ABSTRACT
While repair work has recently been getting increasing attention in HCI, recycling practices have still remained relatively understudied, especially in the context of the Global South. To this end, building on our eight-month-long ethnography, this paper reports the electronic waste (`e-waste', henceforth) recycling practices among the e-waste recycler (`bhangari') communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In doing so, this paper offers the work of the bhangaris through an articulation of their hands and their uses. Drawing from a rich body of scholarly work on social science, we define and contextualize three characteristics of the hand of a bhangari: knowledge, care, and skills and collaboration. Our study also highlights the pains and sufferings involved in this profession. By explaining bhangari work through the hand, we also discuss its implications for design, and its connection to HCI's broader interest in sustainability.
Supplemental Material
- Fazle Rabbi Sadeque Ahmed. 2011. E-waste management scenario in Bangladesh. In WEEE/E-waste management workshop on take-back system. 13--15.Google Scholar
- Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Shion Guha, Md Rashidujjaman Rifat, Faysal Hossain Shezan, and Nicola Dell. 2016. Privacy in Repair: An Analysis of the Privacy Challenges Surrounding Broken Digital Artifacts in Bangladesh. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. ACM, 11. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Shion Guha, Md Rashidujjaman Rifat, Faysal Hossain Shezan, and Nicola Dell. 2017. ICTD 2016| Privacy in Repair: An Analysis of the Privacy Challenges Surrounding Broken Digital Artifacts in Bangladesh. Information Technologies & International Development 13 (2017), 14.Google Scholar
- Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Steven J Jackson, and Md Rashidujjaman Rifat. 2015. Learning to fix: knowledge, collaboration and mobile phone repair in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. ACM, 4. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cornelis P Balde, Vanessa Forti, Vanessa Gray, Ruediger Kuehr, and Paul Stegmann. 2017. The global e-waste monitor 2017: Quantities, flows and resources. United Nations University, International Telecommunication Union, and International Solid Waste Association.Google Scholar
- Patrick Biernacki and Dan Waldorf. 1981. Snowball sampling: Problems and techniques of chain referral sampling. Sociological methods & research 10, 2 (1981), 141--163.Google Scholar
- Eli Blevis. 2007. Sustainable interaction design: invention & disposal, renewal & reuse. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 503--512. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hronn Brynjarsdottir, Maria Håkansson, James Pierce, Eric Baumer, Carl DiSalvo, and Phoebe Sengers. 2012. Sustainably unpersuaded: how persuasion narrows our vision of sustainability. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 947--956. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Graham Button and Wes Sharrock. 2009. Studies of Work and the Workplace in HCI: Concepts and Techniques. Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics 2, 1 (2009), 1--96. Google ScholarCross Ref
- Stuart K Card, William K English, and Betty J Burr. 1978. Evaluation of mouse, rate-controlled isometric joystick, step keys, and text keys for text selection on a CRT. Ergonomics 21, 8 (1978), 601--613.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Priyank Chandra. 2017. Informality and Invisibility: Traditional Technologies as Tools for Collaboration in an Informal Market. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 4765--4775. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Priyank Chandra, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, and Joyojeet Pal. 2017. Market practices and the bazaar: Technology consumption in ICT markets in the global south. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems. ACM, 4741--4752. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Xinwen Chi, Martin Streicher-Porte, Mark YL Wang, and Markus A Reuter. 2011. Informal electronic waste recycling: a sector review with special focus on China. Waste Management 31, 4 (2011), 731--742.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and Basel Action Network. 2002. Exporting harm: the high-tech trashing of Asia. The Basel Action Network, Seattle (2002).Google Scholar
- Harry M Collins. 2001. Tacit knowledge, trust and the Q of sapphire. Social studies of science 31, 1 (2001), 71--85.Google Scholar
