The Fireworks Economy of Agbogbloshie, Part 2

Fire is the dynamic that attracts teenagers and young men to a wire burning site.  Fireworks economy.  Build a bonfire, attract a crowd.  The wages at the wire burning site on the Odaw River are so low because 1) the youth suffer chronic unemployment and, 2) burning wire adds very little value. There less plastic on the wire, which makes it worth a little more, but the clump of wire weighs less, because the plastic is gone.

Who else is attracted to fires?  You got it, photojournalists.

Enter photojournalist #10.

Shin Woong-jae

Shin is from South Korea and came to NYC to study photography, according to his bio.  His instagram and twitter feed was all about wire burning, and I'm sure he's the "China Man" the Musketeers told me about a little while ago.  He seems like a nice guy.  Not a credible scrapyard expert (see Adam Minter or Jon Spaull's reporting for that), but at least gets the jist of the philosophical question of whether photojournalists wars can create "collateral damage".  Seems sincere in understanding the pitfalls of "photographer protagonist".

The Fireworks Economy, Part 1: Burning Wire Adds No Value

European and American NGOs and Regulators who are entranced by the flames at Old Fadama's "Agbogbloshie" scrapyard have three main boogeymen.  Many argue that sales of used goods should be banned to Africa based on public concern over three "questionable" practices:

1) Burning Wire
2) Breaking CRT Tubes
3) Circuit Boards

So many documentaries have now been filmed with close up camera shots of each of these, that we receive RFPs that ban our company from doing work unless we promise not to do business with Africans.  As someone who lived in Cameroon for 30 months in the 1980s - and is still in touch via Facebook with my landlord from the small town of Ngaoundal there after 30 years - this "segregation" of business distresses me greatly.