[Commlist] New Book: Beyond Straw Men: Plastic Pollution and Networked Cultures of Care

Beyond Straw Men: Plastic Pollution and Networked Cultures of Care 
<https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520393646/beyond-straw-men>**(University 
of California Press, 2023), Phaedra C. Pezzullo

* All proceeds go to Eco-Rethink (Nakuru, Kenya) and Justice for Formosa 
Victims (Point Comfort, Texas, United States)*

Addressing plastics can feel overwhelming. Guilt, shame, anger, hurt, 
fear, dismissiveness, and despair abound. /Beyond Straw Men/ moves 
beyond “hot take” or straw man fallacies by illustrating how affective 
counterpublics mobilized around plastics reveal broader stories about 
environmental justice and social change. Inspired by on- and offline 
organizing in the Global South and the Global South of the North, 
Phaedra C. Pezzullo engages public controversies and policies through 
analysis of hashtag activism, campaign materials, and podcast interviews 
with headline-making advocates in Bangladesh, Kenya, the United States, 
and Vietnam. She argues that plastics have become an articulator of 
crisis and an entry point into the contested environmental politics of 
carbon-heavy masculinity, carceral policies, planetary fatalism, 
eco-ableism, greenwashing, marine life endangerment, pollution 
colonialism, and waste imperialism. Attuned to plastic attachments, 
/Beyond Straw Men/ illustrates how everyday people resist unsustainable 
patterns of the plastics-industrial complex through imperfect but 
impactful networked cultures of care.


"Phaedra C. Pezzullo has produced a revelatory and revolutionary 
meditation on one of the most significant power struggles of our time. 
/Beyond Straw Men/ features a caring and deep appreciation for the 
complexities, flaws, and beauty of the 'impure politics' surrounding 
plastic pollution, while centering the perspectives and experiences of 
Global South communities, environmental justice and disability justice 
advocates, and our more-than-human relatives. Her sources of evidence 
are solid, her arguments are persuasive, and her writing is at once 
engaging, serious, humorous, and uplifting. A delightful book to sit 
with and be inspired by in these challenging times!"—David N. Pellow, 
University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of /What Is Critical 
Environmental Justice?/

"/Beyond Straw Men/ compares the very different but interlocking 
national and international tensions that arise during hashtag activism 
and counteractivism around plastic pollution in Kenya, the United 
States, and Vietnam. It provides a multisited geographic approach to 
describing a global (yet local!) problem in a heterogeneous political 
world."—Max Liboiron, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, 
and author of /Pollution Is Colonialism/

/
/

/*Table of Contents*/

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Care Amid Oceans of Trouble
Chapter 1. #ThereIsNoAway: Carbon-Heavy Masculinity and the Life/Death 
Cycle of Plastics
Chapter 2. Have a Coke and a #FootprintCalculator: The Myth of Recycling 
and Transnational Greenwashing
Chapter 3. From #BanPlasticsKE to #ISupportBanPlasticsKE: Pissed Off 
Online, Picturing Participation, and Policing Pollution in Kenya
Chapter 4. Engaging #StrawlessInSeattle and #StopSucking: The Loneliest 
Whale, Sporting Fun, and American Exceptionalism
Chapter 5. #SuckItAbleism Intervenes: Eco-normative Shaming, Voicing 
Justice, and Planetary Fatalism
Chapter 6. Creating #ToiChonCa (#IChooseFish): Trauma, Affective Art, 
and Big Tech Dominance
Conclusion: #BreakFree(FromPlastics)
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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