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Global destruction networks, labour and waste

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  • Andrew Herod
  • Graham Pickren
  • Al Rainnie
  • Susan McGrath Champ

Abstract

Analysis of waste has largely focused on the physical transformation of commodities at the ends of their lives. This has led to a discourse of ongoingness in which the re-use of commodities’ parts is often seen to be almost endless. Such a focus on form, though, fails to adequately account for the movement of value—used here in the Marxist sense of ‘congealed labour’—or to recognize the centrality of the labour process in shaping how previously used parts are prepared for inclusion in new commodities. As a way to correct such failings, here we present the concept of Global Destruction Networks (GDNs). In so doing we make two key arguments: (i) there are indeed limits to commodities’ ongoingness when viewed from the perspective of the production, transfer and realization of value and (ii) workers play key roles in shaping how GDNs are structured.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Herod & Graham Pickren & Al Rainnie & Susan McGrath Champ, 2014. "Global destruction networks, labour and waste," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 421-441.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jecgeo:v:14:y:2014:i:2:p:421-441.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeg/lbt015
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    Cited by:

    1. Freyja L Knapp, 2016. "The birth of the flexible mine: Changing geographies of mining and the e-waste commodity frontier," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(10), pages 1889-1909, October.
    2. Crispian Fuller & Nicholas A Phelps, 2018. "Revisiting the multinational enterprise in global production networks," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 139-161.
    3. Justin Chun-Him Lau, 2023. "Towards a care perspective on waste: A new direction in discard studies," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 41(8), pages 1592-1608, December.
    4. Julia Eleanor Corwin, 2018. "“Nothing is useless in nature†: Delhi’s repair economies and value-creation in an electronics “waste†sector," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(1), pages 14-30, February.
    5. Joshua Lohnes & Bradley Wilson, 2018. "Bailing out the food banks? Hunger relief, food waste, and crisis in Central Appalachia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(2), pages 350-369, March.
    6. Kun Wang & Junxi Qian & Shenjing He, 2022. "Global destruction networks and hybrid e-waste economies: Practices and embeddedness in Guiyu, China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 54(3), pages 533-553, May.

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