Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a swapshop in Riga, Latvia

§1 The central theoretical grounding for this thesis is practice theory – or rather theories of practice – a heterogeneous cluster of approaches in humanities and social sciences in which practice serves as the primary unit of analysis for understanding human life and sociality. Shifting away from individual motivations and behaviours, for example, questions on why people intend and choose to do what they do, practice theory rather examines how those doings are organized socially. It enables looking at the interconnectedness of the social and material realms with an emphasis on the role of objects, infrastructures and technology in practice enactment and maintenance. Evolved in a lineage from Bourdieu and Giddens in social sciences, in the past decades theories of practice have been influential and applied across various domains in social sciences and humanities, constituting what has been called a practice turn.

§2 While varied definitions of social practice exist, Warde (2005) suggests a minimal definition: “An organized, and recognizable, socially shared bundle of activities that involves the integration of a complex array of components: material, embodied, ideational and affective. Practices are sets of ‘doings and sayings’; they involve both practical activity and its representations" (Warde 2005: 134).

§3 Different frameworks have been articulated to account for the elements constituting practices. A particularly influential contribution, especially in anthropological approaches to practice, is the work of Elisabeth Shove, Mika Pantzar and Matt Watson (2012) in which the authors offer a deliberately compact three-component framework for analysing practices. Shove and colleagues define a practice element frame consisting of meanings, materials, and competences.

§4 “Meanings” refer to the ideas, aspirations, shared understandings and related values that give practice its purpose and make it intelligible for practitioners and guide how practices are performed. “Materials” refer to objects involved and used in practice, necessary technologies and infrastructure through which practices are enacted. It also refers to bodies and physicality. “Competences” are the skills (across cognitive and physical realms) and practical knowledge necessary for participation in a practice, including understanding how to use objects, follow rules, and navigate social norms.

§5 [Par rules kā vienu no elementiem: RULES: (piemēram, “Lifestyles of enough: Exploring sufficiency lifestyle from spt perspective) I take rules as part of the competency dimension.

§6 Rules as a fourth dimension of social practices have so far not been taken up by most scholars. Gram-Hanssen (2010: 155) criticizes that the element “competences” is “overly simple, as the authors do not distinguish between […] know-how or non-verbal knowledge and explicit, rule-based, or theoretical knowledge”. Other perspectives suggest that rules are part of the material or the competence dimension. The importance of rules should, however, be considered in an analysis of consumption practices (Giddens, 1984; Warde, 2005). In this paper, I consider rules as formal, institutionalized, and explicit rules (Gram-Hanssen, 2010). Informal rules are accounted for by the dimensions of know-how, and/or meaning, depending on the context.]

§7 This threefold structure of elements of practice has been used widely across disciplines as it offers a clear conceptual and methodological approach for empirical research. The authors acknowledge that the model sacrifices some nuance to analytical clarity, yet argue that it is analytically productive, especially for studying how practices change and develop when their elements are reconfigured. It allows looking at practices as entities with their own histories and trajectories – recruiting or losing practitioners, appearing and disappearing – which can be distinguished from practices as performances: the specific, recurrent enactments through which practices are reproduced or transformed. Transformation and change comes through recombination of the elements of practice (Shove et al. 2012).

§8 Delineating a practice and setting it apart from adjacent practices is a central challenge in practice theory, as there are no fixed procedural rules for determining exactly where one practice ends and another begins. Nicolini (2017: 26-27) notes that, while for analytical purposes, practices can be conceived and examined individually, empirically they are always encountered in arrays and multiplicities. Practices “hang together” in bundles and complexes (Shove et al. 2012), distinguished by the density and “stickiness” of their patterns. Practice bundles refer to the more loose-knit relations between practices, often gathered around the same site or time – practices that are related and shape each other but not strongly, whereas complexes refer to more integrated combinations that can also constitute new practice entities if the relations are significantly dense. When practitioners talk about what they do, often some practices are fore-grounded and others are left in the background (Nicolini 2017: 26-27).

§1 Practice theories have been widely applied in studies of sustainability and consumption. Whereas previously widespread theories of consumption in the 1980s and 1990s often treated it as a matter of individual choice and identity-making (reference to illustrate these approaches), theories of practice enabled attending to consumption patterns that emerge from the practices in which people are engaged, rather than from their preferences or intentions. This decentring of the individual marked a significant departure from both the rational-choice models of consumer behaviour research and the identity-focused approaches of consumer culture theory (reference).

§2 Warde’s (2005) paper “Consumption and theories of practice” is widely regarded as the first programmatic application of practice theory to consumption studies (Welch & Warde 2015). Its central contribution was to reconceptualise consumption as "not itself a practice but rather a moment in almost every practice" (Warde 2005: 137). Warde conceptualizes consumption not as a separate domain of social life organised around the acquisition of goods, but as an integral component of social practices through which people organize their daily lives. People consume in the course of doing other things: maintaining a household, raising children, managing seasonal change, responding to gifts received, keeping warm, eating, moving around. As Warde (2005: 146) puts it, from this perspective “the concept of ‘the consumer’ ... evaporates. Instead the key focal points become the organization of the practice and the moments of consumption enjoined.”

§3 There is also a particular affinity between consumption and sustainability studies. Welch and Warde (2015) identify three reasons for it. Firstly, because of the large environmental impacts of inconspicuous consumption of energy and resources in the use of goods and services for everyday routine tasks, for example, showering, doing the laundry as discussed by Shove (2010). [reword, unclear] For such inconspicuous, resource intensive practices analysis of consumption as symbolic display and presentation of self that was more prevalent in consumption studies before is less relevant than attention to the material and social arrangements that sustain them. Secondly, because goods and services are primarily used for the accomplishment of social practices rather than for consumption per se. Thirdly, practice theory can provide a way out of discussions of the “value–action” gap – the persistent discrepancy between reportedly pro-environmental values which by contrast are not reflected in a person’s behaviour – by redirecting focus on the ways resource intensive practices capture and retain their practitioners.

