First announcement for the international conference:

Re-opening the bin – Waste, economy, culture and society 
June 11-13, 2020, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Book the date today and please spread out to your networks!

In April 2017 more than 80 scholars from the social sciences and the humanities from all over the world met at Lund University to discuss waste, culture and society during the Opening the bin workshop in Helsingborg. Today, social scientific and humanistic research on waste is growing, yet still needs further encounters as well as a major engagement in the economies, livelihoods, lifestyles, consumption patterns, natures, infrastructures and materialities that shape and are shaped by the organizing of waste.

It is time to Re-open the bin. This call is an open invitation to scholars interrogating waste from a myriad of disciplines within social sciences and humanities, such as anthropology, cultural studies, history, development studies, gender studies, geography, household and consumption studies, organization and management, philosophy, public administration or governance, sociology, urban studies, to mention a few. These disciplines come across the many faces and dimensions of waste, such as waste history; green development narratives such as circular economy, zero waste or inclusive recycling;  waste prevention; alternative practices of waste management; critical assessments of waste policies and governance; social movements engagement, waste technologies and infrastructure; de-growth, repair and maintenance; working conditions and the types of occupations; skills and industrial relations; creative waste economies; social and grassroots innovations; or sustainable consumption and throwaway cultures. 

The conference also aims to bring together experiences from global South and global North communities, as well as practitioners, to critically discuss the places, roles and trajectories as well as the materialities, meanings, practices and vocabularies of waste in culture, economy and society.

Together we would like to continue the dialogue between disciplines, geographies and professions to discuss how to prompt new ways to imagine, conceptualize, design and theorize waste as a complex socio-material phenomenon. Small is beautiful and we are aiming at gathering around 70 papers to facilitate interaction and dialogue.

The conference will combine seminars with field visits, food and waste activities. If you would like to organize a special “waste fraction” (session), please contact us with a proposal by September 15. We will have a “bulky waste fraction” where abstracts can be sent and then “sorted out” to waste fractions by the organizing committee.

Important dates
Submission of abstract: January 15, 2020
Acceptance decision: February 1, 2020
Registration date: April 15, 2020
Sending in full paper or work-in-progress: May 11, 2020
Conference at University of Gothenburg: June 11-13, 2020

Website
www.gu.se/otb2

Contact:
otb2@gu.se

Facebook
Facebook Re-Opening the Bin Group

Venue
The conference will be held at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Organizing committee

Sebastián Carenzo, University of Quilmes
Hervé Corvellec, Lund University
Jutta Gutberlet, University of Victoria
Ulrika Holmberg, University of Gothenburg

Sandra Samuelsson, University of Gothenburg

Allison Stowell, Lancaster University
Patrik Zapata, University of Gothenburg
María José Zapata Campos, University of Gothenburg

Participation fee
1500 Sek / 160 € + VAT if applicable. PhD students and scholars from middle-low income countries can apply for fee release. We are working to get a limited number of grants and will post more information when communicating acceptance decision. Re-opening the bin. An international conference on waste, economy, culture and society June 11-13 2020 University of Gothenburg, Sweden Re-opening the bin. An international conference on waste, economy, culture and society June 11-13 2020 University of Gothenburg, Sweden

When: June 14th, 2019. 10:00-17:00
Where: Goldsmiths, University of London; Professor Stuart Hall Building, LG02
Open to all

https://www.facebook.com/events/1314031865419347/

‘Futures of the Real’https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/futures-of-the-real-goldsmiths-pgr-conference-2019-tickets-61923356426

This conference will explore the implications of changes in our conception of a non-human external reality through the contrasting disciplines pursued by postgraduate researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London. Featuring art presentations, live performances, panel discussions and a keynote address from Dr Ali Hossaini “a biochemist turned philosopher turned television producer turned visual poet” – The New
York Times on modelling the threat from A.I.

