Electronic Waste and the Environmental Justice Challenge in Agbogbloshie

Akese, Grace; LittlePeter, C

doi:10.1089/env.2017.0039

Cited by 28 publications

(41 citation statements)

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“…Many of the same places that are on what Graham et al (, p. 88) call “global information peripheries” are only made visible as sites of abjection as the dumping grounds for the material detritus of contemporary information geographies. Such monolithic representations of places as electronic waste (e‐waste) dumps are deeply problematic (Akese & Little, ; Davis et al, ; Reddy, ). One effect of those representations is to make invisible the creative, technically sophisticated recuperative work done via INDIY ICT M&R at these sites to repair and maintain the technologies and infrastructures with which people access online spaces.…”

Section: Mapping Middle Grounds Of Indiy Ict Mandrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Typically, the site and people who live and work there are depicted in biblical terms explicitly evoking hell and damnation (e.g., Höges, ; The Guardian, ). Wittingly or otherwise, these kinds of representations provide justifications for already powerful Ghanaian interests seeking to wrest control of the land at the site for their own purposes away from marginalised people for whom Agbogbloshie/Old Fadama is home, worksite, and often both (Akese & Little, ; Lepawsky & Akese, ). iFixit data, however, tell a different story.…”

Section: Mapping Middle Grounds Of Indiy Ict Mandrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From these data and other fieldwork‐based evidence, a far more nuanced picture of Accra and Agbogbloshie/Old Fadama emerges (Davis et al, ; Grant & Oteng‐Ababio, ; Lepawsky et al, ). Instead of a site exclusively of waste dumping and abjection, it is also a site where the scrap sector, the tech sector, and micro‐manufacturing meet to conduct business, and exchange materials and money (though not necessarily on equal terms; Akese & Little, ; Osseo‐Asare & Abbas, ; Oteng‐Ababio et al, ). Together the iFixit data and fieldwork evidence suggest just how narrowly framed the competing images of the place construed in terms of victimisation and abjection are to the extent that they exclude INDIY ICT M&R as other ways of worlding the site.…”

Section: Mapping Middle Grounds Of Indiy Ict Mandrmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Planet of fixers? Mapping the middle grounds of independent and do‐it‐yourself information and communication technology maintenance and repair

Lepawsky

2020

Geography and Environment

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This paper explores the geographical distribution of independent and do‐it‐yourself information and communication technology maintenance and repair (INDIY ICT M&R) activity around the world. It examines a large set of Google Analytics data pertaining to users of free, open‐source online repair manuals provided by iFixit, a US‐based organisation that develops the free manuals, sells tools and components, and also engages in technical education and policy advocacy. The paper draws on three years of available user data (2016–2018). Over this time period the total user base of iFixit's manuals grew from over 1.3 million users to more than 4.1 million users across the planet. However, counter to what might be expected, the global distribution of iFixit users does not systematically co‐vary with internet access rates or with the population size of locations. The results reported here, while partial, are valuable in that they demonstrate both a globally distributed phenomenon and high‐resolution location patterns of INDIY ICT M&R activity. Mapping the extent and spatial patterning of such activity is a jumping off point for the kinds of qualitative analyses needed to elucidate the how's, the why's, and the meanings of the observed uneven distribution patterns. More broadly, the results suggest fruitful directions for deeper analyses and research into both pragmatic questions about ICT maintenance and repair (such as their social, economic, and environmental significance), as well as more speculative questions about how and why the fates of ICT within and between production, use, and discard stand in for dreams of technological futurity and nightmares of social and environmental breakdown.

