Daniel Sosna – författare

Thrift is a central concern for most people, especially in turbulent economic times. It is both an economic and an ethical logic of frugal living, saving and avoiding waste for long-term kin care. These logics echo the ancient ideal of household self-sufficiency, contrasting with capitalism’s wasteful present-focused growth. But thrift now exceeds domestic matters straying across scales to justify public expenditure cuts. Through a wide range of ethnographic contexts this book explores how practices and moralities of thrift are intertwined with austerity, debt, welfare, and patronage across various social and temporal scales and are constantly re-negotiated at the nexus of socio-economic, religious, and kinship ideals and praxis.

Through ethnographic research conducted among landfill workers and waste pickers, Europe’s Disappearing Waste explores the inner workings of the Czech waste management system that is underpinned by the belief that waste should disappear. Waste streams give rise to underflows that provide opportunities for those who refuse to be passive witnesses of disposal and loss of value. The normative assumptions about market-based solutions and techno-optimism in waste management are called into question, directing attention to the commitment to salvage that provides an alternative way of relating to waste.