10.00-11.00 Keynote Lecture
Dr Ali Hossaini Can Machines Come To Life?
11.10-12.10 Panel I: ‘Post-human.’
Kate Pickering Weirding the Megachurch
Sebastian Althoff Temporal Drag in Hasan Elahi’s Tracking Transience and
Zach Blas’s Facial Weaponization Suite
Ciarán Ó Dochartaigh Becoming Animal / Snapchat Ears
12.30-13.30 Panel II: ‘Non-human.’
Dennis Dizon SANITY / FANTASY: Communicating
in a Techno-Delusional Ecology
Flora Bartlett Experimental photography in explorations of climate change and
the non-human landscape
Katarina Dimitrijevic/ KraalD Plastics with the Living Voice
13.30-14.30 LUNCH

14.30-15.30: Panel III: ‘Operas of Objects.’
Jodie Rottle Operas of Objects
Alastair White Contingency Dialectics in two new operas
Xiao (Lucia) Lu Post-performance experiences of musical theatre:
A study of Chinese audiences’ online reviews
15.30-16.30: Panel IV: Two Performances.
Zhenia Vasiliev Reality // Transmit Don’t Compress
Clareese Hill The Hyper Present

If you dare to take a walk in the forest, there will be a plethora of life form diversity around you. There is the magical feel that fulfils us, especially after the winter when one feels awaking within and without. Spring: this is natures wisdom, it reminds you that we are all on the Uroboros train of the material entanglement of the death and rebirth.  After a few minutes, I have started following the plastics trail. Firstly, I encountered the abandoned plastic water bottle in the heap of the leaves, followed by the miraculous discovery of the growing moss on the broken green plastic bottle lined with plastic bag withhold by bramble. Next, I was greeted by the chewed up bottle top thread by animal graze (someone was either hungry or teething), bits of plastics parts and broke plastic trail which culminated with the orange netting resting gracefully in the leaves (like the sleeping beauty). In the forest encountering the plastics magic, I did not feel lost as the anthropocentric signposts where all around me. This afternoon walk was full of plastic things and nature others that made me feel that I belong to the Plastisphere, the New Earth. There is a peacefulness of belonging, that lays under the top layer of ecocide denial, guilt and anger, right there in my hearth or knowing myself I would instead say in my gut colony that knows all.

”Znam kad bih ziveo hiljadu godina            “I know if I’d been living for a thousand years
ceo bi mi zivot stao u jedan dan                     all my life would fit in one day
a jedan poziv menja sve                                   but one call can change everything
a jedan poziv menja sve                                   and one call changes everything
Ne zelim da zivim hiljadu godina                   I do not want to live for a thousand years
hocu sad i hocu sve                                            I want everything right here and right now
a jedan poziv menja sve, znaj                         know that one call changed everything              a jedan poziv menja sve, znaj”                        and know that one call changed everything.”

(Партибрејкерс, 1983)                                                                            (Partibrejkers, 1983)
Aka a wake-up call from the deep sleep of the anthropocentric denial.

Nano plastics entanglement is confirmed by science in the zooplankton, which is the primary source of food for the Lanternfish. Lanternfish is the primary source of food for the seals’ dolphins and tuna … and basically, nano plastics are the part of the food chain.
I have stopped eating scallops, mussels, lobster, prawns and all bottom feeder and the Lanternfish feeders ( goodbye sushimi). This is not prevention just a reduction of nano plastic consumption as I do have to breathe and drink water (air and water are saturated with nano plastics).
Side effects to humans and animals ( lymphatic systems imbalance, madness (found in fishes), intestine and gut bacteria imbalance and topped with the permanent sterility.
Can we ‘fix it’ nope we cannot, but we can find the holistic ways to live differently in balance and compassion with ourselves and nature-others: Right here and right now!
Time is irrelevant as we got 1000 years of planetary plastic detox ahead of all of us.
Wish you all a festive season and enjoy your seafood.
We are all #Plasticized together, for the thousand years.

PS:
Lyrics above is the echo of Belgrade music from my youth. I know of these band boys; they are not a deep crowd but got somehow aura to deliver occasional Haiku, and for that, they have my respect.
I guess this is hanging on the street corner ‘tacit knowledge’, lanternfish got it, gut bacteria got it; how come policyholders and plastic manufacturers (who bought political crowd) don’t have it at all?

Pls, stop the single-use plastic production flow.

Live right here and right now.

Haux, Haux

Yule call to self

Seasonal greetings from KraalD and the 300 milk bottles rescued in 2015 from the waste recycling loop. Reduce, Reuse and chose to Refuse plastic packaging.