The human–environment relationship and its association is a prominent discourse in many academic disciplines. Environmental pollution, climate change and vulnerabilities associated with waste have been major concerns for policymakers, activists and academicians across the globe over the past two decades. However, it remains under-theorised despite its significance in the academic world. Waste being a physical and external phenomenon makes it difficult for social science researchers to understand all of its sociocultural aspects with the help of any existing theoretical paradigm. This article addresses the urgent need to understand the multidimensional nature of waste and waste management with the help of political ecology and actor–network theory (ANT). The article provides the areas of possible linkages between both theories to study waste with the help of secondary research tools like the literature review. By adopting theoretical pluralism and a pragmatic approach, this article aims at explaining waste-related issues through the theoretical lens of political ecology and ANT, which corroborate and extend each other on the aspects of analysing the power structure in waste issues, in exploring the changing relationship between waste and people in the globalised world.
AfrozR., RahmanA., MasudM. M., & AkhtarR. (2017). The knowledge, awareness, attitude and motivational analysis of plastic waste and household perspective in Malaysia. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 24(3), 2304–2315. 10.1007/s11356-016-7942-0
2.
AlexanderJ. (1993). In defense of garbage. Praeger.
3.
AndersonC. T. (2010). Sacred waste: Ecology, spirit, and the American garbage poem. Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 17(1), 35–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44087623
4.
AppaduraiA. (1986). The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511819582
5.
BarnesB., & BloorD. (1982). Relativism, rationalism and the sociology of knowledge. In HollisM. & LukesS. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of scientonomy (pp. 21–47). MIT Press.
6.
BaumanZ. (2004). Wasted lives: Modernity and its outcasts. Polity Press.
7.
BeckU. (2009). Critical theory of world risk society: A cosmopolitan vision. Constellations, 16(1), 3–22. 10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00534.x
8.
BhaskarR. (1975). A realist theory of science. Routledge.
9.
BilitewskiB. (1997). Waste management. Springer.
10.
BlaikieP., & BrookfieldH. (1987). Land degradation and society. Routledge.
11.
BlumbergL., & GottliebR. (1989). War on waste: Can America win its battle with garbage?Island Press.
12.
BowlerI. R. (1999). Recycling urban waste on farmland: An actor-network interpretation. Applied Geography, 19(1), 29–43. 10.1016/S0143-6228(98)00033-2
13.
BrandtP., ErnstA., GrallaF., LuederitzC., LangD. J., NewigJ., ReinertF., AbsonD. J., & von WehrdenH. (2013). A review of transdisciplinary research in sustainability science. Ecological Economics, 92, 1–15. 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2013.04.008
14.
BrantlingerP., & HigginsR. (2006). Waste and value: Thorstein Veblen and H. G. Wells. Criticism, 48(4), 453–475. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/21576/FinalWasteValue.pdf
15.
BrownellE. (2011). Negotiating the new economic order of waste. Environmental History, 16(2), 262–289. 10.1093/envhis/emr030
16.
BryantR. L., & BaileyS. (1997). Third world political ecology. Routledge. 10.4324/9780203974360
17.
CastellsM. (2009). Communication power. Oxford University Press.
18.
ClemonsJ. (1998). Emerging from sewage and waste: A postmodern landscape. Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, 60, 9–21. 10.1353/pcg.1998.0007
19.
CordellaA., & ShaikhM. (2006). From epistemology to ontology: Challenging the constructed ‘truth’ of ANT (Working Paper Series no. 143). London School of Economics. 10.13140/RG.2.1.1546.5367
20.
CorneaN., VéronR., & ZimmerA. (2017). Clean city politics: An urban political ecology of solid waste in a small city in West Bengal, India. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 49(4), 728–744. 10.1177/0308518X16682028
21.
CrooksH. (1993). Giants of garbage: The rise of the global waste industry and the politics of pollution control. Lorimer.
22.
CrossG. (2000). An all-American century: Why commercialism won in modern America. Columbia Press.
23.
DauvergneP. (2008). The shadows of consumption. MIT Press.
24.
DonohueK. (2003). Freedom from want: American liberalism and the idea of the consumer. Johns Hopkins University Press.
25.
DouglasM. (1966). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. Routledge.
26.
EkbladhD. (2010). The great American mission: Modernisation and construction of an American world order. Princeton University Press.