- Annabel Cooper and Leon Straker. 1998. Mouse versus keyboard use: A comparison of shoulder muscle load. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 22, 4--5 (1998), 351--357.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Andy Crabtree, David M Nichols, Jon O'Brien, Mark Rouncefield, and Michael B Twidale. 2000. Ethnomethodologically informed ethnography and information system design. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 51, 7 (2000), 666--682. The Breaking Hand CHI 2019, May 4--9, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland UK Google ScholarDigital Library
- Maheshwar Dwivedy and RK Mittal. 2010. Future trends in computer waste generation in India. Waste management 30, 11 (2010), 2265--2277.Google Scholar
- Annie T Fang, Rahan Khozein, Sergio M Mendez-Baiges, and Eunice Y Shin. 2009. eXtend: reducing e-waste through redistribution of local it resources. In CHI'09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2817--2822. Google ScholarDigital Library
- George W Fitzmaurice and William Buxton. 1997. Graspable user interfaces. University of Toronto.Google ScholarDigital Library
- Harold Garfinkel. 1967. Studies in ethnomethodology. (1967).Google Scholar
- Alex A Gartland and Paulina Piasek. 2009. Weigh your waste: A sustainable way to reduce waste. In CHI'09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2853--2858. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Patrick Haggard and J Randall Flanagan. 1996. Hand and brain: the neurophysiology and psychology of hand movements. Elsevier.Google Scholar
- Michelle Heacock, Carol Bain Kelly, Kwadwo Ansong Asante, Linda S Birnbaum, Åke Lennart Bergman, Marie-Noel Bruné, Irena Buka, David O Carpenter, Aimin Chen, Xia Huo, et al. 2015. E-waste and harm to vulnerable populations: a growing global problem. Environmental health perspectives 124, 5 (2015), 550--555.Google Scholar
- Martin Heidegger. 1968. What is called thinking? (1968).Google Scholar
- Martin Heidegger. 2010. Being and time. Suny Press.Google Scholar
- Robert Hertz. 2013. Death and the right hand. Routledge.Google Scholar
- Lars Erik Holmquist, Friedemann Mattern, Bernt Schiele, Petteri Alahuhta, Michael Beigl, and Hans-W Gellersen. 2001. Smart-its friends: A technique for users to easily establish connections between smart artefacts. In international conference on Ubiquitous Computing. Springer, 116--122. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lara Houston and Steven J Jackson. 2016. Caring for the next billion mobile handsets: opening proprietary closures through the work of repair. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. ACM, 10. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Lara Houston, Steven J Jackson, Daniela K Rosner, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Meg Young, and Laewoo Kang. 2016. Values in repair. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems. ACM, 1403--1414. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Elaine M Huang and Khai N Truong. 2008. Breaking the disposable technology paradigm: opportunities for sustainable interaction design for mobile phones. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 323--332. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jingyu Huang, Philip Nti Nkrumah, Desmond Ofosu Anim, and Ebenezer Mensah. 2014. E-waste disposal effects on the aquatic environment: Accra, Ghana. In Reviews of environmental contamination and toxicology. Springer, 19--34.Google Scholar
- Tim Ingold. 2013. Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Hiroshi Ishii. 2008. The tangible user interface and its evolution. Commun. ACM 51, 6 (2008), 32--36. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hiroshi Ishii and Brygg Ullmer. 1997. Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 234-- 241. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hiroshi Ishii, Craig Wisneski, Julian Orbanes, Ben Chun, and Joe Paradiso. 1999. PingPongPlus: design of an athletic-tangible interface for computer-supported cooperative play. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 394--401. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Steven J Jackson. 2014. 11 Rethinking Repair. Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society (2014), 221--39.Google Scholar
