Recycling Modernity: An anthropological study of India's mobile phone repair and recycling economies

Global e-waste has more than tripled in the past decade, posing an urgent environmental challenge for the 21st century. India is already a major dumping ground for e-waste and is poised to become the next e-waste giant. Yet the vibrant repair and recycling economies of socially excluded groups support and propel India's unprecedented growth. Does this unique, largely hidden phenomenon offer an alternative prospect to the developed world's throwaway society? How does it challenge international practices in consuming new technologies? Does it suggest a way of achieving a sustainable future? This anthropological study of the life of mobile phones seeks a new theoretical framework for understanding the paradox of India's consumer culture.