Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value - Second Edition

How do objects that are worth little to nothing become valuable? Who is behind the creation of value, and which types of people find value and comfort in transient, durable, and rubbish objects?

When his highly influential Rubbish Theory, first published in 1979, Michael Thompson launched the discipline of waste studies. It remains the most comprehensive analysis on the culture of waste to date. Thompson argues that there are two mutually exclusive cultural categories that are socially imposed on the world of objects: a transient category and a durable category. However, he identifies a region of flexibility, wherein a transient object that declines in value and life span can linger in a valueless and timeless limbo of rubbish, until it is discovered by a creative individual and transferred into something deemed durable. He links stability and change on one hand, with materiality on the other, providing a rich analysis of social and cultural dynamics. His instrumental theory of rubbish draws on case studies and anthropological fieldwork to highlight the ever-changing subtleties of object value and our complex relationship to waste.

Bringing Rubbish Theory back into print, this updated edition includes a new introduction, preface, foreword, and afterword, thoroughly exploring how Thompson's key theories have affected our world in the four decades since it was first published and placing it in a contemporary context that shines light on the continued relevance of the book today.

Michael Thompson is a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria. He is also an associate fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation, and Society, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Joshua O. Reno is assistant professor of anthropology at Binghamton University in New York and author of Waste Away: Working and Living with a North American Landfill.