Suchergebnisse

To a large extent, conformity to rigid principles continues to constrain a more situated approach to research ethics. Although this means deception is seen as something that should be avoided at all costs, I found that covert aspects of my ethnographic study enabled me to minimise the inequality between researcher and research participants. This article explores my use of situated ethics in interactions with street 'waste pickers' during fieldwork in Cape Town using participant observation. I opted to wear a hidden recorder and obtain selective consent, which I argue was more appropriate than relying solely on a fieldnote journal or obtaining signatures on a written consent form. These methods enabled me to communicate respect and build trust. The implication is that a contextualised approach to ethical procedures can be better suited to sensitive research topics, with marginalised social groups, where there is extreme inequality between researchers and their research participants.

Concern around plastic pollution and China's ban on receiving foreign waste and recyclate have refocused attention on responsible waste management and attracted interdisciplinary research that impacts policy and practice. Consequently, plastic has elevated the role of social science in the innovation space, which has traditionally been occupied by science and enterprise. This opening article marks the launch of a special collection of works, which will be published monthly, on the social life of plastic. As a preface to the forthcoming contributions, this introduction highlights the value of humanities and social science approaches to tackling plastic waste, tracing the directions that the social science of waste and plastic has taken and can take in future. Concomitantly, it helps to steer discussions and collaborations away from the restricted realm of plastic bag consumption towards a deeper engagement with socio-material processes. We thus contribute to ensuring that the current anti-plastic zeitgeist is situated in space and time, and that potential solutions benefit from a rigorous examination of the multiplicity of plastics.