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DTSTAMP:20240111T145547Z
DTSTART:20240311T160000Z
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SUMMARY:Juli Perczel (University of Cambridge) 
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DESCRIPTION:Juli Perczel: Labouring for the dream of a circular world \n\
 nDespite the extreme academic suspicion of the informal economy concept 
 in the social sciences\, it continues to be used as an unproblematic des
 criptor of particular spheres of production in the e-waste ecosystem in 
 New Delhi\, India. In this paper I trace ethnographically what people co
 nceive of as informal and formal e-waste and how interlocutors narrativi
 ze these distinct spheres. Although academics have argued for decades ab
 out the utility of these concepts starting with Keith Hart’s characteris
 ation of precarious labour conditions\, the duality has taken hold in In
 dian policy discourse as well as everyday narratives. In the e-waste sph
 ere “the informal” is a descriptor of a certain kind of labour\, but it 
 also goes beyond to refer to a distinct aesthetics and a toxic lifeworld
  associated with working class urban populations. In contrast\, “the for
 mal” increasingly refers to a corporate aesthetics and airconditioned li
 festyles assumed by the upper middle class and upper castes indicating t
 heir developmentalist aspirations. In the context of the e-waste recycli
 ng startup that I conducted fieldwork with\, “the informal” is only one 
 of the most significant hindrances on the quest to establish circular ec
 onomy. Other extra-legal practices like cronyism and bribing are not des
 cribed as “informal” but are derided under the phrase “lack of level pla
 ying field.” Based on the ethnographic findings of a year-long ethnograp
 hic research I ask what purpose does it serve to define “the informal” i
 n such a specific way. What kind of labour practices and aesthetic judgm
 ents does each sphere imply? How does the dichotomisation of these conce
 pts reveal the dreamworld of limitless capitalist production and consump
 tion? As the circular economy gains ground there are calls to assess wha
 t this multivalent concept means in practice. Most conceptualisations hi
 ghlight the labour intensity of fundamental circular economy practices\,
  reuse\, refurbishing\, repurposing\, and recycling (Stahel 2016)\, yet 
 this is complicated by the size and prominence of “the informal sector” 
 in places like India and other parts of the Global South (Schröder\, Ana
 ntharaman\, and Anggraeni 2019). Based on the ethnographic material pres
 ented\, I argue that circular economy may be a business model\, a system
 ic transformation of production\, or a calculative device\, but it is al
 so a sphere of imagination and speculation that produces waste as the ne
 xt commodity frontier (Schindler and Demaria 2020). 
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LOCATION:2.016/017 2nd Floor Boardroom \, Arthur Lewis Building\, Manches
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