§4 As a processual approach, practice theory directs attention to dynamics and trajectories of practices: how they emerge, stabilize, recruit practitioners, and change over time. Warde (2014: 297) observes, however, that practice theoretic approaches “may need supplementing with other frameworks, particularly to capture macro-level or structural aspects of consumption”. Evans (2020) develops this point, noting that the ways practice theory has been applied has been useful to elucidate the use of commodities within everyday practices but less equipped to address the institutional and systemic conditions that organise those practices. [..]

§5 This thesis aligns with practice theoretical perspectives on sustainable consumption that attent to the full cycle of goods through domestic life – considering not only the goods and materials people acquire, but also divestment and disposal (Ehgartner and Holmes, 2022, Evans, 2019). For example, Evans (2020) responds to this by proposing an expanded definition of consumption as a process involving multiple moments beyond acquisition. Following Warde (2005), he identifies appropriation – the use, personalisation, and incorporation of goods into everyday life – and appreciation – the personal and symbolic frameworks through which goods are evaluated and enjoyed. To these he adds three further moments: devaluation, the loss of economic or symbolic value; divestment, the loss of personal meaning and the unravelling of attachments; and disposal, the physical act of getting rid of things (Evans 2020: 345). Taken together, these six moments constitute consumption as a full cycle rather than a single event. Evans notes that a case could be made for simplifying this further, though – replacing the three acquisition related moments with a single concept of attachment, and the three divestment related moments with detachment ¬ a formulation that captures the emotional and relational dimensions of both acquiring and letting go (Evans, 2020: 347).

§6 This expanded definition of consumption to include detachment (divestment, disposal) is at the basis of this thesis. Brīvbode can thus be understood as a consumption site in both directions: people come to divest and dispose of goods that have reached the end of their household life, and they come to acquire goods that may be entering a new phase of their biography. The swapshop is a node in the ordinary circulation of goods through domestic life, distinguished by its non-monetary character and physical permanence.

§1 Practice theory, as developed by Elisabeth Shove, was developed primarily to analyze stable, widely shared, and largely unreflective practices in everyday domestic routines (Shove 2003, 2012), particularly the inconspicuous consumption of energy and resources in affluent Western societies that drives resource use beyond planetary boundaries. Shove has even argued that “investigations into the beliefs and actions of self-confessed environmentalists represent something of a distraction. What counts is the big, and in some cases, global swing of ordinary, routinized and taken-for-granted practice…” (Shove, 2003: 9).

§2 Yet as Welch and Warde (2015) note, this strategic move away from environmentalists’ motivations has come at a cost, leading to a neglect of the cultural dimensions of sustainable consumption (Spaargaren 2013 - [need to check this paper - Ieva]). Other authors have argued for a greater attention to non-hegemonic practices that serve as alternatives to mass consumption (e.g. Speck and Hasselkuss 2015). Practice theories are useful here too, as a tool for understanding how more sustainable alternatives might become normalised or integrated into existing consumption routines.

§3 Freecycling at Brīvbode sits at an interesting angle in this argument – it has both conventional and unconventional elements. It is not a widely shared, fully stabilised routine practice in Shove’s sense. Yet the practices it draws on – household divestment, secondhand acquisition, sequential use of goods – are not unusual in Riga or Latvia; what is less common is their organisation within a permanent, volunteer-run, non-monetary exchange site.

§4 Most participants do not come to Brīvboe because of self-professed environmental conviction. They come for practical, habitual and social reasons. This resonates with Smith and Jehlička’s (2013) concept on quiet sustainability, developed through research on Czech urban gardeners: sustainable practices that are widespread and effective but not articulated in terms of sustainability by their practitioners. Latvia provides a productive context for this concept – several participants trace their orientations towards reuse and frugality to generational experience rather than any sustainability agenda.

§5 Some participants do frame their participation in explicit sustainability terms, though, and this difference should not be overlooked. The thesis holds both the quiet and the articulated dimensions without collapsing them into a single category, treating the variation between them as empirically interesting. In practice-theoretical terms, however, what practitioners say about why they do what they do is only one element of practice — doings hold the centre.

§6 Practices of divestment are also changing, shaped by new infrastructure and policy developments – Latvia introduced mandatory textile collection in 2024, and new secondhand platforms and practices are expanding the routes available for household goods. A study of Brīvbode contributes to understanding this changing practice landscape by offering an empirical account of one specific site where divestment, acquisition, and non-monetary exchange come together, at a particular moment in the development of circular consumption practices in Latvia.

§1 Practice theory, as Evans (2020) observes, has tended to move away from a concern with commodities and commodification, focusing instead on how goods are used within practices rather than on how they acquire and lose value as they circulate. A focus on commodity biographies is a useful way to connect practice theoretic accounts of consumption to broader economic activities. [Revisit Evans 2020 to see how exactly?]

§2 “In contrast, the various contributions to Arjun Appaduari’s landmark collection (1986) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective focus on how objects are made – both materially and semiotically – as commodities. The core idea is that objects move and circulate between ‘regimes of value’ such that they have cultural biographies (Kopytoff, 1986). It follows that studying ‘things-in-motion’ can illuminate their ‘human and social context’ (Appadurai, 1986: 5).

