Skarrelling : a socio-environmental history of household waste in South Africa

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study excavates a century's worth of the history of household waste in SouthAfrica, from 1890-1996. It shows that waste history is entangled with histories ofdisease and poor sanitation, advances in technology, the impact of war, environmentalconcerns and – perhaps above all – shifting socio-economic circumstances. Using asocio-environmental analytical framework, this analysis of waste history unearthsempirical archival data and oral testimony, to contextualise themes of gender, race,class and nationalism in order to place rubbish within the wider historical debates inSouth Africa. This study uses Rubbish Theory and Broken Windows Theory as wellas concepts of 'Othering and the 'Sanitation Syndrome to explore the role of wastein the construction of racial identities and perceptions. This thesis shows thatApartheid should not be seen as a watershed within this waste history, but rather as acontinuation of colonial ideas of cleanliness that helped to perpetuate raciststereotypes. This study argues that the lack of waste services in 'locations duringthis time helped to contribute to the perception of the urban African as the unsanitaryOther. The state and civic societies fostered gender roles, which (coupled with wartimenationalist propaganda) helped in shaping waste behaviour promoted by theNational Anti-Waste Organisation (NAWO) during the Second World War (WWII).In the years after WWII, the threats of wartime shortages and enthusiastic solutionssuggested to municipalities to 'end the waste problem were thwarted by the spreadof the landfill as an even more convenient disposal method. The implementation ofApartheid, especially the Group Areas Act (No 41 of 1950) and the rise of consumersociety, led to increasingly divergent experiences of waste for urban Africans andwhites. The thesis uses a case study of the Devon Valley Landfill community outsideof Stellenbosch. This ethnographic history explores notions of the 'Subaltern inorder to give this history a human face. The diachronic analysis of this communityoffers a lens into ideas of 'ordentlikheid (decency), 'weggooi mense (throwawaypeople) and how these waste-pickers experience the environment in which they live.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University