schaffer_abstract


 * Abstract :: DRAFT NUMERO UNO**

Along with long-term shifts in the American waste regime toward conservation and recovery, and the ascent of public-private collaborations for the management of //resources// (the substances formerly known as waste); smaller, grass-roots, community-based shifts in waste practices are taking place in a variety of settings. The aim of this study is to examine the oppositional efforts of these grass-roots waste management projects; their environmental and democratic imaginaries and their valuation of waste as compared to (and defined by) the macro-level shifts in waste policy and discourse.

In this study, a community effort to implement food scraps composting in a small city (Troy, NY) provides a setting for investigating the prospect of community waste governance against a backdrop of shifting institutional mores around waste. Through participatory action, this research aims to develop the composting system and understand the decisions that impact its development. It characterizes the institutional backdrop through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and discourse analysis of policy literature.

This study hopes to demonstrate that concepts of waste are exceptionally malleable at the micro (Troy, NY) and macro (US), and that changes in the structure of waste systems can have an influence both on the categories of waste and the wasting subject. In order to do so, it creates an account of recent developments in waste policy and waste policy discourse in the United States while supporting the unfolding narrative of Troy’s composting program.

These findings are becoming increasingly relevant as the myriad “waste problems” engendered by a high-waste society such as contemporary America continue to both threaten and confuse…

//Questions about this abstract:// //a)// //How can I better characterize the “shifts” and “ascent” of the first sentence?// //b)// //Is that really my aim?!// //c)// //Is this work really participatory action research?//