Lara Sarlak

LARA SARLAK, then a graduate student at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, was awarded funding in October 2022 to aid research on “Disposable Labor: Migrant Recycling Workers and Waste Infrastructures in Istanbul, Turkey,” supervised by Dr. Alexia Bloch/ A common sight on the streets of Istanbul, as in other cities across Turkey, is informal recycling workers pulling their heavy carts filled with recyclable waste. In recent years, collecting waste has become a significant economic survival strategy not only for low-income citizens, but also for migrants and refugees in Istanbul who are excluded from formal employment opportunities. However, between 2022 and 2023, mass deportations of thousands of migrant recyclers substantially impacted the recycling industry by creating a sudden labour shortage. Despite the role of informal recycling workers as the backbone of waste management infrastructures, the Turkish state has been criminalizing their labor through environmental legislations and heavy-handed policing. Based on 15 months of ethnographic research in Istanbul, this dissertation explores the essential role of migrant recycling workers in supporting the city’s waste management infrastructures. It also questions how informal recycling industry reveals the systemic effects of pervasive border regimes and racialization of urban waste labor. My project interrogates how informal recycling workers have developed strategies to contest the state’s punitive measures as they negotiate their belonging in the recycling industry and in the Turkish nation-state.