Well, it’s officially official. You really can find anything in the trash, as these two six packs of beer attest.
Speaking of garbage, I’ve updated the “writings” section of my site with a handful of papers that are in various states of rejection from academic journals, as well as a partly re-written of the never-really-going-to-be-published freegan book. Huzzah!
Alex V. Barnard - Sociology 
It’s going to be published, Alex, because it is a really, really cool book. And it is going to really be published, because if AK Press is dumb enough to turn it down, self-publishing is real publishing in the same way that indie music is real music.
As for academic journals, well, I can’t say I have much respect for them. Look at all the peer-reviewed medical journals that published papers on cancer for a decade before somebody found out that the seminal research they were all based on was faked. Or those that have published articles about smoking causing cancer when they knew that no scientists had ever managed to induce cancer by using cigarette smoke. Turns out though that they recently did finally manage to identify something in tobacco smoke that can cause cancer: polonium-210. The only problem is that it is also in non-organic meat, dairy, and veggies because it isn’t a natural part of the tobacco leaf–it comes from fertilizer used on non-organic crops.
Answer your email.
Hi Alex,
I just finished reading your fantastic dissertation on your freegan research and fieldwork in New York, cover to cover, and having been greatly inspired by your writing, I’ve finally struck up the courage to get in touch!
I’m a Master’s student in Anthropology, Environment and Development at UCL in London, and for my research and fieldwork I’m planning on carrying out a comparative study of bin-diving & post-market gleaning in France and London with squatting groups who are involved in anti-food waste campaigns.
Although I begun the project with the idea that I could work with groups who identified as freegan, it’s been (semantically and concreteley) tricky to go down that route in the two locations I’ve chosen. I wonder if you have had any insights into the specificities of the freegan movement whilst you’ve been in Europe?
More specifically, I was hoping to talk to you about your research methods and the challenges you may have faced in the field? I guess this might come across as a big ask, and I’m not sure what I can offer you in return aside from a lot of enthusiasm, gratitude, a couch if you’re ever in London and a London bin-diving companion (and anything else you can think of?) 🙂 Please let me know if you’d be up for a chat!
Thanks a lot!
Claire (clairesmm2@gmail.com / +44 (0) 7720962426)
P.S. Looks like you’re in France in your photo? Great find!