Book Launch - Gathering Electronic Waste in Tanzania: Labor, Value, and Toxicity

Gathering Electronic Waste in Tanzania: Labor, Value, and Toxicity explores the complexities of electronic waste management in the Global South. In his new book, Samwel Moses Ntapanta examines the materialities of electronics and e-discards, toxicity, and the sociocultural and economic fabrics of e-waste management in Tanzania. He traces the lifecycle of electronic goods beyond their discard in the Global South: from the importation of used goods to cycles of repair, and from the collection of ‘scrap’ to repurposing materials for manufacturing. Discussions of waste and electronic discard management often view micro-scale ingenious activities around unregulated recycling centers in the Global South only as a source of pollution. Through the concept of gathering, Ntapanta provides insight into the effects of unregulated mechanisms to address the e-waste problem. He argues that understanding this connection between informal workers and the economy at large paves a path for better waste regime models, reduced violence, and environmental justice for workers and marginalized communities.

Samwel Moses Ntapanta is a post-doc researcher in the Department of Anthropology at Aarhus University. His research covers coloniality, consumption, discarding, late capitalism's debris, repairing and recycling economies, and the anthropology of money. For the past nine years, he has studied the intersection of science, technology, and society in East Africa. He is part of the project "The Social Life of Cryptocurrencies in the Global South," which examines the emergence and dynamics of cryptocurrencies in informal economies in Kenya, Cuba, and The Philippines. This work builds on his interest in the relationship between science, society, and emerging technologies.

Discussant: Hannah Elliott, Assistant Professor at Copenhagen Business School.

The Centre will serve wine and snacks after the seminar.