Bridging Science, Technology & Society (STS), electronic waste and research through design: the case of the Agbogbloshie landfill, Ghana

This contribution situates the potential of combining Science, Technology & Society (STS) with critical and sustainable design methodologies in order to enhance media literacy in contexts of technological inequalities and electronic waste in Ghana. Gravitating moreover around the iconic commercial district and dumping site of Agbogbloshie, Accra, our article expands from two case studies in order to inquire how socio-technological literacies, awareness and critique are developed through design (Schön, 1992) by Ghanaian arts and design communities in reaction to the production of electronic-waste. These case studies are 1) the Agbogbloshie Maker Space Platform (AMP), a critical making (Ratto, 2011) space and project empowering and positively impacting the landfil’s local community - and tacit practices - of scrap recyclers and dealers through participatory design methods; and 2) Akwasi Bediako Afrane’s “TRONS”(2022): assemblage-shaped robots acting as “platforms and media for reflection, engagement and interactions”. In dialogue with research through design, we will further contextualise these initiatives with Hertz and Parikka “zombie-media” (2012), a (hardware) circuit bending methodology placing here the emphasis on planned obsolescence and on the critical re-appropriation of “trashed” (Sterne, 2006) electronics. This will enable us, inside our STS academic debates, to shed light on materially situated design practices tackling e-waste and technological pollution in Ghana (and Africa); as foundational forms of ecological activism, literacy and awareness helping us to broaden our perspective on our planetary socio-technical narratives, condition and impact.