Tibetan Buddhism in the Age of Waste

Taking examples from lived Tibetan Buddhism, this article explores the role of religion in the generation, sorting, and handling of waste that is produced or ends up in the religious field. Rather than assuming that waste is the negative and worthless endpoint of consumption, it introduces the concepts of “waste imaginaries” and “waste trajectories” to examine the importance of religion in the relationship between how and why things come to be defined and sorted as waste and the ways in which they are then handled and treated. By examining how Tibetan Buddhists talk about and act around different kinds of waste, both sacred and banal, the article unfolds the moral politics of waste, showing how waste trajectories are negotiated through changing and sometimes conflicting waste imaginaries.

Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge that this research article – like all academic articles that I have produced – is the result of joint and collaborative efforts between interlocutors, assistants, colleagues, peer-reviewers, editors, and myself. Special thanks are due to Tashi Rabden, who worked as my research assistant in 2010, and the many Tibetan and Chinese interlocutors whose conversations inspired and informed this article. I am also grateful to Paulina Kolata, Emma Martin, Jørn Borup, Birgitte Schepelern Johansen, Simon Stjernholm, Andreas Bandak, Stephen Christopher, Sierra Humbert, and other colleagues at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies for discussing this article. I thank copy editor Jane Caple and the anonymous reviewers, whose advice had a major impact on how the article turned out.