Commodity Natures: Supply Chains From Extraction to Waste and Alternatives to Endless Growth

Catalog description

What goes into the things we use everyday? Who makes commodities and under what conditions? What happens to stuff after we throw it away? Are we stuck with mass consumption? Are there workable alternatives? These are the kinds of questions we will unpack. Reading from commodity and discard studies, and political economy and ecology, we will situate economic growth in social and environmental context. We will look at production, extraction, circulation, disposal, and afterlives of commodities, with particular attention to invisibilized labor and environmental externalities. And we will explore sustainability proposals, including circularity, degrowth, and repair. In addition to an individual paper, you will apply analytical tools in a semester-long research project to examine a commodity of your choosing. With peers, you will produce a report, narrative website, video, or web-series to narrate the life and afterlife of your thing.