Theorizing Waste as a Technique of Power in Capitalistic Stakeholder Relations
通过分析意大利那不勒斯与黑手党相关的非法废弃物案例，揭示了废弃物如何作为商品化和忽视两种权力技术，塑造利益相关者关系并加剧社会生态不平等。
Abstract Waste is an important socio‐ecological challenge of contemporary capitalism, contributing to climate change and environmental degradation. Despite its pervasiveness and its impacts on diverse stakeholders, it yet remains largely underexplored in management and organization studies. Addressing this gap, this paper investigates waste's crucial role in shaping specific stakeholder relations by theorizing it as a technique of power. By examining the case of a socio‐ecological crisis in Naples, Italy, characterized by illegal waste practices linked to Mafia organizations, we unpack two entangled techniques of power: commodifying waste – transforming it into something that can be traded on a market and perpetuating its exploitation; and ignoring waste – involving failing or refusing to consider and recognize waste. Our findings elucidate how these two techniques produced and reinforced socio‐ecological hierarchies, in which local stakeholders were wasted. By highlighting the lived experiences of local communities affected by waste, our study contributes to a deeper understanding of power dynamics among diverse stakeholders in socio‐ecological crises and demonstrates how waste functions as a mechanism of dispossession within capitalist accumulation.