Paper short abstract:

This paper studies dumpster diving from the point of view of different technologies involved in it. Our claim is that the ways freegans valuate the food stuffs in supermarkets’ waste containers are dependent on the specific technologies that are used for storing food, moving it and classifying it.

Paper long abstract:

At the margins of the consumer society, freeganism fundamentally questions received ways of valuating the quality of food. In this paper we study what many consider the core practice of freeganism, dumpster diving, from the point of view of different technologies involved in it. The study is based on an on-going fieldwork conducted in Finland. Our claim is that the ways freegans valuate the food stuffs in supermarkets' waste containers are dependent on the particular technologies required. First, dumpster diving is about becoming a specialist on the management of storage and preservation. Not only does this imply that one is able to decipher the information provided by the texts on packages or the material conditions of objects, but freegans also create new ways for managing the routes of commodities from shop shelves via waste containers, bags and kitchen tables to their own freezers and, finally, to plates. Second, other tools are used for the concrete work of valuating and sorting out what in the waste containers is potentially edible and what is not. These include not only things such as suitable clothing but also flashlights, cotton or plastic bags and, for some, rubber gloves. Without these, the valuation practice that literally needs to be 'hands-on' would be an impossibility. Finally, freeganism involves technologies of the self. It is inherently characterized by the ideas of politics, of good and beautiful life, and the means with which one makes oneself into a moral subject in the Foucaultian sense of the term.