This theme recognizes particularly devastating forms of destruction, threatening the very conditions that enable life on the planet as we know it. As applicable and important as environmental experiences of destruction are, the theme not only builds on but also goes beyond them. Inspired by Joseph Schumpeter’s notion of “creative destruction”, which attaches positive value to destruction as a necessary means for economic development, we are interested in circumstances and traditions that deem destruction desirable, necessary or might have humanitarian intentions (e.g. when fighting viruses). We ask about the ideologies of destruction and the (Western and non-Western) cosmologies in which they might be embedded. This also includes cases in which the visibility of destruction is central for its public relevance entailing the investment of considerable ideological labour to downplay or conceal destruction.

Waste matters – in ever growing im/material and polluting quantities as well as in socio-economic and relational dimensions, and thus in anthropological reasoning in both practical and theoretical perspectives. We apply a broad understanding of waste as a noun (addressing domestic, agricultural, industrial, medical and non/human remains) and as the verb ‘wasting’ in the sense of a careless, unnecessary use of resources. With this understanding we explore the socio-economic transformations from valued to discarded materials and their further circulation into re- and upcycling activities; local perceptions of pollution, environment and nature including their inherent symbolic orders and normative assumptions; entanglements between waste and social identities and hierarchies as well as political power and civil society activities in waste management.

This theme focuses on the interactions between people and materials that emerge through processes of planning, processing, and making. This process-oriented approach goes beyond a purely product-oriented perspective by examining all the stages of engagement between makers and materials from conception to finalisation. Processes of making are fundamental to the existence of all objects and studying them raises important questions about the relationship between people and products, knowledge and action, the material and the immaterial.