L'altra parte del consumo : una etnografia sulla produzione sociale dei rifiuti

The other side of consumption: an ethnography about the social production of waste The topic of this work is the study of the ways in which things are turned into waste, and specifically into certain kinds of waste – that is, how rubbish is socially produced. Thus, the thesis focuses on the analysis of how and why something can become waste (hazardous waste, recyclable waste, rubbish saved from becoming waste…) when it passes through the institutionalized paths, the practices and the accounts that, as a whole, create it as rubbish. This line of enquiry takes, as its starting point, the idea that rubbish consists of objects that move into circuits of production, exchange and consumption where the definition of something as refuse is contextual (sometimes, recursive) in regard to their placement and management. Starting from this point of view, the aim of the thesis is the depiction of the practices of rubbish-making in a supermarket, where I carried out an ethnography research. These are framed in the wider context of the social production of rubbish in contemporary Italian society. This is discussed showing how, in order to study the processes of waste making, it is essential to recognize the complexity of the different relationships that shape rubbish (and that in turn rubbish helps to enlighten) as well as the connections among the different levels involved.