- Steven J Jackson, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, and Md Rashidujjaman Rifat. 2014. Learning, innovation, and sustainability among mobile phone repairers in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In Proceedings of the 2014 conference on Designing interactive systems. ACM, 905--914. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Steven J Jackson and Laewoo Kang. 2014. Breakdown, obsolescence and reuse: HCI and the art of repair. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 449--458. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Steven J Jackson, Alex Pompe, and Gabriel Krieshok. 2012. Repair worlds: maintenance, repair, and ICT for development in rural Namibia. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. ACM, 107--116. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Laewoo Kang, Taezoo Park, and Steven Jackson. 2014. Scale: human interactions with broken and discarded technologies. In CHI'14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 399--402. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Laewoo Leo Kang and Steven Jackson. 2018. Collaborative art practice as HCI research. interactions 25, 2 (2018), 78--81. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Sunyoung Kim and Eric Paulos. 2011. Practices in the creative reuse of e-waste. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2395--2404. Google ScholarDigital Library
- David Kirk, Andy Crabtree, and Tom Rodden. 2005. Ways of the hands. In ECSCW 2005. Springer, 1--21. Google ScholarCross Ref
- Mary G Lankford, Teresa R Zembower, William E Trick, Donna M Hacek, Gary A Noskin, and Lance R Peterson. 2003. Influence of role models and hospital design on the hand hygiene of health-care workers. Emerging infectious diseases 9, 2 (2003), 217.Google Scholar
- Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger, and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Vol. 521423740. Cambridge university press Cambridge.Google Scholar
- Josh Lepawsky. 2015. The changing geography of global trade in electronic discards: time to rethink the e-waste problem. The Geographical Journal 181, 2 (2015), 147--159.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Josh Lepawsky and Mostaem Billah. 2011. Making chains that (un) make things: waste--value relations and the Bangladeshi rubbish electronics industry. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 93, 2 (2011), 121--139.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Silvia Lindtner, Garnet D Hertz, and Paul Dourish. 2014. Emerging sites of HCI innovation: hackerspaces, hardware startups & incubators. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 439--448. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Maureen Anne MacKenzie. 1991. Androgynous objects: string bags and gender in central New Guinea. Vol. 2. Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
- Leah Maestri and Ron Wakkary. 2011. Understanding repair as a creative process of everyday design. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM conference on Creativity and cognition. ACM, 81--90. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jennifer Mankoff, Deanna Matthews, Susan R Fussell, and Michael Johnson. 2007. Leveraging social networks to motivate individuals to reduce their ecological footprints. In System Sciences, 2007. HICSS 2007. 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on. IEEE, 87--87. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Brian McDonough. 2017. The hands have it: tactile participation and maximum grip in the aviation sector. Qualitative Research (2017), 1468794117748252.Google Scholar
- Shaun Moores. 2014. Digital orientations:"Ways of the hand" and practical knowing in media uses and other manual activities. Mobile Media & Communication 2, 2 (2014), 196--208.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Hong-Gang Ni and Eddy Y Zeng. 2009. Law enforcement and global collaboration are the keys to containing e-waste tsunami in China.Google Scholar
- Hong-Gang Ni, Hui Zeng, Shu Tao, and Eddy Y Zeng. 2010. Environmental and human exposure to persistent halogenated compounds derived from e-waste in China. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 29, 6 (2010), 1237--1247.Google Scholar
- Innocent C Nnorom and Oladele Osibanjo. 2008. Overview of electronic waste (e-waste) management practices and legislations, and their poor applications in the developing countries. Resources, conservation and recycling 52, 6 (2008), 843--858.Google Scholar
- Denise M Oleske and Jerome J Hahn. 1992. Work-related injuries of the hand: data from an occupational injury/illness surveillance system. CHI 2019, May 4--9, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland UK M.R. Rifat, H.M. Prottoy, and S.I. Ahmed Journal of community health 17, 4 (1992), 205--219.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Francis O Ongondo, Ian D Williams, and Tom J Cherrett. 2011. How are WEEE doing? A global review of the management of electrical and electronic wastes. Waste management 31, 4 (2011), 714--730.Google Scholar
