The Limits of Resilience: Managing Waste in the Racialized Anthropocene

Abstract

Recent anthropological attention to more-than-human life has neglected the importance of race and racialization in human responses to environmental change. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with waste management institutions and Romani waste laborers in urban Bulgaria, this article invokes the concept of the racialized Anthropocene to destabilize the unmarked whiteness upon which the turn to humans-as-a-species-anthropos-is founded. Habituation is central to both EU waste policy and the generative strategies Romani street sweepers use to manage accumulated waste and the conditions of their racialized labor. I call these creative and quotidian strategies anthropogenic management. Anthropogenic management disrupts the resiliency paradigm that has become commonplace in analyses of how people respond to circumstances not of their own making. As such, it bridges the Anthropocene, marked by waste accumulation at a planetary scale, with the everyday conditions of racialization through the embodied labor of managing other people's trash. [waste, labor, race, Bulgaria] RESUMEN Atención antropológica reciente a la vida más que humana ha desatendido la importancia de raza y racialización en las respuestas al cambio ambiental. Basado en trabajo de campo etnográfico con las instituciones de manejo de residuos y trabajadores Romaníes de residuos en la Bulgaria urbana, este artículo invoca el concepto del Antropoceno racializado para desestabilizar la blancura no marcada sobre la cual el giro a humanos como una especie -antropos-se funda. Habituación es central tanto para la política de residuos de la UE como las estrategias generativas que los barrenderos Romaníes de las calles utilizan para manejar los residuos acumulados y las condiciones de su trabajo racializado. Llamo a estas estrategias creativas y cotidianas manejo antropocéntrico. El manejo antropogénico interrumpe el paradigma de resiliencia que ha llegado a ser lugar común en los análisis de cómo las personas responden a las circunstancias que no son de su propia creación. Como tal, hace el puente entre el Antropoceno, marcado por una acumulación de residuos a una escala planetaria, con las condiciones de cada día de racialización a través del trabajo corporeizado de manejar los residuos de otras personas. [residuos, trabajo, raza, Bulgaria] РЕЗЮМЕ Антропологично внимание към по-голям от човешкия живот пренебрегна значението на расата и расиализацията в реакциите на хората към промените в околната среда. Базирано на етнографска работа в България с институции за управление на отпадъците и Ромски работници, заети в този процес, тази статия обръща внимание към концепцията за расовия антропоцен, за да може да разклати неотбелязваната белота, на която стъпва гледането към човека като биологичен видантропоса. Привикването е централна характеристика e както за политиките за управление на отпадъци на ЕС, така и за стратегиите, които ромските работници, заети в метене на улиците, използват, за да се справят с натрупания боклук и условията на расово маркирания им труд....

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