27.
EngerM. (2004). Designing America’s waste landscape. Johns Hopkins University Press.
28.
FaberD. (1993). Environment under fire: Imperialism and the ecological crisis in Central America. Monthly Review Press.
29.
FooteS., & MazzoliniE. (2012). Histories of the dustheap: Waste, material cultures, social justice. MIT Press.
30.
ForsythT. (2008). Political ecology and epistemology of social justice. Geoforum, 39(2), 756–764. 10.1016/j.geoforum.2006.12.005
31.
GasconG. (2018). Food waste: A political ecology approach. Journal of Political Ecology, 25(1), 587–601. 10.2458/v25i1.23119
32.
GilleZ. (2010). Actor networks, modes of production, and waste regimes: Reassembling the macro-social. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 42(5), 1049–1064. 10.1068/a42122
33.
GirlingR. (2005). Rubbish!: Dirt on our hands and crisis ahead. Eden Project Books.
34.
HawkinsG. (2006). The ethics of waste: How we relate to rubbish. Rowman & Littlefield.
35.
HeynenN., PerkinsH. A., & RoyP. (2006). The political ecology of uneven urban green space: The impact of political economy on race and ethnicity in producing environmental inequality in Milwaukee. Urban Affairs Review, 42(1), 3–25. 10.1177/1078087406290729
36.
HineT. (1995). The total package: The secret history and hidden meanings of boxes, bottles, cans, and other persuasive containers. Little, Brown, and Company.
37.
HolifieldR. (2009). Actor-network theory as a critical approach to environmental justice: A case against synthesis with urban political ecology. Antipode, 41(4), 637–658. 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2009.00692.x
38.
HouserH. (2004). Ecosickness in contemporary U.S. fiction: Environment and affect. Columbia University Press.
39.
HumboldtA., & BonplandA. (1970). Relation historique du voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent. F. A. Brockhaus. 10.5962/bhl.title.43910
40.
HumesE. (2013). Garbology: Our dirty love affair with trash. Penguin Books.
41.
HumphreyK. (1998). Shelf life: Supermarkets and the changing cultures of consumption. Cambridge University Press.
42.
JouvenelB. D. (1957). From political economy to political ecology. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 13(8), 287–291. 10.1080/00963402.1957.11457581
43.
KazaS., YaoL. C., Bhada-TataP., & Van WoerdenF. (2018). What a waste 2.0: A global snapshot of solid waste management to 2050. World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/30317
44.
KhanM. T. (2013). Theoretical frameworks in political ecology and participatory nature/forest conservation: The necessity for a heterodox approach and the critical moment. Journal of Political Ecology, 20(1), 460–472. 10.2458/v20i1.21757
45.
KropotkinP. (1902). Mutual aid: A factor of evolution. Heinemann.
46.
LatourB. (1996). On actor-network theory: A few clarifications. Soziale Welt, 47(4), 369–381. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40878163
47.
LatourB. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press.
48.
LawJ. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy, and heterogeneity. Systems Practice, 5, 379–393. 10.1007/BF01059830
49.
LeffE. (2012). Political ecology: A Latin American perspective. In UNESCO-EOLSS Joint Committee (Ed.), Culture, civilization and human society. EOLSS Publishers. 10.5380/dma.v35i0.44381
50.
LepawskyJ., & MatherC. (2011). From beginnings and endings to boundaries and edges: Rethinking circulation and exchange through electronic waste. Area, 43(3), 242–249. 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01018.x
51.
LidskogR., MolA. P., & OosterveerP. (2015). Towards a global environmental sociology? Legacies, trends, and future directions. Current Sociology, 63(3), 339–368. 10.1177/0011392114543537
52.
LittleP. E. (2006). Political ecology as ethnography: A theoretical and methodological guide. Horizontes Antropológicos, 12(25), 85–103. 10.1590/S0104-71832006000100005
53.
LoftusA. (2012). Everyday Environmentalism: Creating an urban political ecology. University of Minnesota Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttszjp
54.
MacBrideS. (2008). The immortality of waste: Depression-era perspectives in the digital age. Substance, 37(2), 71–77. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25195172
55.
MelosiM. V. (2005). Garbage in the cities: Refuse, reform, and the environment. University of Pittsburgh Press.
