Basura

While much has been written about the unstoppable accumulation of waste and the monumental landscapes of large landfills, very little attention has been paid instead to that "small" and seemingly harmless garbage that litters the streets and sidewalks of our cities: a cigarette butt, a subway ticket, a tissue, a cardboard or disposable plastic cup ... This book deals precisely with those residues that are still in an embryonic and incipient state, which are for the moment insignificant, that they still need to grow, and they have not yet left the metropolis and started their final journey towards the garbage dumps of the suburbs. The different chapters of "Garbage. Cultural uses of waste" test an eclectic approach to art, philosophy, ethics, sociology, anthropology, gender studies, the theory of emotions and the emerging theory of waste to reflect on the anthropomorphic nature of urban waste; on the poetics and semantic transcendence of the garbage micro-landscapes and of the multiple archives to which everything discarded goes; on the "dumpsterology" or history of dumpsters or waste containers as artifacts of complex and sexual significance; and, finally, on the remains left behind by undocumented migrants when they cross the wide desert strip that separates Mexico from the United States. In short, "Garbage. Cultural uses of waste" invites the reader to pause, direct a thoughtful glance towards the ground and focus attention and senses on those infinite objects that society discards and declares useless.