As part of my work at RAIR.

Supported by a Pew Center for Arts & Heritage Discovery Grant, Digging Deeper: Field Studies Made Possible by the Waste Stream invites a team of social scientists to RAIR to explore the recycling facility as a site for field research and contemporary urban life. Participants consider what can be learned by treating waste as artifact using ethnographic, anthropological and forensic methodologies.

The research team consists of scholars whose areas of focus range from immigration and income inequality to environmental and material culture, and include: Anthony Graesch, associate professor of anthropology, Connecticut College; Jason De León, director of the Undocumented Migration Project; Robin Nagle, anthropologist in residence, New York City Department of Sanitation; and Amy Zhang, assistant professor of anthropology, NYU. Jennifer Burris, a curator and writer based in Bogotá, Colombia, will serve as curatorial researcher, identifying opportunities for future cross-disciplinary programming between scholars and artists.