From Seaweed to Plastic
Gleaning and the moral economy of waste in Indonesia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8133294 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lukas Fort |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 158 |
| Pages | 1-26 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Indonesia and the Malay World (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-9811 • E-ISSN: 1469-8382 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13639811.2026.2635872 |
| OpenAlex | W7133696410 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 31 |
This article explores practices of gleaning in Indonesia to analyse how different values are generated from residual materials under conditions of economic marginalisation, environmental degradation, and uneven governance. Moving beyond gleaning’s agrarian conception as the ancient practice of gathering leftover crops after the main harvest, it compares the collection of loose seaweed in coastal aquaculture with the informal gathering of post-consumer plastic waste outside formal waste management systems. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, the article examines how marginalised communities generate value from materials deemed residual through labour shaped by subsistence needs, moral claims, social hierarchies, and unequal distributions of obligation and risk. Framing these practices within a ‘moral economy’ – in which shared values and notions of the common good are integral to economic life – the article shows how gleaning functions not only as a survival strategy, but also as a contested ethical project that both reproduces gendered divisions of labour and enables claims to dignity and belonging amid contested environmental governance and shifting regimes of value.
Hesperian · Collagen: Extraction and Characterization · Material Selection and Properties · Polymer composites and self-healing
Purity and Danger
Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean
An anthropology of waste
Agricultural Involution
Reconceptualising Zakat in Indonesia
Reshuffling Responsibility
Secrecy at the End of the Recycling Chain
Gleaning around the globe
Supply Chains and the Human Condition
On Materiality and Meaning
The moral panic about the socializing of young people in Minangkabau
Garbage Citizenship
On the Political Construction of Tradition
Customary Rights and Women's Earnings
The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century
Circulating Objects, Changing Scales
The Right to the Remainder
Leaky States
Toward an anthropology of plastics
Redefining pollution and action
The Anthropology of Plastics
Between 'moral economy' and 'social banditry
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |