From: Guven Peter Witteveen To: Rathjewl@aol.com Subject: garbology in India, China, Mexico, Egypt Date: Sunday, February 06, 2000 11:48 AM Dr. Rathje, Have you considered comparative work in other places; both in the consumer driven and disposable spaces of industrial societies (I wonder how "Green" the enlightened social engineers and Members of Eu Parliament are in fact), and in places whose population scale alone makes garbology an urgent study? At a reception in the Field Museum during the AAA in Chicago I ran into Gary Feinman, who I first met at UMich and later again as a grad student in UWisconsin. I imagine you cross paths through your Mesoamerica interests. Anyway, I was interested to know of his recent move to direct anthro at the museum and the survey work he's cooperated in for a few years in N, NE China. Now then, that's a place where some sharp garbology, coupled with the heavy hand of schools and govt, could reshape matters of packaging (both domestic and for export) and consumption, especially in the urban centers. Have you considered making contacts in China; or Taiwan, or Hong Kong for starters? And I have a memory from somewhere of the rag pickers and refurbisher/gleaner children of India's urban centers (or am I thinking of Mexico city). I bet there are lots of eager and skilled folks in and around Bangalore, is it --the computer hotbed in S. India. Obviously, if things like time and money, language and local politics were not standing in the way, I bet you could draw up a wish list of comparative projects on a global scale and cross-cutting several culture areas (would the UN's W.H.O. or their global warming*/environmental agency fund something with a view to altering the flow of capital and advertising and packaging and...... etc, etc). Even with those real issues standing in the way, it doesn't cost anything to wonder. --Yours, Guven Witteveen *I have it in my mind that this summer a conference will be held in Shiga prefecture, next to Kyoto, where the Global Warming compact was drawn up and discussed a few years ago. The G-7 (or 8?) meet in July in Japan, so the environmental conference is bound to be then. I wonder if there is a slot for the questions connected with waste management? I have a contact in Shiga, so I'll see what's on the agenda.