到廉价中国商品的威胁，这些商品的“低质量”阻止了再利用，但其低廉的价格与非正规部门改装的二手商品竞争。本文将探讨两类商品再利用的部门-家庭烹饪用具的生产和维修。这项研究将在内罗毕的恩贡路进行人种学研究，并将追踪物品的处置、回收和改造以及购买和再利用。

A growth in solid post-consumer waste in cities in the Global South as a result of expanding Middle Class consumption has been seen as a developing problem for sustainability. To reduce waste the hierarchy of interventions is usually reduce, reuse, recycle. There is little appetite to tell the newly emerging global middle classes to reduce their consumption. Most literature on waste in the Global South has focused upon recyclers - 'waste pickers' - and their organisation and conditions.This project instead looks at 'reuse' and repurposing. It takes as its case study the jua kali informal sector workers in Kenya. It chooses Kenya since the make and mend jua kali sector is both large and has at times received official and public recognition for its ingenuity in the face of challenges. It has even been celebrated as showing especially Kenyan qualities. This has been argued by politicians to be under threat by cheap Chinese goods, whose 'low quality' prevents reuse but whose low price competes with second hand goods refitted in the informal sector. The thesis will explore two categories of goods repurposing with the sector -household cooking appliance production and repairs. The study will beconduct ethnographically in Ngong Road Nairobi and will trace thedisposal of goods, their recovery and reworking and their purchase and reuse.