Follow the Computers

When big companies in Europe replace computers or furniture, some of this equipment might end up in African schools, hospitals, or private homes. Whether for sale, private use or donated as part of hometown development projects, transnational e-recycling illustrates a pertinent paradox of globalization today. On the one hand, there are persistent calls for re-using, re-furbishing and re-manufacturing used equipment to limit the usage of natural resources and minimize and postpone e-waste. On the other, the transfer of used IT equipment from the global north to the global south highlights global inequality where discarded computers are exported to poor countries that are left to deal with eventual e-waste.

In the article ‘Follow the Computers’, published in the journal Ethnography, Senior Researcher Nauja Kleist explores transnational recycling through a case study of used IT and office equipment sent from Denmark to Ghana. Based on multi-sited and longitudinal fieldwork, she analyses what recycling entails for the persons involved, following the trajectories of used computers, from they are packed in containers in Copenhagen to recipient selection processes and distribution ceremonies in Ghana, and finally to the schools where they come to use. In the process, the used equipment is upcycled to objects of value, constituting expressions of affect, hometown belonging and development contributions that allow the different actors to demonstrate these commitments and loyalties. Focusing on the entangled mobilities of people and things, ‘Follow the Computers’ contributes to the new mobilities literature as well as it illustrates the complexity of transnational recycling today.