Waste, Incorporated

This article explores how human and animal waste are circulated back into the environment in an agricultural training center in Myanmar operated by a Shinto-based Japanese NGO. Following the Shinto-inspired ecological visions of the organization, I translate Japanese aid workers’ use of the term junkangata shakai (“material-cycle society”) in an idiosyncratic way as “circulatory sociality.” I argue that the importance of the circulation of waste in this training center lay in the making of intimate relations amidst a disciplinary lifestyle as the path to a sustainable future. Thus, belonging to and participating in the intimate and totalizing experiences of a sustainable environment created not only a potential alternative to environmentally harmful human practices, but also new forms of sociality that could usher in a sustainable world. This case shows how practices of sustainability are not simply about changing production and consumption systems, but can demand profound transformations in social relations and personhood.