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Section: Mapping Middle Grounds Of Indiy Ict Mandrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mapping Middle Grounds Of Indiy Ict Mandrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mapping Middle Grounds Of Indiy Ict Mandrmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Planet of fixers? Mapping the middle grounds of independent and do‐it‐yourself information and communication technology maintenance and repair

Lepawsky

2020

Geography and Environment

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“…At the same time, it is also a zone targeted by international NGOs as a lagoon inundated with toxic pollutants, including e-waste runoff from the open burning of e-waste found at the Agbogbloshie scrap metal market (Little 2019). Given this broader socio-ecological friction, e-waste politics emerging in Agbogbloshie illustrate a case of postcolonial environmental injustice where plural injustices and violence underwrites conditions that makes e-waste processing possible at the site (Akese and Little 2018; see also Little 2019).…”

Section: Exploring the Socio-economic Landscape Of E-waste In Ghanamentioning

confidence: 99%

Centering the Korle Lagoon: exploring blue political ecologies of E-Waste in Ghana

Little

Akese

2019

Journal of Political Ecology

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Among emerging studies of the global political economy and ecology of electronic waste (or e-waste), few directly explore the already complex waste trades and materialities in relation to the general political ecology of water, flood control, dredging, and neoliberal ecological restoration. Even fewer focus on how this political-ecological challenge is unfolding in a West African context where ocean-based e-waste trades have played a dominant role. This article engages this particular domain of blue economic critique by focusing on Ghana in general and what we shall call "blue political ecologies of e-waste" in particular. The article focuses on e-waste politics unfolding in and around the Korle Lagoon in Accra, Ghana. The Korle Lagoon is an urban marine space of intensive land use, toxic waste disposal, social life, and urban ecological restoration. Amidst heavy contamination, there are attempts to rehabilitate the lagoon through the Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project, an ecological science and restoration project focused on the Lagoon and its river system in the metropolitan area of Accra. It showcases the neoliberal complexities of ecological restoration. Importantly, situated in a multi-use marine environment, the project also highlights, we argue, a political ecological moment that is both about things 'blue', like water quality concerns, but also about other things non-blue such as contestation over land and housing, 'green' international NGO intervention on e-waste risk mitigation, and desires for new urban ecologies. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted between 2015 and 2018, this article contributes to blue political-ecological research and critique in Africa by asking: how do e-waste politics leak into discussions of the blue economy along the Korle Lagoon in Ghana? What are the promises and prospects of a blue political ecology of e-waste in general, and in Africa in particular?Key Words: Political ecology, Ghana, e-waste, lagoon contamination, ecological restoration

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“…The growing waste electrical and electronic equipment (hereafter e-waste or WEEE) 1 and the lack of environmentally sound management of WEEE have attracted diverse intellectual and policy debates and unending media commentaries (Frontline, 2009; United Nations Environment Programme, 2015) over the release of toxins to the environment and human bodies. Some studies have criticized the burning of WEEE to harvest copper (Atiemo et al, 2016; Brigden et al, 2008) and advocate for policies with broader global appeal and reforms, including circular economy principles (Akese & Little, 2018; Grant & Oteng-Ababio, 2019). In recent times, increasing awareness of the problem have led to a “turn to extended producer responsibility [EPR] policy initiative” as a potential solution (Khan, 2018).…”

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confidence: 99%

Building Policy Coherence for Sound Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Management in a Developing Country

Oteng-Ababio

Velden

Taylor

2020

The Journal of Environment & Development

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This article explores the compatibility of Ghana’s e-waste policy (Act 917) in the country’s socioeconomic context. Our article starts with two main questions based on our empirical engagements with the act which, contextually, mimics the extended producer responsibility. First, we question the pessimistic imaginaries about the e-waste industry that seeks its outright trade ban or promotes a single version of recycling. Second, we query if the underlying assumptions and basic mechanisms of extended producer responsibility can create the enabling environment to actualize sound e-waste management. Based on prevailing context, the imaginaries appear socially peripheral, isolated, and powerless, and we call for a broader, unbiased, in-depth, critical systems thinking for understanding the complexities and multidimensional nature of the waste electrical and electronic equipment industry. We suggest that it is by fostering the positive synergies across sectors and among policies that environmentally sound e-waste policy outcomes can be achievable.

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Electronic Waste and the Environmental Justice Challenge in Agbogbloshie

Cited by 28 publications

References 2 publications

Planet of fixers? Mapping the middle grounds of independent and do‐it‐yourself information and communication technology maintenance and repair

Planet of fixers? Mapping the middle grounds of independent and do‐it‐yourself information and communication technology maintenance and repair

Centering the Korle Lagoon: exploring blue political ecologies of E-Waste in Ghana

Building Policy Coherence for Sound Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Management in a Developing Country

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