§3 The approach of ‘following the thing’ could usefully be extended to encompass a focus on processes of consumption beyond the moment of acquisition. Doing so could result in more integrated and comprehensive accounts of commodification and de-commodification than are currently offered by the production-bias of existing commodity biographies. Accepting that qualities and qualification are useful concepts for thinking across production and consumption, I suggest that following the thing is a promising methodological tool for empirically accessing these processes. (Evans, 2020: 348)

§4 Things in swapshop: not waste, not commodity, not gift in a classic sense.

§5 Decommodification refers to the process by which goods or services that are typically bought and sold in a market economy are removed from the realm of market exchange, becoming accessible without monetary transactions, or are endowed with meanings and values that go beyond their exchange value. Brīvbode is a clear example of decommodification. Goods that would normally be exchanged for money are instead offered freely. Participants bring items they no longer need and take items they find useful, removing these goods from the traditional market.

§1 If practice theory explains how the circulation of goods is socially organised, consumption work names what that circulation costs. Practice theory’s focus on competencies – the skills and know-how through which practices are enacted – tends to emphasize how things are done rather than the effort and resources required to do them. Labor-centric views (e.g. through the concepts of consumption work or care work) instead highlight the laborious aspects of these practices, including the work of acquiring, managing, and disposing of goods and can address this gap directly. This is important in order to examine how circular consumption create responsibilities and in what ways new forms of consumption work are distributed through populations.

§2 Wheeler and Glucksmann (2015) contend that secondhand markets involve consumption work – sorting, cleaning, repairing. ‘Consumption work’, for them, refers to the range of tasks required of consumers, before or after they consume, on which consumption itself is predicated – the work that must be done before or after the moment of exchange for consumption to be possible at all. Their framework encompasses technical dimensions – the allocation of tasks and skills to different people; modal dimensions – interdependencies of work across different social and economic arrangements; and processual dimensions – the connections of labour across the full span of a consumption process (Wheeler & Gluckmann, 2015: 35-36). In circular economy contexts, Hobson et al. (2021) argue, this work intensifies: responsible divestment requires more effort than simply throwing things away, and the additional demands fall disproportionately on those who are already doing most of the household management work.

§3 Beswick-Parsons, Evans and Jackson (2025), in a recent study of household reuse practices, identify specific forms of consumption work involved in everyday circular consumption – decanting, stock management, recirculating – and argue that reuse practices are more prevalent and more varied than existing policy commentary assumes. Their analysis provides empirical precedent for examining consumption work and for attending to the range of tasks that participation in reuse practices requires. They conclude that future transitions to reuse might depend less on establishing new practices, driven by narratives of green consumerism, but rather greater attention should be paid to wider changes, including the transformation of supply chains to align with and facilitate the range of ‘reuse work’ currently observed within everyday domestic spaces.

§4 This thesis extends the consumption work framework in two directions. First, it examines consumption work at a semi-public site rather than within the domestic sphere. In discussion of research agenda for circular economies Hobson et al. (2021) call explicitly for research that moves beyond the household to examine how consumption work is organised and distributed in community and public spaces. Brīvbode is such a space: a site where the ordinarily private labour of divestment and acquisition becomes briefly visible and socially acknowledged, and a site where also public volunteer labor – sorting, curating, maintaining quality standards, managing social dynamics – sustains a service, itself a form of consumption work that is continuous with the domestic labour it serves.

§5 “Recent research at the intersection of practice theory and circular consumption has begun to foreground the labour involved in sustaining material circulation. Drawing on a practice-theoretical approach, Réka Tölg shows that circular consumption – particularly in the context of clothing – relies on the ongoing enactment of care in everyday practices. This involves not only acquiring and using garments, but also maintaining, repairing, and eventually parting with them in ways that enable their continued circulation. Such practices require the development of skills, awareness, and a sense of responsibility, and are often shaped by socio-material arrangements in both household and retail contexts. At the same time, Tölg highlights that these practices are not straightforward to accomplish, but are characterised by tensions, dilemmas, and constraints within systems still largely organised around linear consumption. In this sense, circular consumption can be understood not as a simple behavioural shift, but as an ongoing accomplishment that entails effort, coordination, and engagement – what has been conceptualised elsewhere as “consumption work” (Hobson et al., 2021).”

§6 [Maarja] I think it could be highlighted more / better, for example some of it could move to introduction. Some could go to the conclusion of this chapter.

§7 Second, the thesis attends to the gendered distribution of this work. Miller’s (1998) ethnographic research on shopping demonstrated that consumption is often organised around care for others, and that women often function as moral agents in household consumption. Shopping and consumption practices can be seen as acts of care, where people choose items with loved ones in mind, reflecting their role in family and social networks.

§8 [Second hand source that I should check] (Lindsay et al. 2024) Lindsay et al. (2024) and Organo et al. (2013) find that women consistently spend more time on sustainable household practices than men, and that “sustainability labour” tends to be more absorbed into existing patterns of gendered domestic work rathe than redistributed.

§9 The labor of managing excess – the sorting, the deciding, the transporting, the emotional work of letting go – falls unevenly on people, is often invisible, and becomes especially visible in circular economy contexts. Participation in Brīvbode is a form of consumption work, and understanding it as such reveals both what the swapshop enables and what it demands. Consumption work in the context of the swapshop: the effort of finding, sorting, or repurposing items, as well as the broader social practices around bringing and taking items from Brīvbode – decluttering, home organising, dealing with the needs of family members.

§10 Consumption work and practice theory in this thesis are complementary rather than competing frameworks. Following the argument developed above in section 2.2., consumption work describes what practices demand from their carriers rather than what individuals choose to do. The labour is in the practice; the questions of what kind of labour and who bears it are questions about the social organisation of practice and whose bodies and time it recruits.

§11 [Also I would like to specify somewhere how, while overlapping, domestic labour and consumption (including divestment) work are not the same.]

