Fast Machines,Slow Violence: ICTs,Planned Obsolescence,and E-waste

Abstract

This paper brings the temporalities of the global e-waste recycling trade into the temporal reckonings of speed, acceleration, and simultaneity typically associated with information and communications technologies (ICTs). Following feminist philosopher Sofia, it begins with a reconsideration of theories of technology as they relate to time and the environment. The second part of the paper suggests that recycling practices do not address the tempos of production, especially planned obsolescence. Bringing together Nixon's concept of slow violence with Sofia's theory of container technologies, this paper interrogates the speed, acceleration, and simultaneity often attributed to ICTs and globalization to argue that planned obsolescence functions as a type of slow violence, and that it structures the environmental politics of the information age.