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(E-Waste) Science and Advocacy at Agbogbloshie: the Making and Effects of “The World’S Largest E-Waste Dump.”

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(E-Waste) Science and Advocacy at Agbogbloshie: the Making and Effects of “The World’S Largest E-Waste Dump.” Electronic Waste (e-waste) Science and Advocacy at Agbogbloshie: The Making and Effects of “The World’s Largest E-waste Dump.” By Grace Abena Akese A Dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography Memorial University of Newfoundland October 2019 St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador Abstract Over the last two decades, e-waste has become a crisis, receiving significant attention from activist, environmental groups, policymakers, news media, and academics. E-waste processing hubs in Africa and Asia pejoratively labelled “digital dumps” are at the center of the so-called crisis. This dissertation is about Agbogbloshie, a site in Accra, the capital of Ghana, ostensibly “the world’s largest e-waste dump.” I examine the making of this iconic imaginary of Agbogbloshie, the grounds on which it is built, and the effects of its circulation. Broadly, I investigate the knowledge-making practices central to representations of Agbogbloshie as “problem space” in need of interventions. I explore how advocacy groups, institutions (academic scholars), and individuals frame the content and relevance of knowledge about the site to elicit certain forms of interventions and how within this context, the knowledge they produce itself becomes a site of struggle around which contentious politics take place. I demonstrate that although the intention is to make visible the environmental and health effects of e-waste processing, the imaginaries produced about Agbogbloshie within e- waste science and advocacy do certain kinds of harm. Imaginaries of Agbogbloshie such as it is “the world’s largest e-waste dump” are not just representations; they do work, including adding to the harms experienced by those who live and work at the site. Questioning imaginaries of e-waste at Agbogbloshie, I open spaces where the tensions of Agbogbloshie as a site of/for e-waste science and advocacy can be more carefully thought through and done differently. i Acknowledgements To the networks of relations and labour along the path, Medase (Thank you). Dr. Josh Lepawsky, thank you for investing in me. The last 8 years of my life at Memorial has been worthwhile because of you. You have been kind and generous with your time, intellect, and financial support. You offered me the opportunity to study with you and strived to create an environment for me to succeed. When writing became challenging, you encouraged me to be kind to myself and know that I am able. Josh, I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to learn from you, to emulate your example as a thoughtful scholar who sees possibilities for imagining other worlds. Dr. Max Liboiron, thank you for inspiring my interest in the politics of waste. I remember our first meeting at the Canadian Association of Geographers Conference in 2013. I became a fan of your work at the time. Little did I know that you would become a Professor at Memorial and I would have the privilege to learn from you as a dissertation committee member. I am grateful for your encouragement over the years. To Dr. Carissa Brown, I am incredibly grateful for your thoughtful teaching on methods for sampling plant communities. Beyond your kindly worded feedback on dissertation drafts, you offered opportunities for talking about dissertation writing that helped immensely. I recall your advice to graduate students to work with nice people. You have been more than nice, and I know the department is lucky to have you as a Professor and graduate coordinator. To the Geography Department at Memorial, thank you for providing me an intellectual home for the last 8 years. To the past and present friendships in the department, I am grateful to Dr. Davis, Alex, Bernard, Ignace, Donny, Caitlyn, Amanda, Xiaowei, Chris, Dr. Connolly, ii Mosteam, and Melinda. To the staff; Pam Murphy, Valarie James, Charlie Conway, and Dominique, thank you for all the work you do. To co-researchers at Agbogbloshie, your stories and lived experiences brought this research to life. