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Seeing Waste Like a City: Towards Just Circular Economies in Glasgow and Mexico City

Project description

Studying urban waste for fair cities

Urban waste is piling up, and so are the social and environmental risks, especially in growing cities. Circular economy policies aim to cut waste but often ignore how deeply waste is woven into urban daily life and global inequalities. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the URBANWASTE project takes a fresh approach: seeing waste as a city sees it. By studying how waste is produced, handled, and lived in Glasgow and Mexico City, the project explores the everyday and global dimensions of urban waste. Overall, it blends urban theory and comparative research to rethink how circular economy policies can work better (and more fairly) in cities worldwide.

Objective

This 2-year project combines innovation in urban theory with comparative research on two cities to advance knowledge on how circular economy and urban waste policy can be made more effective and just. Increasing municipal solid waste is leading to mounting environmental and social risks, especially in urban areas. Local governments are urgently trying to reduce waste generation, notably through the model of the circular economy. Yet, so far, policies have failed to achieve sustainable change in urban economies because the circular economy overlooks the multiple entanglements of waste within urbanites’ everyday lives and its embeddedness in the uneven global economy. In short, the decidedly urban nature of waste is neglected in circular economy initiatives. URBANWASTE will therefore see waste like a city, to demonstrate how waste is generated, handled and potentially reduced in the multiple processes and places of urban collective life as they interconnect with supralocal political-economic processes. Through an original blend of qualitative methods and approaches in urban political theory, urban political ecology and urban political economy, it will conduct studies of waste in Glasgow and Mexico City and place these in a global-comparativist frame. The project will build on the researcher’s research expertise and language skills to advance her theoretical and methodological skills in new empirical contexts. This will contribute to her ambition of becoming an expert in urban and sustainability studies. She will benefit greatly from two leading urban scholars: the main supervisor, Dr Beveridge, who will host her at the University of Glasgow, and the secondment supervisor, Dr Boudreau, who will support a 5-months secondment at the National Autonomous University of Mexico during the fieldwork in Mexico City. The project will produce novel insights in theory and practice to advance debates on circular urban waste policy in Europe and globally.

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 260 347,92
Address
UNIVERSITY AVENUE
G12 8QQ Glasgow
United Kingdom

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Region
Scotland West Central Scotland Glasgow City
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

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