Author: Josh Lepawsky

data by Josh LepawskyJan 21, 20265:20 pm

An animated time lapse of landscape change between the years 1990 and 2025. The major change demonstrated is from farmland to data center.

A recipe for finding and mapping data centres

Geographers like me are really interested in understanding landscape changes. I’ve been doing some research on how the infrastructure of digital life (e.g., data centers or semiconductor fabs) is inscribed into real locations, what that […]

data by Josh LepawskyJan 14, 20263:06 pm

Defamiliarizing ‘Tech’

In our book, Discard Studies: wasting, systems, and power, Max Liborion and I write about defamiliarization and problem framing. in the context of the book we’re talking about how personal experience with garbage and waste […]

Repair by Josh LepawskyDec 15, 20253:57 pm

On Planned Obsolescence

Some months ago I was contacted by a journalist. Despite the interview, the story seems to have never run. Here’s what I was asked and how I responded. Journalist: Are products really designed to die […]

Discard Studies by Josh LepawskyMay 2, 202510:18 am

An image of the cover of Technocracy Digest magazine from May 1940. The title and iconography are shown in bright red. The centre image is a black and white photo of a sawmill. At the bottom left corner of the cover is a depiction of a map in red showing the Technate of America. In the opposite corner is a similar icon shown in red that simply states "Facts".

Network, Patchwork, Technate: geographical imaginations of the ‘tech right’

Is it possible to design a structure of government which will be stable and predictable? Hopefully, of course, stably and predictably benign? History affords no evidence of it. But history affords no evidence of semiconductors, […]

Discard Studies by Josh LepawskyMar 31, 20253:07 pm

Precaution, PFAS, and Pattern Collapse

In 1854 in the Soho district of London England a cholera outbreak was killing people. You probably know this story. Its usually told with a physician named John Snow in the role of hero who […]

Discard Studies by Josh LepawskyJan 28, 202510:01 am

Chemicals and Coalitions

Chemicals are an issue over which a powerful coalition disagree.

Discard Studies by Josh LepawskyJan 4, 20259:55 am

Is Net Positive Water a Thing?

Semiconductors are the foundational building blocks of all computing devices–whether that’s an AI model, a car, a phone, or a cheap greeting card that lights up and sings a song. And making semiconductors needs lots […]

Discard Studies by Josh LepawskyDec 12, 20249:01 am

What is a sacrifice zone?

The idea of “sacrifice zones” has been around since the 1970s. Former US President Richard Nixon may or may not have written a secret order permitting such zones in the US.

Discard Studies by Josh LepawskyDec 6, 20248:18 am

Sorting Out In Berlin

While in Berlin, Germany for HKW’s Participatory Planet project, myself and other participants visited an ALBA sorting facility on the east side of the city. The site sorts ~140,000 tonnes per year of waste metals, […]

Discard Studies by Josh LepawskyDec 1, 20241:17 am

Protected: Workshop: Participatory Planet

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.