ABSTRACT

The growing rate of global inequality, on the one hand, and hyper-consumerism, particularly among higher socio-economic classes in developed countries, on the other, have resulted in the emergence of new forms of subsistence, lifestyles and settlement types where subaltern groups and populations live and work. This paper investigates the emergence of two of these kinds of settlement in Tehran, Iran, that have developed based on the intersection of two factors: garbage and undocumented migration. In these places, undocumented Afghan migrants sort and sell dry garbage. At the same time, these places shelter the workers, chiefly teenage and underage undocumented Afghan migrants. This paper is a preliminary effort to archaeologically categorize and conceptualize these garbage-based settlements. Archaeology is among the best methodologies to investigate the materiality and inequality faced by such transient subaltern groups in the short and long term. Here I discuss how several factors, beyond absolute poverty, participate in turning garbage into a livelihood and generate garbage-based settlements.

摘要

一方面，全球不平等现象日益加剧，另一方面，过度消费主义，尤其是发达国家较高社会经济阶层的过度消费主义，导致了底层群体和民众生活和工作的新的生存形式、生活方式和居住类型的出现。本文调查了伊朗德黑兰出现的两种此类定居点，它们是在垃圾和无证移民这两个因素的交叉作用下发展起来的。在这些地方，无证阿富汗移民分类并出售干垃圾。与此同时，这些地方为工人提供庇护，其中主要是青少年和未成年无证阿富汗移民。本文是对这些基于垃圾的聚落进行考古学分类和概念化的初步努力。考古学是研究这些短暂的底层群体在短期和长期所面临的物质性和不平等的最佳方法之一。在这里，我讨论了除绝对贫困之外的几个因素如何参与将垃圾转化为生计并建立以垃圾为基础的定居点。