Waste colonialism in the Fast Fashion Industry

This thesis examines waste colonialism in the fast fashion industry, focusing on the Kantamanto Market in Accra, Ghana. It argues that the Global North’s export of low-quality textile waste to the Global South is not accidental, but a continuation of colonial power structures that externalise harm and structurally evade responsibility. By tracing how Western philosophical, economic and cultural frameworks define moral worth and recognition, this thesis shows how these systems legitimise environmental and humanitarian injustice. Through analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR), consumer complicity and the marginalisation of non-Western frameworks, it critiques the capitalism’s instrumental logic and modern Western dualist structures that underlie systems of disposability and exclusion. However, beyond critique, this thesis turns to Kantamanto as a place of resistance, where practices of repair and reuse embody a relational responsibility that challenges dominant narratives of disposability. Ultimately, this thesis calls for a rethinking of responsibility that moves beyond individualism and profit, but is sustained by reciprocity, relation and collective accountability.