03/31/2026
Check out a new call for papers for the International Journal Qualitative Studies in Education!
Over the last two decades, we have seen an emergence of thinkers considering the concept of waste (e.g. Bauman, 2003; Scanlan, 2025; Thill, 2015; Viney, 2015). Inevitably, when speaking of waste, the concept of use also emerges, which is addressed in great depth by Ahmed (2019). These thinkers offer many definitions of waste and use; Viney, for instance, describes waste as that which is out of time and out of place; Bauman a redundancy; Thill an “expression of expended, transmuted, or suspended desire… the ur-object” (p. 8). For Ahmed, on the other hand, use(ful) is highly contextual, and may apply to anything practical, functional, enjoyable or present. The use/waste dyad invites questions of power (who or what conditions determine what is useful or wasted?), temporality/historicity (When are things useful or wasteful?), relationality (How do objects or people define their position of use/waste?), affective vicissitudes (How might some waste, e.g. ancient ruins, make us feel compared to other kinds of waste, e.g. human excrement), space (Where does waste reside and what spaces are wasted?), environmental ethics (What can be done with all of our waste?), among others. While waste is often a topic of conversation when speaking about material things, it becomes clear that waste is as much a social concern as it is a material one, with implications for ideologies, subjectivity, and (ethical) behavior.
See images for more information, abstracts due April 30th!