Works

Books

Lepawsky, Josh. Electronic Waste: A Reference Handbook. 1st ed. Contemporary World Issues. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.

Liboiron, Max, and Josh Lepawsky. Discard Studies: Wasting, Systems, and Power. MIT Press, 2022.

Gille, Zsuzsa, and Josh Lepawsky, eds. The Routledge Handbook of Waste Studies. Routledge, 2021.

Lepawsky, Josh. Reassembling Rubbish: Worlding Electronic Waste. MIT Press, 2018.

Papers

Lepawsky, Josh. 2024. “Climate Change Induced Water Stress and Future Semiconductor Supply Chain Risk.” iScience, January 5, 108791. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.108791.

Lepawsky, Josh. 2023. “Thinking with Waste to Know the Economic.” Journal of Cultural Economy 16 (4): 587–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2023.2229359.

Lepawsky, Josh, Kathia Cáceres, Marco Gusukuma, and Ramzy Kahhat. 2023. “Carbon and Water Conservation Value of Independent, Place-Based Repair in Lima, Peru.” Journal of Industrial Ecology n/a (n/a). https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13368.

Lepawsky, Josh. 2022. “Mapping Chemical Discardscapes of Electronics Production.” Geoforum 132 (June): 113–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.04.005.

Lepawsky, Josh. 2022. “Introduction to the Special Section: Geographies of the Digital.” The Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe Canadien 66 (1): 4–7. https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12746.

Lepawsky, Josh, Kathia Cáceres, Marco Gusukuma, and Ramzy Kahhat. 2021. “Quantifying the Conservation Value of Independent, Place-Based Repair: A Case Study of an Electronics Repair Cluster in Lima, Peru.” Product Lifetimes and the Environment (Limerick). https://doi.org/10.31880/10344/10224.

Lepawsky, Josh. 2020. “Towards a World of Fixers Examining Barriers and Enablers of Widely Deployed Third-Party Repair for Computing within Limits.” Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on ICT for Sustainability (New York, NY, USA), ICT4S2020, June 21, 314–20. https://doi.org/10.1145/3401335.3401816.

Lepawsky, Josh. 2020. “Planet of Fixers? Mapping the Middle Grounds of Independent and Do-It-Yourself Information and Communication Technology Maintenance and Repair.” Geo: Geography and Environment 7 (1): e00086. https://doi.org/10.1002/geo2.86.

Lepawsky, Josh. 2020. “Sources and Streams of Electronic Waste.” One Earth 3 (1): 13–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.07.001.

Lepawsky, Josh. 2019. “Europe Has E-Waste Problems: Exporting to Africa Isn’t One of Them.” Europe Now, May 7. https://www.europenowjournal.org/2019/05/06/europe-has-e-waste-problems-exporting-to-africa-isnt-one-of-them/.

Lepawsky, Josh, John-Michael Davis, Grace Akese, and Donny Persaud. 2019. “Cooking with Controversies: How Geographers Might Use Controversy Mapping as a Research Tool.” The Professional Geographer 71 (3): 437–48. https://doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2018.1531243.

Lepawsky, Josh, Max Liboiron, Arn Keeling, and Charles Mather. 2017. “Repair-Scapes.” Continent. 6 (1): 56–61. https://www.continentcontinent.cc/archives/issues/issue-6-1-2017/repair-scapes

Lepawsky, Josh, Erin Araujo, John-Michael Davis, and Ramzy Kahhat. 2017. “Best of Two Worlds? Towards Ethical Electronics Repair, Reuse, Repurposing and Recycling.” Geoforum 81 (May): 87–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.02.007.

Lepawsky, Josh. 2016. “The Wake of the Anthropocene.” Techniques & Culture. Revue Semestrielle d’anthropologie Des Techniques, October 31. http://tc.revues.org/7792.

Lepawsky, Josh, and Creighton Connolly. 2016. “A Crack in the Facade? Situating Singapore in Global Flows of Electronic Waste.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 37 (2): 158–75. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjtg.12149.

Lepawsky, Josh. 2015. “Are We Living in a Post-Basel World?” Area 47 (1): 7–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12144.

Lepawsky, Josh, Grace Akese, Mostaem Billah, Creighton Conolly, and Chris McNabb. 2015. “Composing Urban Orders from Rubbish Electronics: Cityness and the Site Multiple.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 39 (2): 185–99. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12142.

Lepawsky, J. 2015. “The Changing Geography of Global Trade in Electronic Discards: Time to Rethink the e-Waste Problem.” Geographical Journal 181 (2): 147–59. Scopus. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12077.

Lepawsky, Josh, and Charles Mather. 2013. “Checking in with Reality: A Response to Herod et Al.” Area 45 (3): 383–85. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12041.

Lepawsky, J. 2012. “Legal Geographies of E-Waste Legislation in Canada and the US: Jurisdiction, Responsibility and the Taboo of Production.” Geoforum 43 (6): 1194–206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2012.03.006.

Lepawsky, J., and M. Billah. 2011. “Making Chains That (Un)Make Things: Waste-Value Relations and the Bangladeshi Rubbish Electronics Industry.” Geografiska Annaler, Series B: Human Geography 93 (2): 121–39. Scopus. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0467.2011.00365.x.

Lepawsky, Josh, and C. Mather. 2011. “From Beginnings and Endings to Boundaries and Edges: Rethinking Circulation and Exchange through Electronic Waste.” Area 43 (3): 242–49. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2011.01018.x.

Lepawsky, Josh, and Chris McNabb. 2010. “Mapping International Flows of Electronic Waste.” The Canadian Geographer / Le Géographe Canadien 54 (2): 177–95. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2009.00279.x.

Book chapters

Lepawsky, Josh. 2025. “Weaponizing Waste.” In Waste as a Critique, edited by Hervé Corvellec. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780198907077.003.0003.

Lepawsky, Josh. 2023. “Mitigating Durable Bads: Trichloroethylene Contamination in Silicon Valley.” In Durable Economies: Organizing the Material Foundations of Society, edited by Melanie Jaeger-Erben, Harald Wieser, Max Marwede, and Florian Hofmann. Labor and Organization, volume 10. Transcript. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839463963.

Media and Public Engagement