- Oladele Osibanjo and IC Nnorom. 2007. The challenge of electronic waste (e-waste) management in developing countries. Waste Management & Research 25, 6 (2007), 489--501.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Sarah Pink, Jennie Morgan, and Andrew Dainty. 2014. The safe hand: Gels, water, gloves and the materiality of tactile knowing. Journal of Material Culture 19, 4 (2014), 425--442.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Sarah Pink, Jolynna Sinanan, Larissa Hjorth, and Heather Horst. 2016. Tactile digital ethnography: Researching mobile media through the hand. Mobile Media & Communication 4, 2 (2016), 237--251.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Violet N Pinto. 2008. E-waste hazard: The impending challenge. Indian journal of occupational and environmental medicine 12, 2 (2008), 65.Google Scholar
- Michael Polanyi. 2009. The tacit dimension. University of Chicago press.Google Scholar
- Nimmi Rangaswamy and Nithya Sambasivan. 2011. Cutting Chai, Jugaad, and Here Pheri: towards UbiComp for a global community. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 15, 6 (2011), 553--564. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Christian Remy and Elaine M Huang. 2015. Addressing the obsolescence of end-user devices: Approaches from the field of sustainable HCI. In ICT innovations for sustainability. Springer, 257--267.Google Scholar
- Brett H Robinson. 2009. E-waste: an assessment of global production and environmental impacts. Science of the total environment 408, 2 (2009), 183--191.Google Scholar
- David A Rosenbaum. 2017. Knowing hands: The cognitive psychology of manual control. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
- Daniela Rosner, Jean-François Blanchette, Leah Buechley, Paul Dourish, and Melissa Mazmanian. 2012. From materials to materiality: connecting practice and theory in hc. In CHI'12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2787--2790. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Daniela K Rosner and Morgan Ames. 2014. Designing for repair?: infrastructures and materialities of breakdown. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing. ACM, 319--331. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Daniela K Rosner and Kimiko Ryokai. 2009. Reflections on craft: probing the creative process of everyday knitters. In Proceedings of the seventh ACM conference on Creativity and cognition. ACM, 195--204. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Kimiko Ryokai, Stefan Marti, and Hiroshi Ishii. 2004. I/O brush: drawing with everyday objects as ink. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems. ACM, 303--310. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Richard Sennett. 2008. The craftsman. Yale University Press.Google Scholar
- Alejandra Sepúlveda, Mathias Schluep, Fabrice G Renaud, Martin Streicher, Ruediger Kuehr, Christian Hagelüken, and Andreas C Gerecke. 2010. A review of the environmental fate and effects of hazardous substances released from electrical and electronic equipments during recycling: Examples from China and India. Environmental impact assessment review 30, 1 (2010), 28--41.Google Scholar
- Barbara A Silverstein, Lawrence J Fine, and Thomas J Armstrong. 1986. Hand wrist cumulative trauma disorders in industry. Occupational and Environmental Medicine 43, 11 (1986), 779--784.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Deepali Sinha-Khetriwal, Philipp Kraeuchi, and Markus Schwaninger. 2005. A comparison of electronic waste recycling in Switzerland and in India. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 25, 5 (2005), 492--504.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Gary S Sorock, David A Lombardi, Theodore K Courtney, JP Cotnam, and Murray A Mittleman. 2001. Epidemiology of occupational acute traumatic hand injuries: a literature review. Safety Science 38, 3 (2001), 241--256.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Suthipong Sthiannopkao and Ming Hung Wong. 2013. Handling ewaste in developed and developing countries: Initiatives, practices, and consequences. Science of the Total Environment 463 (2013), 1147--1153.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Anselm Strauss and Juliet M Corbin. 1990. Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Sage Publications, Inc.Google Scholar
- Ignaz Strebel. 2018. Repair Work Ethnographies: Revisiting Breakdown, Relocating Materiality. Springer.Google Scholar
