Current Inequalities: The Movements and Meanings of Ocean Waste in Peru

About the seminar:
Lima, Peru’s capital, has garnered international attention for having one of the most garbage-filled coasts in South America. Amid growing concern in Lima (and around the world) about the proliferation of ocean-borne plastic trash, there has been increased public discussion about who is to blame for ocean waste and what should be done about it. However, identifying “waste” that is “out of place” in Lima’s seawater and beaches is not as straightforward a process as it would seem. Establishing the fact of ocean pollution and responsibility for its presence and clean up involves different people invoking particular social and material relationships. Understanding this dynamic is critical for revealing how circulations of ocean waste have become bound up with racialized inequalities in Lima.

About the seminar series:
Covering more than 70% of the planet, with 10 million+ species and counting, and the planet’s largest carbon sink, the Ocean is of urgent consideration in Anthropocene debates. Whilst the Anthropocene focusses on man’s influence on our world as a whole, the blue turn in humanities and social sciences specifically recognises the importance and urgency of considering humankind’s relationship to bodies of water and the vital role they play in climate change consequence and mitigation, biodiversity, and multispecies activity.

This seminar series will bring together leading scholarship representing diverse geographical and social contexts of Latin America, with a focus on human-ocean relationships and how these support or disrupt the current state of Blue Anthropocene crisis in which we find ourselves.

These seminars are organised by Rebecca Irons, UCL and hosted by Embodied Inequalities of the Anthropocene project a collaboration between UCL, CIESAS in Mexico and UFRGS in Brazil and SHS UCL Anthropocene.

Blue Anthropocene in Latin America is a virtual seminar series hosted by Embodied Inequalities of the Anthropocene and SHS UCL Anthropocene.