Read more
"Waste management in industrial society is designed to be out of sight and out of mind. Joshua O. Reno's vivid account of work on a Michigan landfill illustrates the human consequences of disposal in North America. Waste Away is a valuable contribution to our understanding of discards and the people who work with discarded materials."—Carl A. Zimring, Associate Professor of Sustainability Studies, Pratt Institute
"Can waste exhilarate and mortify simultaneously? Can it make you draw closer even while cringing? Joshua O. Reno brings all the dynamism of trash—too often denied or disavowed—into view. He lucidly shifts waste from an afterthought to a front-and-center cultural artifact that explains us all too well."—John Hartigan, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Américo Paredes Center for Cultural Studies, University of Texas, Austin
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Interlude: A Note on Drawing and Ethnography
1 Leaky Bodies
2 Smells Like Money
3 Going Shopping
4 Wasteland Historicity
5 Ghostly and Fleshly Lines
Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Joshua O. Reno is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Binghamton University.
Summary
Reveals how North Americans have been shaped by their preferred means of disposal: sanitary landfill. This title shows how they conceal and contain other people's wastes, all while negotiating the filth of their occupation, holding on to middle-class aspirations, and occasionally scavenging worthwhile stuff from the trash.
