The Routledge Handbook of Waste Studies - Paperback

by Zsuzsa Gille (Editor), Josh Lepawsky (Editor)

The Routledge Handbook of Waste Studies offers a comprehensive survey of the new field of waste studies, critically interrogating the cultural, social, economic, and political systems within which waste is created, managed, and circulated.

While scholars have not settled on a definitive categorization of what waste studies is, more and more researchers claim that there is a distinct cluster of inquiries, concepts, theories and key themes that constitute this field. In this handbook the editors and contributors explore the research questions, methods, and case studies preoccupying academics working in this field, in an attempt to develop a set of criteria by which to define and understand waste studies as an interdisciplinary field of study.

This handbook will be invaluable to those wishing to broaden their understanding of waste studies and to students and practitioners of geography, sociology, anthropology, history, environment, and sustainability studies.

Author Biography

Zsuzsa Gille is Professor of Sociology and Director of Global Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Paprika, Foie Gras, and Red Mud: The Politics of Materiality in the European Union (2016) and From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History: The Politics of Waste in Socialist and Postsocialist Hungary (2007--recipient of honorable mention of the AAASS Davis Prize).

Josh Lepawsky is Professor of Geography at Memorial University, Canada. He is author of Reassembling Rubbish: Worlding Electronic Waste and "Planet of fixers? Mapping the middle grounds of independent and do-it-yourself information and communication technology maintenance and repair".