March 22-24, Portland Oregon
**Panel Organizer: Sarah Surak, Virginia Tech
http://wpsa.research.pdx.edu/

Waste/ing In Times of Economic Crisis

Waste is often defined as “matter out of place” (Douglas, 1984, pp. 39-40), as “what we do not want or what we fail to use” (Gourlay, 1992, p. 20). Waste/ing is tangible and intangible, both a product and a concept. During times economic crisis waste implicitly or explicitly becomes a way of describing the cause of the crisis (poor use or over use of resources) as well as a reaction to economic decline (reducing waste). Whether one characterizes “wasting” as a necessary use of excess energy (Bataille, 1988) or the result of modernity’s “unprecedented material destruction” (Buck-Morss & Benjamin, 1989, p. 93), cutting waste, both fiscally and in the consumption of products becomes a relevant topics of discourse. This panel will explore the relationship between waste and excess in times of economic crisis. Papers will address both the materiality of waste in changes in patters of waste production and recycling as well as the role of waste in crises defined as times for immolations of surplus.

Bataille, G. (1988). The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy. Net York: Zone Books.
Buck-Morss, S. (1989). The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Douglas, M. (1984). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Boston: Ark Paperbacks.
Gourlay, K.A. (1992). World of Waste: Dilemmas of Industrial Development. London: Zed Books.

Interested participants should send expression of interest, questions and/ or title and abstract of 250 words or less to Sarah Surak at ssurak@vt.edu by September 5, 2011.