ABSTRACT
This chapter uses Chinese sci-fi writer Chen Qiufan's novel The Waste Tide to understand the environmental consequences and possibilities inherent in unofficial e-waste processing markets in China. It also aims to build a contemporary, globalised definition of the digital product by incorporating this less-seen waste, as well as digital emissions, and drawing from groundwork laid by twentieth-century theorists of the abject, such as Julia Kristeva and Mary Douglas. The chapter attends to e-waste in both U.S. and Chinese contexts as a recurring process intrinsic to the delineation of cultural identity and neoliberal surplus-driven economic models. I suggest The Waste Tide supplies useful possibilities for waste re-incorporation and environmental justice that work against capitalist myopia and toward radical futures.
