Culture and Waste: The Creation and Destruction of Value

164 Pages·2002·6.475 MB·English

by  Gay Hawkins (ed.), Stephen Muecke (ed.)

Culture and Waste

Culture and Waste
The Creation and
Destruction ofValue
Edited by
Gay Hawkins
Stephen Muecke
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanbam • Boulder • New York • Oxford
ROWMAN & LITfLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowmanlittlefield.com
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Copyright © 2003 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Chapter 2, "Miasma," is reprinted with the permission of Michael Taussig.
All rights reseroed. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Culture and waste: the creation and destruction of value / edited
by Gay Hawkins and Stephen Muecke.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7425-1981-3 (hardcover}-ISBN 0-7425-1982-1 (pbk.)
1. Economic anthropology. 2. Value. 3. Material culture. 4. Waste disposal
Social aspects. I. Hawkins, Gay. II. Muecke, Stephen, 1951-.
GN448.2.C847 2002
306---dc21 2002010604
Printed in the United States of America
QTM
'CJ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences--Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI!NISO 239.48-1992.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Cultural Economies of Waste
GayHawkins andStephen Muecke ix
1 Out of Australia
DavidM.Halperin 1
2 Miasma
Michael Taussig 9
3 Invidious Distinction: Waste, Difference, and Classy Stuff
John Frow 25
4 Down the Drain: Shitand the Politiesof Disturbance
GayHawkins 39
5 Decolonizing the Discourse of Environmental
Knowledge in Settler Societies
Deborah BirdRose 53
6 Psychie Waste:Freud, Fechner, and the Principle
of Constancy
SuzanneRaut 73
7 Hollywood's Pacifiejunk: The Wreckage of Colonial
History in Six Days andSeven Nightsand Rapa Nui
Jonathan GilHarris andAnnaNeill 84
v
vi Contents
8 Trash as Archive, Trash as Enlightenment
Patricia Yaeger 103
9 Devastation
Stephen Muecke 117
Bibliography 129
Index 137
About the Contributors 141
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the School of Media and Communications, University of NSW,
Sydney, for great administrative support and intellectual encouragement, and
to the TransfOrming Cultures Centre at the University of Technology, Sydney,
for fmancial assistance. Thanks also to Lamia Dabboussy for her calm effi
ciency in fmalizing the manuscript and to Brenda Hadenfeldt at Rowman &
littlefield for her enthusiasm and passion for the project.
vii