Abstract
David Fedele’s 20-minute documentary E-Wasteland (2012) sharply presents a serious environmental crisis emerging out of Accra, Ghana, reminding one of Alfred Crosby’s term “ecological imperialism.” The e-waste of the First World, sent on a regular basis to the Third World for recycling, causes an ongoing devastation in the more-than-human world. As Karen Barad observes, “questions of ethics and of justice are always already threaded through the very fabric of the world” (qtd. in Dolphijn and van der Tuin 69); hence, this chapter is primarily a posthumanist account of Fedele’s eco-documentary, with a special focus on the released toxic chemicals as agentic bodies. If agency is taken not as synonymous with human intentionality, but as an “assemblage of effects,” in Jane Bennett’s words, then it becomes clear that waste, pollution, or debris is not passive and inert. With such a non-anthropocentric discourse in mind, and considering the inseparability of nature from culture, Africa’s peoples and non-human organic beings as well as impersonal agents (such as air, land, and marine environments) require a rethink of value, knowledge, and being in a new posthumanist venture.
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Dönmez, B.A. (2016). Ecological Imperialism in the Age of the Posthuman: David Fedele’s E-Wasteland . In: Alex, R., Deborah, S. (eds) Ecodocumentaries. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56224-1_5
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