§1 This thesis brings together practice-theoretical perspectives on sustainable consumption and consumption work for a study of non-domestic node of goods circulation within a context of non-monetary exchange. Brīvbode is a site where the ordinarily private and dispersed practices of domestic material life become visible. The continued existence of the swapshop — sustained through regular volunteer labour, participant labour, and a relatively stable social and material infrastructure – can be read as evidence of the demand that household goods circulation generates: a demand for routes of divestment that, while taking some degree of effort, are socially acknowledged.

§2 Whether freecycling constitutes a practice in its own right, or remains a cluster of moments within larger practice bundles of divestment, acquisition, and domestic management, is a question that will be addressed in the next empirical chapters. People are navigating a material and social world that generates excess faster than any individual practice of divestment can manage. This thesis is an ethnographic study of a swapshop to investigate how these spaces foster alternative consumption practices that possibly challenge capitalist logics of ownership and value.

§1 [Maarja – This subchapter details your research methodology - which is ethnography - and relates it to practice theory. It’s good but also add a bit more on ethnography, e.g. define it using methodological literature. Right now the section is only focusing on practice theory]

§2 Ethnographic participation enabled me to note finer details about the initiative.

§3 Rather than offering a fixed methodological recipe, practice theories, as Nicolini (2017: 26) puts it, should be conceived as “a theoretical orientation towards the study of the social, where the methodological element remains central”. Various strands of practice theory share an approach that social life is best understood by focusing on what people do – through embodied routines, material arrangements, and practical knowledge – instead of emphasising attitudes, intentions or individual decisions.

§4 Ethnographic methods, with their emphasis on participants and “being there”, suit studies informed by practice theory particularly well. To study practices best one needs to be where they manifest, to focus on the observable material doings, noticing routines, tensions and everyday dynamics that surveys and interviews alone cannot capture. Theories of practice also strongly acknowledge the significance of the material objects and infrastructures in mediating, constituting and reproducing practices – which makes a site organized around the movement of material objects a fitting location for practice theoretical fieldwork.

§5 Michal Sedličko writes about the friction between adhering to the ontology consistent with theories of practice while conducting ethnographic research (Sedličko 2017). He offers four main principles:

§6 focus on what people actually do (and what materials they converse with) – attention to actual doing, attention to interactions and sequences (as opposed to single actions or statements), attention to matter in these interactions;

§7 focus on everydayness – attention to sites and situatedness of practice, attention to the aspects of social reality taken for granted by the practitioners, problematising the accounts used by the practitioners to make sense of the situation;

§8 focus on assembling, structuring and ordering – action to the ongoing achievement of assembling (stabilising, structuring and ordering), attention to the multiplicities, resistances, conflicts, breakdowns and ruptures emerging and being overcome through assembling, attention to the historical and situational productivity of such assemblages,

§9 and focus on reflexivity.

§10 Following Warde's (2005) argument that consumption is best understood as a moment within practices rather than a practice in itself, the focus in this thesis is on circulation of household goods – the ongoing movement of things through domestic life through acquisition, storage, care, and divestment – with Brīvbode as a site where several of these practice moments converge and become visible and acknowledged within a specific non-monetary mode of exchange. Brīvbode is, in Nicolini's (2017: 28) terms, a nexus: "a scene of action where several practices intersect and are knotted together."

§1 Brīvbode is a volunteer-run swapshop located in the Lastādija creative quarter in Riga, Latvia, adjacent to the Central Market and the tower of the Academy of Sciences – the more central part of a neighbourhood formerly known as Moscow forstadt. The premises are situated on the ground floor of a two-storey wooden building facing Purvīša Street.

§2 Lastādija quarter is run by Free Riga, a platform for creative and social initiatives for temporary use of vacant properties and territories in Riga, active since 2013. It consists of several wooden buildings, a yard, and a former workshop building which was first acquired for use by Free Riga in 2015, offering space to various NGOs and events. Over the following years the quarter expanded gradually; the properties were bought by Linstow Baltic, an international real estate company, which reached an agreement with Free Riga for continued temporary use of the area – an arrangement that has now lasted nearly a decade. This model of temporary use is one of the main pre-requisites for running a site like Brīvbode that stands outside the formal economy: both currently active Brīvbode venues in Riga are located in buildings managed by Free Riga, and the swapshops can use the spaces and sustain themselves by covering utility costs only.

§3 The quarter has developed an uncommercial, DIY spirit that both shapes and is shaped by the character of the initiatives operating within it. Lastādija offers affordable residencies and workshop spaces to organisations, artisans, and individuals with creative and social initiatives. In exchange, residents contribute a number of volunteer hours to the quarter – collective work in the yard, various renovation tasks, event organization etc. The residents, workers, and regular visitors of the quarter also form one segment of Brīvbode's clientele, and the swapshop is open during quarter public events, however, many visitors come from a wider public who would not attend such events and are drawn instead by the practical offer of circulation of goods.

§4 While formally linked to Free Riga, Brīvbode has for more than seven years operated as a relatively autonomous informal structure. Brīvbode in Lastādija is open twice per week, every Thursday and Friday from noon to seven in the evening. Additionally, it operates on the first Sunday of the month to cater to visitors who might not be able to attend on working days. In the past years, Brīvbode has also travelled to various events, participating with a stand, e.g. in the Song and Dance festival, various fairs, Riga city festival, Positivus etc.

§5 [For most of these years (not since the very beginning)] Brīvbode has been coordinated by [Alise], a woman in her thirties with a background in the cultural sector and a wide network of contacts among Riga's creatives. A stable team of volunteers cover the shifts: every opening day has a day manager and helpers who assist on a more flexible basis. Alise manages Thursdays, and [Linards] – a resident of the quarter – covers Fridays, fulfilling his volunteer hour obligation in this way.

