Of ghosts, waste, and the Anthropocene

Once there was a spectre haunting Europe and maybe the world. Now other fears and invisible presences have occupied the space of imagination, above all CO2 emissions and "the Anthropocene," projecting their shadows and diminishing what we can imagine for the future. Building on my experience as a researcher on waste in Naples, Italy, I reflect on our own presence as radical scholars among activists and argue that the figure of the ghost might help us to better understand the relation between theory, academic discourse, and activists' story-telling practices. The hope is to contribute towards the ever-necessary work needed to craft emancipatory imaginaries, yet again.