Trashy Tales and Tales of Trash (2016): The Making of Waste in Contemporary Malaysian Short Stories

Abstract

Discard studies have brought increased critical attention to the roles of social, political and economic systems in the production and processing of waste, whether human or otherwise. This reading of three short stories set in contemporary Malaysia from Trash: A Southeast Asian Urban Anthology (2016) examines how rapid urbanisation and economic growth have regulated and normalised the production and processing of trash by conditioning the perceptions and experiences of space, time, gender and class. Ted Mahsun’s “And the Heavens Your Canopy” illustrates how the design of urban spaces can exacerbate problematic habits of consumption and waste production. Zedeck Siew’s “Mrs Chandra’s War Against Dust” shows how the increased pace of modernity further marginalises vulnerable groups which cannot keep up. Dipika Mukherjee’s “Baby’s Breath” uncovers the exploitation and abuse of socioeconomically vulnerable women in the maintenance of systems of power. Collectively, these stories highlight how damaging (yet normalised) spatial, temporal and ideological structures lead to social and environmental injustices. They also suggest the necessity of telling and reading “trashy” tales to uncover and question the dominant marginalising and damaging discourses of societies or their nation-states.