Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Unmaking Waste: New Histories of Old Things

Unmaking Waste: New Histories of Old Things

Newman, Sarah

Hardcover

AnthropologyLatino Studies

ISBN10: 0226826376
ISBN13: 9780226826370
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: May 26 2023
Pages: 296
Language: English
Explores the concept of waste from fresh historical, cultural, and geographical perspectives.

Garbage is often assumed to be an inevitable part and problem of human existence. But when did people actually come to think of things as trash--as becoming worthless over time or through use, as having an end?

Unmaking Waste tackles these questions through a long-term, cross-cultural approach. Drawing on archaeological finds, historical documents, and ethnographic observations to examine Europe, the United States, and Central America from prehistory to the present, Sarah Newman traces how different ideas about waste took shape in different times and places. Newman examines what people consider to be waste and how they interact with it, as well as what happens when different perceptions of trash come into conflict. Conceptions of waste have shaped forms of reuse and renewal in ancient Mesoamerica, early modern ideas of civility and forced religious conversion in New Spain, and even the modern discipline of archaeology. Newman argues that centuries of assumptions imposed on other places, times, and peoples need to be rethought. This book is not only a broad reconsideration of waste; it is also a call for new forms of archaeology that do not take garbage for granted. Unmaking Waste reveals that waste is not--and never has been--an obvious or universal concept.

1 different editions

Also available

Also from

Newman, Sarah

View All

Also in

Anthropology

View All