Follow the computers: Entangled mobilities of people and things in transnational recycling

Abstract

This paper contributes to our understanding of the social life of used computers in West Africa through analysis of the sending, distribution, recognition, and reception of recycled equipment. Based on multi-sited and longitudinal fieldwork in Denmark and Ghana, it employs George Marcus’ suggestion of following things as a methodological selection device for ethnography. Theoretically, it engages the concept of affective circuits to address how transnational recycling, belonging, hometown development, and family relations are interlinked. I present a three-fold argument: first, that the actions of sending, distributing, recognizing, and receiving used equipment enable different actors to demonstrate and perform hometown belonging, development, and leadership; second, that these capacities reflect differentiated mobilities and connectivity of the people involved; and third, that the recycled furniture and information technology (IT) gear become upcycled to objects of value, being mobilized and transformed through long-term processes and negotiations of reciprocity.