in conversation with Cristian Tablazon for Regional Assembly

"Dust in capitalist ignation is the obsession with the act of cleaning and marginalising. It's obligatory in archaeology to clean the dust to see the past. So dust as a material or condition—it's a very complex and dense idea for me. So my conception of dust comes from the caste system and thinking about the politics of purity. And I see dirt, waste, remains, and excrement as the 'dust' that is produced by the hegemonic system. And I like to argue that we have to see the waste not only as a crisis of Earth's ecology, but as an ecology of politics. And it's important to think about the history of waste in relation to our social and political condition. It's only Dalit thinkers and philosophers who are writing books and also cleaning gutters. Toxicity has already created a caste in the future. So my idea of prophecy is not in the future but it's in the past that has not happened yet."

- Mohit Shelare