Nothing goes to waste: sustainable practices of re-use among Indigenous groups in the Russian North

Abstract

In the last few decades, the literature on waste has soared and taken two main directions. Considering the assumption that waste is a natural category, which we need to ‘dispose of’, the scholarship on waste management and its sustainability offers mainly problem-solving propositions (e.g., the 3Rs proposal—re-cycling, re-using, and reducing—or ‘circular economy’). The social scientific waste studies literature takes a more critical stance from its outset and advances a relational account of waste. We aim to bring those two main research streams into dialogue through a presentation of two case studies among indigenous communities in the Russian North. Not only we disclose the hidden biases of the notion of circular economy and other ‘innovative’ problem-solving practices in the waste management literature, but we also propose to pay more attention to non-hegemonic waste practices amongst communities, which are often overlooked in both the waste management and the social studies of waste literature.