Social Sciences

An Actor-Network Narrative of the Life Cycle of an Urban Waste Dump Site: The Case of Anjilsi, Babol, and Its Implications for Understanding the Waste Problem

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Mohamad Hossein Mirzadeh
Zohreh Anvari

Anthropology Department/ social science Faculty/ University of Tehran

10.22054/qjss.2026.95217.3019
Abstract
This study critiques the technical-managerial approach to urban waste management and seeks to examine the social, political, and symbolic roles of waste disposal sites in relation to the communities surrounding them. Its case study is the Anjilsi waste disposal site in Babol, Iran, from 1998 to 2024, and it reformulates the initial question, “Why did this project fail?”, through the lens of Actor-Network Theory. The research draws on field ethnography conducted in Anjilsi and the surrounding villages and interviews with relevant institutions. It also analyzes residents, institutions, leachate, and birds equally as actors. The findings indicate that the site’s condition resulted from the interaction and stabilization of a network comprising both human and non-human actors, while social and managerial concepts themselves were constituted through this process. The article argues that understanding this situation requires moving beyond a technical-engineering approach confined to the physical site, since waste has no fixed essence and a waste site is fundamentally a social phenomenon that exceeds the nature/culture dichotomy; accordingly, the study offers a reading of social history that moves beyond the binary logic of dominant and subordinate positions.

Keywords

Actor-Network Theory (ANT)
Waste Dump Site
Ethnography
Non-Human Agency
Posthumanism
Subjects
Social Sciences

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 10 October 2026

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