Captived by Waste: An Ethnographic Study of the Activities Not Only Around the Bulk Container

Abctract In my diploma thesis I deal with actions that happen around bulk containers, that are intended to collect larger pieces of domestic waste and that are periodically placed in public space in Prague. I consider the bulk container as an actor, which leads us to particular practices of guarding, disposession and collecting stuff (from the container). I use method of multi-sited ethnography to investigate how the value of disposed objects change according to actions around container and according to change of the context in which it is newly placed. I identify several kinds of value, that are inscribed to wasted objects by their new owners. Waste can become valuable with regard to its economic potencial (as a thing or material that can be sold), with regard to possibility of its further practic use (as a household equipment or material), with regard to its estethic value (as an indicator of taste or as an artefact) or it can gain some specific kind of value in socially engaged context. It is possible to consider the bulk container as an actor of recyclation. I research how various groups of people that are concerned with reusing of waste, interact and how are their interactions, their relationships and their specific practices constitutive for reality of waste in surrounded area of the cotainer and..