Why is it so Hard to Engage with Practices of the Informal Sector? Experimental Insights from the Indian E-Waste-Collective

Abstract

Electronic waste is one of the biggest and dirtiest waste streams worldwide, endangering humans and non-humans especially in the 'global south'. The government of India issued a new law to deal with this issue in 2011: the ‘e-waste (Management and Handling) Rules’. This article reconstructs the process by which this law was developed over eight years with ethnographically collected data. It points particularly to the ways the law threatens parts of the informal sector. 'Refurbishers’, who repair used electronic items, are ignored—even though they initially played a crucial part in the newly composed value chain, including during early draft of the electronic waste law. Such informal practices were neglected because of the particular focus of the legislature on modern recycling. This occurred because of the eerie imagination attached to the object electronic waste. Based upon voices from the informal sector, an alternative to this imagination is introduced and critically discussed: 'juggad', a new ideal of the broken down. Taken together, the diplomatic endeavour in this article wants to do more than show that the values of informal sector practices such as refurbishment are not appreciated. The goal is to also describe why it is so hard to engage with these practices in the first place. Bruno Latour's new approach, developed in 'An Inquiry into Modes of Existence' (2013), helps unfolding the argument. This recent shift in the actor-network-theory (ANT) renders a postcolonial reconstruction of democracy feasible.

Circulating waste, circulating bodies? A critical review of E-waste trade

“…Generic accounts of e-waste governance have focused on its polluting and toxic nature (Agarwal et al 2003), and have argued against the persistence of formal-informal dichotomies and have tried to define informality along the formal-informal continuum (Harriss-White, 2017). They have also noted that the idea of sustainability promoted by the E-waste Management and Handling Rules (2016) is narrow, and efforts at formalization and professionalization are wanting (Gupt and Sahai, 2019;Laser 2016). While these rules have addressed the issue of multiple stakeholders (such as producers, dealers, refurbishers) and made producers accountable through extended producer responsibility (EPR), they have failed to include those operating in the unorganized sector jeopardizing their "right to waste".…”

Sorting, shredding and smelting scrap

“…In my thesis, I focused on the global enactment of high-tech recycling 2 infrastructures; I followed transformations of waste economies and conflicts over values that ignite during these transformations. I began with a study of e-waste in India, where a new law was passed (and discussed intensively) to support high-tech recycling operations (instead of 'informal sector' work) (Laser 2016). In India, I merely managed to interview these recycling facilities.…”

Portrayals in Print: Media Depictions of the Informal Sector’s Involvement in Managing E-Waste in India

“…For purposes of the analysis, all minor spelling variants were included as 'kabadiwallahs'. Anecdotal findings suggest that kabadiwallahs face deep stigmatization [60,61], and thus more research would elucidate if, or to what extent, the term 'kabadiwallah' is intentionally pejorative or if people use it so commonly that they do not intend for it to have, or even realize it might have, a derogatory meaning.…”