Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores the afterlives of oceanic gear in Senegal where the “Zero Waste Man” crafts wearable protests from debris. Bridging shore and sea, it frames waste as vibrant matter critiquing extractivism, pollution and limits of local action.

Paper Abstract:

This paper traces the afterlives of discarded oceanic gear on the beaches of Bargny, Senegal, where the “Zero Waste Man” transforms debris - synthetic fishing nets, plastic bottles, and industrial remnants - into wearable protests. Bargny, an industrial-fishing town grappling with a coal plant, cement factory, and new port, becomes a stage where his creations reclaim waste to highlight shoreline pollution. Each item he wears embodies residues of capitalist extractivism and environmental degradation, enduring beyond their intended uses and reshaping local ecologies and socio-political narratives. Drawing on fieldwork in Senegal, I interpret discarded oceanic gear as vibrant matter (Bennett, 2010) - not inert waste, but animated in its afterlife. These fishnets “shift gears” from tools to waste and finally to agents of critique in activist spaces, challenging notions of utility and disposability. The Zero Waste Man’s costume - an assemblage of deteriorating fragments - recasts these materials as symbols of ecological precarity and provocations urging community responsibility. Yet, it also exposes the limitations of local actions against systemic environmental injustices. By exploring the socio-material afterlives of oceanic gear, I propose an ocean anthropology that bridges shore and sea, attuned to disruptions and potential pathways for endurance in increasingly uninhabitable futures.