Following the flows of e-waste. Ghana field visit
For her PhD research on transnational environmental crime, Lieselot Bisschop visited Ghana. Ghana is frequented by illegal transports of e-waste that export from or transit in Belgium. The port of Tema, Accra’s second hand electronics markets and the Agbogbloshie dumpsite were visited. Interviews were conducted at the environmental inspectorate, port and harbor authority, port terminal, port scanning facility, recycling facility, local refurbishers and second hand/e-waste shops, local NGOs and the dumpsite. These field visits proved invaluable to gain contextualized real-time information about the transnational environmental flow of e-waste. The researcher experienced firsthand the impact and the social organization of these flows and their governance, which was both empirically and personally enriching.