Discard, emotions, and empathy on the margins of the waste stream

Abstract

The objects we choose to throw away, and how we discard those objects, can reveal much about materiality and the material basis of capitalism in the twenty-first century. This chapter explores how analyses of the assemblages and locations of recent illegal dumping events illuminate tensions between structural forces, the ways we relate to our possessions, and the motivations prompting the severance of those relationships. Using data gathered during a faculty-student research project addressing contemporary surface assemblages, we also examine the emotive capacities of illegally discarded belongings. With an analytic emphasis on intact assemblages, we argue that acknowledging the emotional contours of unsanctioned discard not only complements methodologically rigorous, data-driven archaeologies of the contemporary but also provides a forum for grappling with fieldworkers’ affective responses to handling culturally familiar objects. Such responses, in turn, can help to cultivate deeper-seated empathy and respect for non-Western connections to objects, space, and place in other archaeological research contexts.