WASTE GEOGRAPHIES: POLITICS, PEOPLE, AND INFRASTRUCTURES
Explores waste as discarded material, a polluting and threatening substance that must be managed, and as a political object. Waste's distribution across space and among groups of people, as well as the reasons for the effects of that distribution, will be examined using geographic perspectives. Who has the ability to avoid or remove themselves from waste? Who must live and work with it? The concept of infrastructure as a set of material things (roads, trucks, boats); laws and regulations; labor relations; and economies of disposal and consumption determining waste flows unites disparate topics and case studies across the semester. Concepts of and social movements for environmental justice are recurring themes.
Prerequisites & course information
Requisites: Junior standing Course Designation: Core GenEd - Social & Behavioral Science Breadth - Social Science Level - Advanced L&S Credit - L&S Liberal Arts and Science Grad 50% - Counts toward 50% graduate coursework requirement Repeatable for Credit: No Learning Outcomes: 1. Define waste as a political object and contrast this definition to popular, technical, and/or managerial definitions. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 2. Apply new social-science definitions of infrastructure to waste geographies. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 3. Appraise their own role(s) in various waste geographies and describe waste’s ubiquity. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 4. Explain the factors that produce uneven waste geographies, including the roles class, gender, and race play in personal and professional proximity to and distance from wastes of all kinds. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 5. Make connections between, on the one hand, how problems having to do with waste are defined and, on the other hand, proposed solutions to ‘the waste problem’. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 6. Apply the lessons garnered from waste geographies to their research and disciplinary specialties. Audience: Graduate 7. Synthesize major course concepts to frame novel and innovative research questions about waste geographies. Audience: Graduate 8. Communicate complex conceptual arguments clearly and relate them to case studies. Audience: Graduate 9. Explain the social, economic, and/or environmental dimensions of the sustainability challenge(s) of waste and waste management. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 10. Describe the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of recycling and other waste reduction/management strategies and identify potential trade-offs and interrelationships among these dimensions at a level appropriate to the course. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad Learning Outcomes: 1. Define waste as a political object and contrast this definition to popular, technical, and/or managerial definitions. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 2. Apply new social-science definitions of infrastructure to waste geographies. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 3. Appraise their own role(s) in various waste geographies and describe waste’s ubiquity. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 4. Explain the factors that produce uneven waste geographies, including the roles class, gender, and race play in personal and professional proximity to and distance from wastes of all kinds. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 5. Make connections between, on the one hand, how problems having to do with waste are defined and, on the other hand, proposed solutions to ‘the waste problem’. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 6. Apply the lessons garnered from waste geographies to their research and disciplinary specialties. Audience: Graduate 7. Synthesize major course concepts to frame novel and innovative research questions about waste geographies. Audience: Graduate 8. Communicate complex conceptual arguments clearly and relate them to case studies. Audience: Graduate 9. Explain the social, economic, and/or environmental dimensions of the sustainability challenge(s) of waste and waste management. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad 10. Describe the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of recycling and other waste reduction/management strategies and identify potential trade-offs and interrelationships among these dimensions at a level appropriate to the course. Audience: Both Grad & Undergrad
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027