Convened by Joseph Edward B. Alegado,  Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, and "Justin Lau, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

This panel explores the multi-scalar politics of waste pollution and development in Asia. Specifically, it uses the concept of ‘element’ as a heuristic device for thinking through the unruly mobilities of waste materials that animate different concerns, imaginaries, and technologies apropos of environmental vulnerabilities. The attention to ‘element’ shifts our lens to the fundamental building blocks of the natural-social worlds (fire, water, air, earth, etc.) in shaping the existence of all forms of life (McCormack 2018).

Consider ‘water,’ waste pollution becomes impervious, drawing attention to the planetary and geographical scale. Southeast Asia, for instance, is subject to the highest level of marine plastic pollution globally. In urban cities, the volatile flooding, exacerbated by climate change, transports uncollected waste across places. Consider ‘fire,’ waste pollution appears elusive. The widespread practices of open or ‘controlled’ burning of waste in Asia transform the molecular structure of matter and redistribute and diffuse pollution across the atmospheric scale. Consider ‘earth,’ waste pollution generates sites of activism. Environmental Buddhism and the burgeoning compost movement, for example, often foreground care practices and spirituality, calling for the resuscitation of land.

We ask, how do ‘elements’ enable us to think about the movement, formation, and accumulation of waste pollution otherwise? How do waste practices and infrastructural technologies manipulate elements to mediate waste pollution? How do ‘elements’ structure and condition forms of environmentalism? How do mainstream and alternatives to development thinking intervene and to what extent in further scaling or de-scaling waste pollution in Asia? How does North-South relations in terms of development escalate tentions on waste, toxicity, and "negative externalities" in the region?We invite papers to explore the diverse ethnographic categories of ‘element’ and their relations with pollution vis-a-vis development generating new lines of inquiry into the pressing socio-ecological challenges and transformations in Asia.