In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

5 The Acculturation of Waste Walter Moser As recent historical approaches TO THE QUESTION HAVE SHOWN, the reality of waste is intrinsically tied to the very existence of human society throughout its history. But the novel development that interests us here is not the existence of waste per se but rather its accession to culture. So in what follows I too will speak of the “acculturation” of waste, all the while taking this term in its most literal sense, one that falls short of its specifically anthropological and sociological acceptations . Because, for the longest time, waste has been relegated to the fringes of culture, if not expelled altogether, and has thus stood as a term opposed to culture . Such exclusion is being reconsidered, even repudiated, within today’s society ; a new relationship between waste and culture is in the midst of emerging: a less negative, more ambivalent, and certainly more complex relationship. The new perception of waste results from a particular constellation, which depends upon several concomitant developments. Among these, we should mention : the spread of industrialization, which has radically changed the quantity and nature of waste produced; the advent of a new ecological awareness and its resulting practices; the emergence of an economy of recuperation and recycling; the recognition of waste as an artistic resource; and, finally, the expanding scope of “waste” (and more or less synonymous terms) by analogy. The challenge is to comprehend the cultural transformation being brought about by the new multiform presence of waste, as both discursive and material reality. Because it is a process of considerable historical and cultural complexity, a thorough examination of the “acculturation” of waste can hardly be embraced 85 here. This chapter, therefore, forms only one moment in a more comprehensive ongoing analysis. It should be preceded by a symptomatology of sorts, which will inventory and describe the various signs attesting to the existence of the phenomenon on a global scale—signs ranging from our fears of smothering beneath an avalanche of refuse, through the sundry techno-economic solutions devised to rid ourselves of it, all the way to the increased application, by analogy, of the notion of waste across the entire range of discourses. It would then be followed by the presentation and analysis of various “aesthetics of waste.”1 Within this larger ensemble, we undertake the beginnings of a philological and conceptual analysis of “waste.” T H E S E M A N T I C S O F WA S T E Let us begin with a brief foray into the linguistic landscape of waste, or, more precisely, let us explore its semantic field and the relations that this field maintains with its lexical compass. These explorations will draw on vocables from different languages, to point out contrasts or bring out certain regularities occurring between them. I employ “waste” as a generic term to designate the semantic field in question. But for all that, “waste”is never more than one vocable among many making up the full lexical range of this field in English. Among other words, more or less synonymous with “waste,”the most frequently encountered are debris , detritus, dirt, dreck, garbage, junk, leavings, leftovers, litter, refuse, remains, rubbish, scraps, smut, and trash. A number of isotopics emerge within this field, allowing us to bring out certain structuring distinctions: Organic and inorganic. Inorganic waste derives most often from an artisanal or a manufacturing process, though it can just as well occur naturally (as in geology, for instance). Most of the above words partake of both isotopics. Some have an inclination one way (“detritus”is organic on the whole) or the other (“debris”is rather inorganic). In general, all of the words designate something that remains partially at odds with respect to this distinction: no vocable belongs exclusively to one or the other isotopic. Fragment and totality. Waste is often fragmentary, partial, residual in relation to a totality that would have preexisted it. The French déchet—singular, nominative— conveys this sense better perhaps. This separation of part from whole is usually one of the genetic preconditions for the existence of waste. In many languages, these words have both a singular and a plural, thus permitting us to designate either one element alone or a pile of fragments or particles resulting from a process of disintegration. Nevertheless, we observe a tendency, notably in French, to use 86 Wa s t e - S i t e S t o r i e s [3.133.79.70] Project...

Share