56.
Méndez-FajardoS., & GonzalezR. A. (2014). Actor-network theory on waste management: A university case study. International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological, Innovation (IJANTTI), 6(4), 13–25. 10.4018/ijantti.2014100102
57.
MorrisonS. S. (2015). The literature of waste: Material ecopoetics and ethical matter. Palgrave Macmillan.
58.
MukuiS. J. (2013). Factors influencing household solid waste management in urban Nyeri municipality, Kenya. Ethiopian Journal of Environmental Studies and Management, 6(3), 280–285. 10.4314/ejesm.v6i3.8
59.
MurdochJ. (1997). Inhuman/nonhuman/human: Actor-network theory and prospects for a nondualistic and symmetrical perspective on nature and society. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 15(6), 731–756. 10.1068/d150731
60.
NygrenA., & RikoonS. (2008). Political ecology revisited: Integration of politics and ecology does matter. Society & Natural Resources, 21(9), 767–782. 10.1080/08941920801961057
61.
O’BrienM. (2008). A crisis of waste, understanding the rubbish society. Routledge.
62.
PearsonM. (2010). Talking trash and getting wasted: A political ecology of consumption and waste management in the Saint Paul (Capstone Projects, Paper 3). Macalester College. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/geogcapstones/3
63.
PellingM. (2003). The vulnerabilities of cities: Natural disasters and social resilience. Earthscan.
64.
PongráczE. (2002). Re-defining the concepts of waste and waste management: Evolving the theory of waste management [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Oulu]. JULTIKA University of Oulu Repository. http://urn.fi/urn:isbn:9514268210
65.
PyeG. (2010). Trash culture: Objects and obsolescence in cultural perspective. Peter Lang.
66.
RameL. S., WidiatmakaHartono, A., & FirmansyahI. (2022). The effect of demographic factors on waste generation and heavy metal in illegal landfill at Malaka Regency, East Nusa Tenggara Province. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 950(1), 012055. 10.1088/1755-1315/950/1/012055
67.
RathjeW., & MurphyC. (1992). Rubbish! The archaeology of garbage. Harper Collins.
68.
ReclusE. (1890). The earth and its inhabitants. D. Appleton and Company.
69.
RenoJ. O. (2016). Waste away: Working and living with a North American landfill. University of California Press.
70.
RobbinsP. (2007). Lawn people: How grasses, weeds, and chemicals make us who we are. Temple University Press.
71.
RobbinsP. (2012). Political ecology: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
72.
RocheleauD., & RothR. (2007). Rooted networks, relational webs, and powers of connection: Rethinking human and political ecologies. Geoforum, 38(3), 433–437. 10.1016/j.geoforum.2006.10.003
73.
RoyteE. (2005). Garbage land. Little Brown and Company.
74.
ScanlanJ. (2005). On garbage. Reaktion Books.
75.
SomervilleM. (1848). Physical geography. Creative Media Partners.
76.
SpelmanE. V. (2016). Trash talks: Revelations in the rubbish. Oxford University Press.
77.
StrasserS. (1999). Waste and want: A social history of trash. Henri Holt.
78.
SujauddinM., HudaS. M. S., & Rafiqul-HoqueA. T. M. (2008). Household solid waste characteristics and management in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Waste Management, 28(9), 1688–1695. 10.1016/j.wasman.2007.06.013
79.
SwyngedouwE. (2004). Social power and the urbanization of water: Flows of power. Oxford University Press.
80.
TammemagiH. (1999). The waste crisis: Landfills, incinerators, and the search for a sustainable future. Oxford University Press.
81.
ThillB. (2015). Waste. Bloomsbury Publishing.
82.
ThompsonM. (1979). Rubbish theory: The creation and destruction of value. Oxford University Press. https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/14741/
83.
VineyW. (2014). Waste: A philosophy of things. Bloomsbury Academic.
84.
WallaceA. R. (1870). Contributions to the theory of natural selection: A series of essays. Macmillan.
85.
WatkinsE. (1993). Throwaways: Work culture and consumer education. Stanford University Press.
86.
WhatmoreS. (1999). Hybrid geographies: Rethinking the ‘human’ inhuman geography. In MasseyD., AllenJ., & SarreP. (Eds.), Human geography today (pp. 22–39). Polity Press.
