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Scientific Article details

Title Rendering, waste disposal and the production of value
ID_Doc 17660
Authors Robins, DPG
Title Rendering, waste disposal and the production of value
Year 2024
Published
DOI 10.1177/00380261241244874
Abstract This article unpacks the concept of rendering to explain how disposal produces value out of waste materials. Rendering draws attention to the management of meaning attached to waste materials, showing how cultures of environmental sustainability and market capitalism shape their valorisation during disposal. To illustrate this, I draw on ethnographic data from research on the operation of corpse disposal in England. This research reveals three mechanisms of rendering: (1) quantification where economic rationale is entangled with the legal-rational authority of environmental metrics; (2) containment where specific spaces of disposal and the movement between them shape the flow of meaning; and (3) the often hidden labour techniques that become a part of the value of the waste. Rendering provides a fuller account of disposal as a production process, which should be at the heart of sociological work that speaks to the often unbalanced relationship between environment and capitalism.
Author Keywords death; disposal; environment; value; waste
Index Keywords Index Keywords
Document Type Other
Open Access Open Access
Source Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)
EID WOS:001204883400001
WoS Category Sociology
Research Area Sociology
PDF https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00380261241244874
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