§6 For the first five years Brīvbode in Lastādija operated mainly in two public rooms: an entry room with a sorting table, large brackets holding dozens of hangers and some open boxes and shelves with household items, books and clothing, and a smaller room dedicated to kids’ stuff – clothing, shoes, outdoor wear, toys and books, occasional kickbikes, carseats and strollers, altogether around 40 square meters.

§7 In spring 2024 Brīvbode expanded into two additional rooms, almost doubling in size – adding a room with books and women’s clothing with a large round table for meetings, and another one with clothing and footwear for men and women, a new DIY heating system, as well as a fitting room. The expansion changed what was possible at the swapshop – more space for more people, events and, consequently – more stuff.

§8 The range of stuff that can be found at the swapshop – cosmetics, jewelry, crafts supplies, house appliances – dishes, cutlery, pans and pots, lamps, occasional electronics, photographs, magazines. Most of the things travel quickly and the turnover is often observable on the spot right away.

§9 The specific concept of Brīvbode – and the meaning attached to freecycling in this format – has travelled to Riga together with Alise, as she adopted it from an organisation she had volunteered at in Berlin. There she experienced the swapshop primarily as a meeting point for neighbours:

§10 "I noticed the local neighbours, the regulars who were actually the ones who maintained the liveliness and the friendly, familiar (čomisko – lit. buddy-like, I.L.) atmosphere. In a supermarket you won't have that kind of familiar atmosphere – someone comes in once a month or so, you don't know them at all, the relations are cold, but there it was like a library where people also come in simply to talk. Because I saw that it can be like that in Berlin, I hoped it would happen here too." (Interview in March 2024)

§11 Brīvbode is also not the only space of its kind in Riga or in Latvia. Several swapshop-style initiatives operate in other Latvian towns – Alūksne, Liepāja, Preiļi – independently and some under the same name, though typically on an event basis rather than as permanent venues. In addition to regular opening hours at the Lastādija venue, Brīvbode participates with stands at various fairs and festivals, usually promoting a vision of sustainable consumption.

§12 Various exchange, divestment and second hand alternatives are currently available and are routinely used by people in Riga – online groups, charity shops and textile containers – but what sets Brīvbode apart is the operation on a physical site, the free exchange without regulated monetary transaction, and a sustained volunteer infrastructure that makes repeated visits possible and socially meaningful. It is open every week, year-round, and this regularity is central to what it offers — a route for acquisition and divestment, but also a predictable rhythm that participants can build into their everyday routines.

§1 All interviews were transcribed and coded thematically on QCAmap, a web based service for qualitative content analysis. Coding was informed by practice-theoretical concepts.

§2 attending to moments of friction,

§1 Participants are identified by pseudonym. Where details might identify participants to people who know them, I have adjusted or omitted them – [although some of the participants are more difficult to anonymise, e.g. the day managers Alise and Linards]. My role as a volunteer at times gave me a degree of association with Brīvbode that shaped how some visitors related to me. For example, several regular visitors who usually take larger quantities of items were outright reluctant about the idea of being interviewed; I respected this without pressing, maintaining appropriate distance.

§1 Materials – objects circulating (good quality objects);

§2 the co-relation with textile waste infrastructure (could not operate if Brīvbode had to pay for waste themselves)

§3 space;

§4 hangers, shelves or boxes?

§5 Decoration, style – to resemble retail space with diy

§1 First pre-requisite of practice as it is.

§2 Materials are essential for every practice and also have a huge influence on other elements of the practice. Material elements figure in freecycling practice on different levels – as infrastructure, as givenness of stuff.

§3 The physicality and permanence of Brīvbode as a site is one of the main attributes setting it apart from other similar initiatives that often struggle with availability of affordable rental space in high density urban areas. Partly due to this restriction, freecycling and swapping initiatives often operate on an event basis, switching locations and adjusting frequency of operation accordingly. It is therefore valuable to note how regular operation in the same physical venue influences the practice and how Brīvbode itself has become a reliable weekly infrastructure for many of the participants. During fieldwork, the space was extended almost in double – opening a fitting room, a room with more space for meetings, also extending the space available for things circulating.

§4 The issue of available rental space has been contended as one of the main pre-requisites for functioning freecycling initiatives by other researchers (e.g. Qian Hui, Yeoh, 2024)

§1 Circulation of stuff in Brīvbode

§1 Things persist, they don't perish (Hetherington, 200? Second-handedness). Yet they get broken, damaged, worn out. Intensity of circulation, intense amount of things. How do materials in Brīvbode appear there?

§2 Practice depends on stuff coming in. On perceived optimal quality of things.

§3 It also depends on people taking it, so that the place doesn’t overflow and can be contained.

§4 (Different views of necessary aesthetics). There’s excitement about things moving quickly.

§5 Is the stuff “given” // givenness of stuff in Brīvbode similar to givenness of waste in Pyyhtinen, Lehtonen (2023).

§6 Motivation for volunteers to reach and recruit more practitioners who could bring good quality things.

§1 Sieviete, kas sūta Omnivā netīras mantas, tagad atsūtījusi maisu ar adītiem rakstainiem dūraiņiem.

§2 Valentīna: "Vienīgais, kas man nepatīk, kad viņi saplēstus traukus nes. Tas ir viens ārprāts. Nu, kā var vispār likt vēl iekšā?"

§3 Laura L.: the observation is worth noting: for the occasional, aesthetically specific visitor, the undifferentiated abundance is not optimal.

