Contribution short abstract:

Plastics are ubiquitous in migration and humanitarian contexts. Based on fieldwork in Necoclí, Colombia, this paper explores the afterlives of plastic, focusing on how migrants and locals repurpose waste into vital components of belonging and innovation, shaping new spatialities and temporalities

Contribution long abstract:

Plastic is ubiquitous in humanitarian contexts - bottles, chairs, shelters, and other objects flood refugee camps and emergency zones, while leaving lasting traces as waste. Despite its durability and resistance to decomposition, plastic is often dismissed as disposable. Roland Barthes described plastics as “miraculous” materials, infinitely moldable yet inherently artificial. Building on Barthes (1988), this paper examines plastic as both a material and a symbol that migrants and humanitarian actors alike repurpose and redesign.

Drawing on recent fieldwork in Necoclí, Colombia, where migrants begin their trek through the infamous Darien region, this paper explores how discarded plastic objects are transformed into tools for survival, spaces of belonging, and acts of innovation. Migrants and locals engage in a “humanitarian design from below,” reshaping waste into objects useful for their immediate but also long-term plans.

The analysis emphasizes the spatialities and temporalities of plastic, tracing how its persistence in the environment creates new challenges and opportunities. As waste becomes a resource, upcycling practices reveal how people imbue discarded materials with new values, crafting possibilities for belonging and social transformation. These material and social processes suggest a politics of plasticity, where adaptability and malleability reflect the flexibility of humanitarian bodies and relations, echoing Catherine Malabou’s concept of “a politics without chains (2021)”

Barthes, R. (1988). Plastic. in: Perspecta, 24, 92-93.

Malabou, C. (2021). Politics of Plasticity. Cooperation without Chains." In Unchaining Solidarity. On Mutual Aid and Anarchism edited by Dan Swain, 15-28. Blue Ridge Summit Rowman & Littlefield