Peter Little: Centering Anthropology, Art, and Advocacy in Ghana's E-Wastescape
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Abstract
This lecture explores the ongoing nexus of electronic waste (e-waste), environmental health science, urban policy, and creative intervention in Agbogbloshie, Ghana, a site known for toxic e-waste labor, a vibrant scrap metal economy, and various "solutions-based" interventions. Drawing on ethnographic research, the guiding questions for the lecture include: How does e-waste toxicity get reproduced alongside and in response to urban transformation? How do erasure, resettlement, and advocacy art projects figure in toxic e-waste imaginaries? Finally, what can Ghana's shifting e-wastescape teach us about the growing value and intersectionality of anthropology, art, and urban e-waste advocacy.
Biography
Peter Little is a Professor and Chair of Anthropology at Rhode Island College in Providence, Rhode Island. He is the author of Toxic Town: IBM, Pollution, and Industrial Risks (NYU Press, 2014), Burning Matters: Life, Labor, and E-Waste Pyropolitics in Ghana (Oxford University Press, 2022), and Critical Zones of Technopower and Global Political Ecology: Platforms, Pathologies, and Plunder (Lexington Books, 2023). He is also President of the Northeastern Anthropological Association.
