November 17, 2020

Not a “wasted” enterprise: political ecologies of wastewater wetlands in Kolkata

By Jenia Mukherjee and Amrita Sen Jenia Mukherjee and Amrita Sen reflect on multiple ways of knowing, experiencing and engaging with wastewater in East Kolkata Wetlands (India). This plurality offers original insights into a provocative question:  is wastewater always toxic, polluting and hazardous? A new post of the series “Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water: from extractivism to commoning”.
February 25, 2020

Undisciplining environmental justice research with visual storytelling

By Sarah A. Moore and Heather Rosenfeld. A project on mapping transnational hazardous waste in North America serves as an entry point to critically rethinking the role of maps and data in the knowledge and the stories we tell about environmental injustices.
April 4, 2019

Political Ecologies of Waste: Salvaged Livelihoods and Infra-structural Labour

by Benjamin Irvine. Solid waste is often seen as an environmental problem to be solved through change of behaviour and recycling. Political ecology can sharpen our analysis of the politics involved in the way materials move through the economy. Prospects for reducing the amount of solid waste generated and ambitions for a “circular economy” will entail qualitative transformations in patterns of material flows and organisation of labour. Deciphering the shape of these changes necessarily begins in the present conditions and struggles of waste workers.
January 31, 2019

Night of the Living ‘Things’: Zombie Archaeology

by Eric Fleischmann Capitalist societies produce more stuff than ever before but all these things are quickly discarded. Rubbish becomes part of topography and ecological systems, eventually returning to humans. When the remnants of our past return to us by themselves with a vengeance, this is zombie archaeology.
May 17, 2018

Trashopolis! Storytelling, waste research and glocal conflicts

by Salvatore De Rosa This is a very personal account of an ethnographic immersion in the epicenter of an environmental conflict of huge proportions. That happens to be, at the same time, the place where I was born. It is an attempt at connecting the dots between individual existence, collective destinies and glocal ecological transformations. Campania, anno 2016, Anthropocene has already shown up here as Biocide. But in the Zone we became Stalkers…
September 6, 2016

Campania grassroots movements: lessons from 15 years of environmental struggle

Social mobilizations in Campania are changing the political, economic, cultural and ecological landscapes of the region. Their strategies and practices draw a path of resistance and reappropriation that can inspire environmental movements in Italy and elsewhere.
August 2, 2016

Drivers of illegal waste disposal: the case of Campania, Italy

Illegal economic practices are often labeled as aberrations of the market logic, but few realize their role in sustaining capitalist accumulation and power hierarchies. Uncovering the drivers of illegal waste disposal in Campania demonstrates that illicit and legal economies are often intertwined and mutually beneficial.*
September 2, 2015

The Political Ecology of Everyday Life under Settler Colonialism I – Reporting from Palestine

In July 2015 a group of ENTITLE fellows travelled to Palestine to attend the International Conference of Critical Geography in Ramallah. The following piece is the first part of a series on the political ecology of life under settler colonialism in the West Bank.
August 18, 2015

When companies leave: environmental liabilities and the Flix Electrochemical Company in Catalonia

by Marta Pujadas* The one hundred-year old Flix electrochemical company is about to leave. What will happen now that the long-term impacts on human health and the environment are no longer compensated by short-term economic gains?
April 27, 2015

La economía circular o la invención del círculo

by Jesús Ramos Martín* ¿Para qué y cuánto crecer? Y sobre todo ¿a qué coste? La propuesta de la economía circular no es nueva y contribuye a desviar el debate acerca del crecimiento económico y sus consecuencias. Últimamente oímos hablar bastante de economía circular en las discusiones acerca del desarrollo económico y su interacción con el medio ambiente. En particular, en Europa se ha puesto de moda este término desde que el 25 de septiembre de 2014 se aprobara la comunicación de la Comisión Europea […]
January 22, 2015

Travelling through the contaminated territories of Campania

by Ilenia Iengo* The polluted fields of the Campania region in Southern Italy are infamous as the outcomes of two decades of urban and industrial waste mismanagement. There, struggles for environmental justice are also struggles for reclaiming dignity. Acerra, Giugliano, Chiaiano. In this order, on December 14 2014, a delegation of international researchers, journalists and activists have met and discussed with local communities that are fighting for environmental, social and political justice. In the territories around the city of Napoli, these communities are struggling against an imposed and long-lasting contamination […]
September 21, 2014

Interview with researcher Salvatore Paolo De Rosa on the Campania waste conflict

by Giorgos Velegrakis The interview was originally given to Giorgos Velegrakis for the greek environmental magazine Oikotrives Giorgos Velegrakis (G.V.): We know that over a lot of years now an area of Campania became the trashcan of Italy. How did it all start? Salvatore Paolo De Rosa (S.P.):The area of Campania that suffered the most of the accumulation of trash is the northern part: a plain between the provinces of Naples and Caserta, stretching on 3.800 sq. km whit 4 million inhabitants. This land was […]