Hazardous Travels.
Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy
Project Director and Principal Investigator: Dr. Simone M. Müller
The DFG Emmy-Noether Research Group Hazardous Travels. Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy investigates the many faces of hazardous travels of the international trade with hazardous waste since the 1970s.
We are a team of four researchers and a research assistant. Together, we work with an asymmetrical comparison of "ghost acres" case studies from North America, Germany, Ecuador, and India and examples of hazardous travels that range from transborder disposal, recycling, or industry relocation.
Through our research, we seek to understand the structures and dynamics that created and sustained the global waste economy and extrapolate how its system could seemingly be built simultaneously on structures of "voluntary exchange" of toxic materiality and "garbage imperialism."
We also tweet, write blogs, organize events, and are collaborating with artists through our joint platform Toxic Commons.
Learn more about our work, watch us on YouTube, or follow us on Twitter (@haztravrcc).