§4 Jana: "Es reāli zinu, ka nebūs labi vienkārši, jau neverot vaļā to maisu. Un es tad saku: 'Vai tiešām tur viss tā kā ir okei?' 'Jā, jā, visu labāko, tikai visu labāko!' Un tu atver, un tu saproti, tur ir kožu saēsti spilveni, sačurātas segas." The gap between donor's self-assessment and actual quality is a recurring labor burden for volunteers. Jana's trained intuition is a specific competency developed over years. Embodied evaluative competency

§5 Marta: "Man, staigājot pa humpalām, bija sakrājies tik daudz apģērbu."

§1 Laura: "Man liekas, ka tie cilvēki, kas tur pamata apmeklē, tādas varbūt vecāka gadagājuma ļaudis. Bet tas kontrastē ar tām lietām, ko es citreiz tur redzu – tur kaut kādas poliestera vasaras kleitiņas raibas, man grūti iedomāties, ka viņi ņems viņas." Laura observes a mismatch between the typical visitor demographic and the typical donations at Lastādija – older women coming, younger-skewing fast fashion arriving. "Tāpēc es kaut kādu raibu poliestera kleitu nenesīšu uz to Brīvbodi, jo, nu jā, man liekas, ka tas nevienam nepalīdzēs." Laura applies this observation to her own donation decisions – she would not bring fast fashion polyester to Brīvbode because she judges it would be useless there. This is the quality threshold as a social judgment about who the space is for, not just a standard about condition or wear. Competency – what is good to bring?

§1 Laura L. "Ar tām drēbēm nu jā, es tā kā daudz, nu viņas ir tāda daudz stabilāka lieta manā garderobē. Un tad kaut kādas tur, nezinu, t-kreikliņi vai, kuri tur nāk, iet." — The two-tier wardrobe: stable items she has invested in, and disposable items that circulate in and out. Different garments occupy different positions within the practice of dressing – some are durable elements, others are passing. The freeshop is a more a mechanism for the circulating tier, not the stable one.

§2 Enabling divestment

§3 The practice of managing the outward flow – voluntary disposal (Počinkova et al. 2023) – of goods from households is what brings most donors to Brīvbode. The practice of divestment has its own elements: the sorting, the evaluating, the routing decision, the transport. Brīvbode is one node in the infrastructure of this practice.

§4 Space as a constituting material element also within the household dimension: the relation between the size of our homes and the movement of stuff – in order to fulfill the ideal of declutter in a small sized home one needs to have strong boundaries…

§5 Questions about the notions of responsibility over things one “owns” – and the possibility of passing it over to the freeshop and the imagined end user.

§6 Marta: “Man gadu gadiem ilgi arī krājās lietas, ko man pašai bija žēl vienkārši izmest vai vienkārši noziedot, bet es nezinu, kas pēc tam viņas pārpārdos, kur viņas nokļūs un... Es labāk pati atnesu, nolieku, un man ir mierīga sirds. Es zinu, ka kādam ir iespēja tās lietas izmantot un kāds būs ļoti laimīgs.” The emotional work that the practice of divestment via Brīvbode accomplishes – it resolves the moral discomfort of uncertainty about where things go. Brīvbode provides not just a route but a resolution to the emotional ambivalence of divestment.

§7 Jana: "Reserved, H&M, Sinsay... ar birciņām atnāk. Tu saproti, ka tu esi ātrumā nopircis divus vienādus krekliņus, un īstenībā tev neviens no tiem krekliņiem neder." Fast fashion arriving at Brīvbode with tags still attached. This is the pressure valve observation from a volunteer's perspective – Brīvbode absorbs the overflow of impulsive purchases that were never really wanted.

§8 Ease of circulation and disposal: […] es varbūt mazāk pieķeros vairs lietām. Ka tas ir okei, ka viņas rotē viņu ciklu, ka ir vieta, kur viņu atnest un es zinu, ka viņu paņems un viņa aizies tāpat tālāk. Ka es tā kā nepieķeros vairs tas nav tā, ka vai nu es nēsāšu, vai es viņu izmetu miskastē. […] Tev vairs nav tā, tas smagums ap to lietu, ka es taču viņu nopirku par €40, kā es tagad viņu izmetīšu ārā vai atdošu prom, nenēsāšu. Tagad vienkārši tāds neder - nes atpakaļ. Pamēri, ir, ievalkājas, neievalkājas. Ir daudz brīvāk. (Alise)

§9 Observation (should aim for practice statements): "Bieži jau šiem cilvēkiem mēs esam vienkārši kāda vieta, kur to visu nogrūzt un iet pirkt jaunas lietas." Alise's honest acknowledgment that Brīvbode functions as a pressure valve enabling more consumption rather than less for many visitors. Brīvbode is evidence of the structural condition rather than a solution to it.

§10 Sandra uses Brīvbode primarily as a divestment route for good clothes she no longer wears, particularly dressy items that she bought, wore once, and never wore again: "Tās ir, pirmkārt, izejāmās drēbes, tās parasti jau nenovalkā." Festive clothing accumulates precisely because the occasions are rare. Before Brīvbode, these things sat in the cupboard or were discarded. The freeshop gave them a route.

§11 Sandra describes her divestment practice as rather “chaotic” – no regular sorting, things accumulate and are brought when she gets around to it. This is the typical pattern for participants without strong sufficiency orientations.

§12 Līga: "Gribētu. Gribētu, ka ātrāk nobumbulojās." Līga's clothes last too long. She does not wear them out – they sit in the wardrobe in wearable condition while she no longer wants them. The responsibility she feels toward still-wearable things is a constraint: she cannot simply discard them because they are not worn out.

