About me

Julia Corwin is a critical human geographer and urban ethnographer whose research interests focus on the relationship between commodities, labour and the environment. She draws from political economic, STS, de/anti/post-colonial and political ecology approaches to study economies and cultures of waste and repair. Her research has focused on global flows of electronic ‘waste’ and their revaluation through economies of repair and re-manufacturing in Delhi, India, conducted through a patchwork ethnography of local markets and their role in global electronics trade networks. Her new research examines care work and the politics of electronics repair in London. Prior to her entry into academia, Julia worked on urban environmental issues in New York City, working for the Department of Sanitation and the Parks Department.

Julia holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Minnesota.

Expertise Details

Electronics and Electronic Waste; Repair and Maintenance; Care; Informal Economy and Trade; Social and Environmental Justice; South Asia; Urban Environmental Politics; Ethnographic Methods

Corwin, J. (2023) ‘Recuperating labor’s environmental potential.’ Dialogues in Human Geography, doi: 10.1177/20438206221144817

Corwin, J. E. and Gidwani, V. (2021) ‘Repair Work as Care: On Maintaining the Planet in the Capitalocene.’ Antipode, doi: 10.1111/anti.12791.

Corwin, J. (2020) ‘Between Toxics and Gold: Devaluing Informal Labor in the Global Urban Mine.' Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 31(4): 106–123.

Corwin, Julia. (2018). “‘Nothing Is Useless in Nature’: Delhi’s Repair Economies and Value-Creation in an Electronics ‘Waste’ Sector.” Environment and Planning A 50(1): 14–30. DOI: 10.1177/0308518X17739006

Gidwani, Vinay, and Julia Corwin. (2017). “Governance of Waste.” Economic & Political Weekly 52(31): 44–54.

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