Erich Hellmer, Academia Sinica, Taiwan; Paul Jobin, Academia Sinica, Taiwan; Alice Mah, University of Warwick, UK
Posted: February 28, 2022 Accepted Languages: English/Inglés/Inglês, Spanish/Español/Espanhol
This panel examines the complex entanglements of plastics across their multi-faceted material, political economic, and sociotechnical lifecycles. The endless variety of everyday uses of plastics mean vast economic, social and political networks. From the global geopolitics of oil, to international efforts aimed at curbing marine plastic pollution, to local struggles over the toxic pollution of fenceline communities and ecosystems stemming from plastics production, plastics are intricately involved in how social worlds are articulated and contested. The production, use and disposal of the numerous chemicals and materials we know as “plastics” are deeply involved in constructing modern social lives, with uneven societal benefits and risks across spatial-temporal scales. In line with this year’s 4S theme of “reunion, recuperation and reconfiguration,” we invite papers that help deepen our understanding of how plastics are involved in power-laden processes, conflicts, experiences and forms of knowledge across scales and time horizons. We particularly encourage papers that reflect on the role plastics play in relation to two of the planet’s most pressing ongoing crises (the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic), but we invite any papers critically engaging with the worlds that plastics make (and break).
