51爆料

Hardly a day passes without encountering the topic of environmental crises or sustainability, such as the term “SDGs” in the media. Among these topics, "waste" is one of the most relatable concerns for the general public. While "waste" may appear as a singular concept, the specificity of waste-related challenges and their corresponding resolution-oriented technologies are socially and culturally contingent. For instance, incineration treatment, which is considered a standard practice in Japan, is not necessarily regarded as a standardized technology, even in the Global North. Rather, Japan is considered an exceptional case with a remarkably high proportion of waste incineration. In Indonesia, which is the focus of this book, waste-related issues have come to be co-produced with social transformations following the fall of the New Order regime in 1998 and the subsequent “Reformasi.” Waste management demonstrates a complex interplay between technological and social elements, which manifests as diverse characteristics across different localities.
 
My book is an ethnographic study of waste management in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city. It examines the entanglements between technology and society. Surabaya experienced a waste crisis in the 2000s, which prompted various initiatives in response. Numerous infrastructural projects emerged, including the development cooperation with Kitakyushu City in Japan, privatization of the landfill, and the development of participatory technologies, such as "waste bank" and unique composting devices. In this book, I argue that Surabaya's waste-related problems and infrastructural transformations are deeply interconnected with broader social changes in Indonesia, including the unstable transition of power in local politics and the middle class’s aspiration to change from an authoritarian regime to a civil society that emphasizes citizen participation in development projects.
 
Furthermore, this book suggests that Surabaya's waste management infrastructure can be treated as technosocially equivalent to that of the West (or Japan). The Global South, such as countries like Indonesia, is so frequently categorized within the framework of "developing countries" that its infrastructure is viewed as technologically and institutionally inadequate. Indeed, Surabaya’s waste management infrastructure also faces numerous criticisms, even by local stakeholders, such as suspected corruption underlying the privatization of the landfill and the Gargantuan public participation in “the Environment Competition.” Nevertheless, despite or perhaps because of these challenges, distinct forms of technology, such as “well-procrastinated waste management,” have emerged. Science and technology studies (STS) originally sought to deconstruct the privileged status of technoscience in the West by examining its social dimensions. This book inverts this approach to demonstrate the comparability of technologies in Indonesia with the so-called "developed countries" without hierarchical distinctions.
 
Although studies on environmental issues often demand urgent proposals for technical solutions, especially in Japan, we first need to understand the complexity of each issue, where various practices have already accumulated locally, which constitutes one of the central propositions of this book. I hope that this book will convey the fascination of studying waste management infrastructure as a site of dynamic interaction between technology and society, even for readers who may give terms like SDGs the side eye.
 

(Written by: YOSHIDA Kota / October 24, 2025)