Overview

Global trade in electronic waste (e-waste) has led to various waste management challenges and many regions of the Global South have suffered the toxic consequences. In Burning Matters, Peter C. Little explores the complex cultural, economic, and environmental health politics of e-waste work in Ghana. He brings to light the lived experiences of Ghana's e-waste workers, as they navigate the health, social, and economic challenges of highly toxic e-waste labor. In particular, Little engages the experiences of e-waste workers who burn bundles of electrical cables to extract copper, a practice that contaminates bodies and the urban environment and which has attracted international organizations seeking to mitigate risk and find quick tech solutions to this highly toxic e-waste work. A nuanced perspective on e-waste burning and environmental politics in Africa at a time when global e-waste generation and trade is at an all-time high, Burning Matters contends that e-waste interventions devoid of ethnographic perspective and knowledge risk downplaying the vibrant complexities of e-waste itself and the matters of social life and labor that matter most to Ghana's e-waste workers.

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9780190934545

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Reviews

Burning Matters is ethnographically rich with Little's attention to detail and his elegant descriptions of labour and life around e-waste in Agbogbloshie. This thick ethnography sets a new bar for ethnographies of e-waste, precarious labour and urban African marginalities. In addition, the book excellently weaves together history, global forces, technologies and e-waste politics at Agbogbloshie. Burning Matters is a pioneer oeuvre and an excellent contribution to the growing body of ethnography of e-waste in urban Africa. * Anthropology Southern Africa *

Author Information

Peter C. Little is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rhode Island College. He is author of Toxic Town: IBM, Pollution, and Industrial Risks (2014).

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