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to navigate the world of fieldwork in Accra with you. Abdallah, Muntari, Yoris, and Mr. Issah, I am grateful for the friendships we continue to share even as we live worlds apart. Even when it is not enough, I hope that the space that this dissertation opens offers a more just world for you. To family and friends, my parent, Mr. Akese and Anti Abigail as well as my siblings— Ralf, Stephen, Mary, Regi, and Josh—thanks for the unconditional love, support and interest in my research. You have seen and heard it all. Now it is done! Dr. Paul Banahene Adjei, you challenge me intellectually. You offered mentorship that helped me to navigate the terrain of work-life balance. Thank you. Dr. Jonathan Amoyaw, thank you for generously giving your time and expertise as well as the laughter. To Dr. Peter Little, thank you for your friendship and collaboration over the years. To the many friends in St. John’s who add joy to my life, I say thank you, especially Anti Martha, Queen mother, and Abena Boachie. Kwame, you supported me through the most difficult times of the research. Your companionship, love, and desire to see me succeed made this journey worthwhile. Thank you Daakye Krapa Hene. Nana Dekopim. I love you. iii Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………...…………………i Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………...ii Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………...iv List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………….vii List of Figures……………………………………………………………………………viii List of Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………..ix List of Appendices……………………………………………………………………….xii Chapter One: Introduction……………………………………………………………….1 The questions: Agbogbloshie within electronic waste (e-waste) science and Advocacy…………………………………………………………………………1 The end of Agbogbloshie (as we knew it)? A journey to the research questions…..7 Approaching nuanced geographies of e-waste……………………………….13 A discard studies sensibility………………………………………………….15 Methods………………………………………………………………………….20 A participatory citizen science approach: a discard survey…………………....20 Tools and techniques for controversy mapping………………………………26 Substantive alignment of the dissertation…………………………………………27 Chapter synopses and outline ……………………………………………………29 Chapter Two: Post-colonial Agbogbloshie: accounting for the urban political economy of the site in e-waste science and advocacy……………………………………………………...37 Introduction……………………………………………………………………….37 Geographies constituted in and through waste…………………………………….41 The wider space economy of Agbogbloshie……………………………………….42 Old Fadama-Agbogbloshie: the land history of a site of colonial and post-colonial struggles…………………………………………………………………………..45 Korle Lagoon at the center of it all………………………………………….45 Post-independence urban development and Korle Lagoon………………….54 Structural adjustment era and new wave of Korle Lagoon developments……58 iv Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project (KLERP) and the economies and ecologies of waste along the lagoon………………………………………………...63 The violence of representation……………………………………………………..66 Chapter Three: Where is the e-waste? A participatory citizen science survey of discards at Agbogbloshie……………………………………………………………………………..72 Introduction………………………………………………………………………...72 In search of methods for surveying discards at Agbogbloshie……………………….77 The planned discard survey: counting scraps at Agbogbloshie………………….79 Unanticipated considerations…………………………………………………...82 Executed discard survey: visual estimates of scraps using Braun Blanquet (BB) Scale……………………………………………………………………………85 Data analysis…………………………………………………………………………88 Presence and abundance analysis……………………………………………….88 Coding………………………………………………………………………….89 Results of discard survey……………………………………………………………..89 Proportion and distribution of electronics compared to other scraps…………...89 Proportion of imported to locally generated electronic scraps…………………..93 Other insights from the survey process ………………………………………...93 Navigating workers’ experiences of research fatigue……………………………94 Discussion……………………………………………………………………………97 The affordance of participatory citizen science………………………………………101 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..103 Chapter Four: Diving into e-waste texts: geographical imaginaries in e-waste science and advocacy at Agbogbloshie………………………………………………………………..105 Introduction………………………………………………………………………….105 Assembling an approach, tools and data……………………………………………...107 Patterns of statements within the corpus of text……………………………………...113 Portraits of Agbogbloshie: geographic imaginaries in e-waste texts and the work they v do………………………………………………………………………………………...123 Size imaginaries…………………………………………………………………..129 Agbogbloshie as exemplary………………………………………………………132 Biblical iconographies of hell……………………………………………………..134 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………137 Chapter Five: Conclusion: Redoing e-waste science and advocacy at Agbogbloshie ……...138 Introduction………………………………………………………………………….138 Possibilities for redoing and undoing e-waste science and advocacy………………….143 Possibilities I……………………………………………………………………..143 Possibilities II……………………………………………………………………145 Possibilities III…………………………………………………………………...148 Limitations of the research……………………………………………………………151 Limitations I……………………………………………………………………...151 Limitations II…………………………………………………………………….151 Parting Thoughts …………………………………………………………………….153 References……………………………………………………………………………….155 Appendices………………………………………………………………………………187 vi List of Tables Table 3.1:
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