§1 Opportunities of return – responsibility after feeling the piece of clothing, not after paying…

§2 Alise: “Un tu saproti, ja tu nopērc kaut ko, tu vari tikpat labi arī to neuzvilkt un tev nav nekādu sirdsapziņas pārmetumu. Jo man ir tas procents, ko es no lietām sev paņemu vai nopērku, vai iegādājos, ko es vienmēr saprotu, ka tas tomēr netiks vilkts neatkarīgi no tā, vai es esmu maksājusi par to naudu vai neesmu maksājusi. Tad vislabāk, drošāk ir pēc iespējas mazāk tajā ieguldīt.”

§3 Buying second hand items online and finding they don’t fit after all – Ieva. Not bothering selling them further, avoiding divestment work.

§1 Also, important: the differentiation from the infrastructure providers… Brīvbode provides donors with a feeling of transparency, because users can be seen and the circulation works very quickly.

§2 Laura actively dislikes the textile containers because she does not trust where the things go. She prefers Brīvbode because she can see that items go directly to people who use them: "Es labāk atnesu šeit, un cilvēkiem tiešām es iedošu, sanāk, tālāk." The transparency of the exchange is itself a value. The visibility of the social good done is part of what makes the practice worth doing.

§3 Līga: "Man iekšējā cerība ir tāda, ka Brīvbodē atnāks cilvēks, nu, bezpajumtnieks, no Ķengaraga vai no Purvciema, kurš paņems." Līga's idealized vision of who uses Brīvbode – a person with genuine need who will take what she brings. She explicitly frames this as possibly naive: "Vai cilvēks, kuram ir mazāk, kuram vajag, paņem. Savukārt, tur man liekas, ka pārdos to visu." She knows things are sold everywhere – Otrā Elpa, containers – but she maintains the hope that Brīvbode routes things to people who need them directly.

§4 Hierarchy of divestment

§5 Secondhand acquisition

§6 the material outcome of one practice present in the site of Brīvbode (domestic divestment: things arrive) is a direct resource for another (secondhand acquisition: things are taken). But they are not the same practice and they do not recruit the same carriers for the same reasons.

§7 For some visitors the process of finding things is strategic and purposeful; for others it is opportunistic.

§8 Ita: "Mammai to lietu nebija daudz, un tās lietas tika visas, nu, ļoti labi uzturētas. Bet tad, kad jau parādījās tie humāno preču veikali, tad savukārt bija otrā drusku galējība."

§1 Valentīna: "Nu, sākumā te bija ļoti labi. Tik daudz bija drēbju... vispār, nu, veikalā pat tādas nevar atrast." "A citi domā, kur viņa te ņēma, ko viņa ņem? Vai tad viņa pirka, vai viņa kā? Brīvbodē atnāca un vsjo. Viņi nesaprot, ka to visu var atrast Brīvbodē." The pleasure of the secret source – others cannot tell the difference. The competency dimension of freeshopping: knowing where to look, knowing when to come, having access to a source others do not know about or use.

§2 "Es apģērbos vispār tā kā princese." Brīvbode enabled a form of self-presentation that her economic situation otherwise would not allow. The freeshop as enabling dignity and even luxury for someone with limited means.

§3 Sandra: She has stopped going to charity shops entirely: "Es uz humpalu bodēm vairs neeju. Jo te ir labāk, un viss pa brīvu, un var apmainīt pret savējām." Brīvbode has replaced the charity shop as her primary secondhand venue. The reasons she gives are practical — free, exchangeable, better selection — but the substitution is total. a better material arrangement (free, exchangeable, better quality) recruits a carrier away from a competing practice.

§4 "Es ļoti gribēju skapi ar kokgriezumiem, un re, man izrādījās, kaut kā mistiski mammas draudzene gribēja atbrīvoties no šī skapja."

§5 Agnese describes a deliberate practice of imagining what she wants and waiting for it to appear through the network.

§1 "Esmu atrast vecu, sagrieztu odu tīklu, ko es izmantoju kā pamatni izšūšanai."

§2 Something that appeared to be rubbish was valuable to Marta as a material. This is an extreme version of the right-owner logic — the object finds not just a user but a user who recognizes a value in it that is entirely invisible to others.

§3 "Kā es sāku taisīt tos tepiķus? Tāpēc, ka man, staigājot pa humpalām, bija sakrājies tik daudz apģērbu, ka es sāku domāt, kā viņu izmantot, nemetot ārā."

§4 The accumulation problem as a creative catalyst. Marta's craft practice grew out of having too many secondhand clothes — she invented a use for the surplus rather than discarding it. Material accumulation as the origin of a new practice. The surplus generated one practice (rug-making) that gave the surplus a use.

§5 "Kad es redzu kādu lietu, es to redzu nevis vienkārši kā tikai gatavu apģērbu, bet, piemēram, arī kā materiālu, kā audumi, pērlītes, rāvējslēdzēji."

§6 Marta's craftsperson's gaze: objects as potential materials rather than finished things. This is a specific competency that distinguishes her participation from others. Where most participants see a garment, Marta sees components. This extends the object biography — the dress has a life as a dress, but it also has a potential life as threads, beads, lining fabric.

§7 Social visiting

§8 for many regular visitors Brīvbode is primarily a place to go, to be seen, to exchange a few words, and the goods are almost incidental. Baiba coming after her husband died. The pensioners who organized excursions. The young mothers with prams. This is a distinct practice with a distinct teleoaffective structure.

§9 "Ceturtdien visi prasa, kur ir Ira. A piektdien visi prasa, kur ir Linards." The volunteer as anchor of the social experience. Regular visitors come for the volunteer as much as for the goods. This is strong evidence that Brīvbode functions as a social site where personal relationships are central – and that the practice of visiting is partly a practice of maintaining those relationships.