- Lucy A Suchman. 1987. Plans and situated actions: The problem of human-machine communication. Cambridge university press. 149--70 pages. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor, Dhaval Vyas, and Tony Sharp. 2017. Diversity and coherence in a hackerspace for people from a low socioeconomic community. In Proceedings of the 29th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction. ACM, 238--247. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Atsushi Terazono, Shinsuke Murakami, Naoya Abe, Bulent Inanc, Yuichi Moriguchi, Shin-ichi Sakai, Michikazu Kojima, Aya Yoshida, Jinhui Li, Jianxin Yang, et al. 2006. Current status and research on Ewaste issues in Asia. Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management 8, 1 (2006), 1--12.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Lucia Terrenghi, Matthias Kranz, Paul Holleis, and Albrecht Schmidt. 2006. A cube to learn: a tangible user interface for the design of a learning appliance. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 10, 2--3 (2006), 153--158. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Brygg Ullmer and Hiroshi Ishii. 1997. The metaDESK: models and prototypes for tangible user interfaces. In Proceedings of the 10th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology. ACM, 223-- 232. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Judy Wajcman and Nigel Dodd. 2016. The Sociology of Speed: Digital, Organizational, and Social Temporalities. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
- Sushant B Wath, PS Dutt, and Tapan Chakrabarti. 2011. E-waste scenario in India, its management and implications. Environmental monitoring and assessment 172, 1--4 (2011), 249--262.Google Scholar
- Mark Weiser. 1991. The Computer for the 21 st Century. Scientific american 265, 3 (1991), 94--105.Google Scholar
- Pierre Wellner. 1991. The DigitalDesk calculator: tangible manipulation on a desk top display. In Proceedings of the 4th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology. ACM, 27--33. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Rolf Widmer, Heidi Oswald-Krapf, Deepali Sinha-Khetriwal, Max Schnellmann, and Heinz Böni. 2005. Global perspectives on e-waste. Environmental impact assessment review 25, 5 (2005), 436--458.Google Scholar
- Andrew D Wilson. 2004. TouchLight: an imaging touch screen and display for gesture-based interaction. In Proceedings of the 6th international conference on Multimodal interfaces. ACM, 69--76. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Frank R Wilson. 1998. The hand: How its use shapes the brain, language, and human culture. Pantheon Books New York.Google Scholar
- Frank R Wilson. 1999. The hand: How its use shapes the brain, language, and human culture. Vintage.Google Scholar
- Raphael Wimmer and Sebastian Boring. 2009. HandSense: discriminating different ways of grasping and holding a tangible user interface. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction. ACM, 359--362. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Susan Wyche, Tawanna R Dillahunt, Nightingale Simiyu, and Sharon Alaka. 2015. If god gives me the chance I will design my own phone: Exploring Mobile Phone Repair and Postcolonial Approaches to Design in Rural Kenya. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing. ACM, 463--473. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Jinglei Yu, Eric Williams, Meiting Ju, and Yan Yang. 2010. Forecasting global generation of obsolete personal computers.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- The Breaking Hand: Skills, Care, and Sufferings of the Hands of an Electronic Waste Worker in Bangladesh
Recommendations
Green Computing - A New Horizon of Energy Efficiency and Electronic Waste Minimization: A Global Perspective
CSNT '11: Proceedings of the 2011 International Conference on Communication Systems and Network TechnologiesDue to tremendous growth of Industrial activities throughout the globe, the climate of the earth is gradually changing. The Increase awareness of climate change and more concern for the environment, has forced the big industries to review their ...
Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices
Adopting a holistic approach to greening IT is our responsibility toward creating a more sustaining environment.
Design and Application of the Electronic Waste Recycle Network System Based on GIS
ICEICE '12: Proceedings of the 2012 Second International Conference on Electric Information and Control Engineering - Volume 01The output of the electronic waste has increased greatly along with the economic development and improvement of people's living standard. It has become a difficult research problem that how to recycle the electronic waste efficiently. The paper ...
Comments