Contested Worldings of E-Waste Environmental Justice: Nonhuman Agency and E-Waste Scalvaging in Guiyu, China

Abstract

Current environmental justice (EJ) research is moving beyond the distributional paradigm to embrace frameworks that emphasize the plurality of EJs. This study proposes that actor-network theory (ANT), which foregrounds nonhuman agency and heterogeneous associations, holds great potential for pushing forward this research agenda. It presents an ANT-informed analysis of the plural epistemologies of EJ by focusing on a global e-waste scalvaging hub—Guiyu in China. E-waste is considered a fluid and emergent material actant. The multiplicity of e-waste materialities coconstitutes the disparate worldings of EJ, with a wide range of actors involved in the knowledge-making practices. Disparate EJ realities concerning e-waste scalvaging have been worlded and enacted through the heterogeneous associations among numerous nonhuman actors, including discarded electronic devices, environmental conditions, pollutants, toxic substances, artifacts, discourses, tools and techniques, and a variety of human stakeholders, ranging from nongovernmental organizations, media, and academics to local scalvagers relying on e-waste for livelihood and wealth. In tracing these heterogeneous associations, this study juxtaposes two competing EJ worldings related to the ontological indeterminacy of e-waste. It first problematizes the worlding of North-to-South dumping that not only mispresents the complex geographies of e-waste, but also epitomizes a simplified distributional model of EJ.Then it ventures to theorize an often-neglected and underresearched dimension: EJ as situated capabilities and functionings concerned by the local community. This study thus adds to ongoing efforts to advance pluralist epistemologies of EJ.