“Plastic Governance”: Material Culture, Plasticity, and Policy Struggles

• In Event: Residues: Rethinking Chemical Environments - II

Abstract

The 20th century has frequently been described as the “the plastic age”, plastics being omnipresent and ubiquitous. It exists in all kinds of forms and with multiple functions — the material’s plasticity has allowed it permanently reshape our material cultures; yet, it contains all kinds of chemical additives creating harmful effects; it degrades into fragments (microplastics) thus shifting shapes and diffusing into the remotest parts of our environment and our bodies; and, it accumulates over time constituting the archives of 20th century “plastic progress”. The materiality of plastics is thus never fixed but has to be understood as a process, enacted and realized in a large variety of settings.

Taking these complexities as a starting point, this paper aims to investigate the struggles in European policy arena over the governance of plastics. Currently, Europe is engaged in intense policy debates — e.g. the EU Plastic Strategy and the Single-Use Plastics proposal direction — trying to address plastics as a matter of public concern and develop adequate responses. The goal of this paper is to carefully analyze the ways these policy initiatives conceptualize, narrate and address the plastic issues and propose problem-solution packages. Doing this I want to open up an in-depth reflection on the limitation of specific policy framings and invite to engage with the multiplicity of the lives of plastics-in-society, thinking towards more adaptive and situated, i.e. a more “plastic” governance mechanisms.

This presentation is part of a wider interdisciplinary platform (PLENTY) addressing issues of plastics in environment and society.

Author

• Ulrike Felt, University of Vienna, Department of Science and Technology Studies