§10 "Kurš grib pakašķēties, kurš grib, lai viņu pažēlo, kurš grib uzmanību, kurš grib vēl kaut ko, jo tās mantas jau reti kuram vajag tīrā veidā atkal." Linards's observation that the objects are rarely the only thing people come for – emotional needs, social contact, attention, conflict.

§11 Valentīna: "Es atnācu, tad es sapazinos ar meitenēm... Es faktiski nezināju, kur iet... kā vientuļš cilvēks, es viena pati dzīvoju." The social function of the freeshop is primary for some participants. Brīvbode fills a gap in the slow shrinking social networks during older age. Brīvbode fills a gap.

§12 Līga represents the donor who uses the infrastructure without being recruited into the social dimension of the practice. Brīvbode functions for her as a logistics solution, not as a social site.

§1 Laura: "Man ir ļoti interesanti, ka tu tā kā aiznes, tās tavas lietas ņem ārā, viņas uzliek un pēc sekundes pazūd." Laura was struck by the speed with which donated items disappear. Witnessing the moment of donation meeting acquisition – items placed on the rail or the shelves and taken within seconds. She finds it interesting but also slightly unusual. This is Brīvbode's object circulation made visible and immediate, which is part of what distinguishes it for donors from the opacity of the red containers.

§2 Who does the stuff belong to? It’s not the donor anymore: it’s the freeshop. Delayed taking – donors observing.

§3 Takers are discouraged from taking stuff right away (intimidating people when enthusiastic takers are asking donors to show them the content of their bags).

§1 MEANINGS Freeshop or swapshop? (moral economy)

§2 In Schatzki's framework, practices have a normative dimension: there are right ways of performing practices. The not-charity framing, the reseller question, the reciprocity expectations, the curation standards — these are all instances of participants negotiating what counts as correct participation in the practice of freeshopping.

§3 In Shove's framework, meanings include the values and shared understandings that make a practice intelligible. Much of your moral economy material belongs here — the meaning of exchange as distinct from charity, the meaning of taking without giving, the meaning of reselling. These are the normative meanings that shape what participation looks like.

§1 The explicit positioning of Brīvbode as exchange rather than charity is a normative claim about who belongs and on what terms. "Mēs neesam labdarības iestāde. Tas nav tā, ka tu atnāc un tagad pieprasi, ka tev vajag tīras bikses. Mēs neesam palīdzības punkts, te ir apmaiņas punkts." (Alise) The norm that you bring something or at least contribute is part of what defines participation in the practice rather than use of a service.

§2 Jana: "Man liekas, ka, ja tas ir tikai punkts, kurā tu vari paņemt tikai tāpēc, ka tev vajag, nu, ka tas ir tikai tavs basic punkts, tad jau arī Sarkanais Krusts izsniedz bezmaksas apģērbus." – Jana articulating what makes Brīvbode different from charity: the heterogeneous public, the exchange principle, the social dimension.

§3 "Čista energetičeski vajag apmaiņa." Ira

§4 Function of the non-normative visitors (e.g. takers, sellers)

§5 Alise: “Ir nepatīkami, ja cilvēki saka, ka “es tās krūzītes jums pagājušonedēļ atnesu, un svētdien redzēju, kā tās Āgenskalna tirgū pārdod”. Tas nav forši. Tā sieviete ar to frizūru, tajā jakā, viņa tur katru nedēļu sēž. Ir viena, ko es atpazīstu. Viena sieviete un vīrietis, ko mēs nobanojām. Viņš nozaga vienai citai sievietei telefonu. Tā sieviete tagad nāk bez tā vīrieša. Ja viņa atnāk ar savu mantu apmaiņai, tad it kā ir ok.”

§6 Pārdošana: "Es smejos par to: nez, cik ģimenes mēs uzturam ar to savu brīvprātīgo darbu." "Tajā pašā laikā liekas, ja tāpat viņš atradīs tai lietai nākamo lietotāju, funkcija ir izpildīta, no vienas puses." Alise ar smīnu: nu, kas man atliek nekā ticēt… atbalstām mazo uzņēmējdarbību. Labāk, lai viņi piestrādā un lieta atrod savu cilvēku, nekā to paņem kāds horderis un lietas vēlāk nonāk konteinerā. Alise's nuanced response to resellers: if the object finds its next user, the function is fulfilled even if someone profits. What matters is the object's trajectory to the next owner, not the monetary transaction.

§7 Linards ecological framing applied to the moral economy question: “"Nu, es viņus tagad varētu uztvert kā meža sanitārus, nu. Hiēnas jau arī nav nekādi smukie radījumi, bet kaut kādu darbu jau viņas dabā dara." The hoarders/heavy-takers as ecosystem function – they clear out the accumulation that would otherwise clog the space.

§8 In thrift shops, practices are often characterized by a "reversal" of standard economic logic, where the goal is to move things along as quickly as possible rather than to maximize the profit per individual item (reference: Selling Thrift Work Practices in an American Thrift Store).

§9 Alise: Daudzi kaunās, ka nāk uz Brīvbodi – sevišķi, kad nāk žurnālisti, TV. Ko mums darīt, lai tā nebūtu?

§10 Vēlme nepatērēt, bet meklēt iespējas “patērēt tīri” ļaujot vaļu impulsiem tad? Salīdzinu ar sevi un melleņu un citu ogu ēšanu.

§11 Problems: 1) people giving things that should go to rubbish; 2) people selling.

§12 There is usually no direct interaction between givers and receivers. More likely – an observation from afar.

§13 Giving was structured by the motives of the givers rather than by the needs of the receivers.

§14 Widlok (2017) – Firstly, most items were gone fairly quickly, mostly from one day to the next. This indicates that there was a demand, after all. Secondly, the box successfully decoupled the act of giving from the act of receiving. Receiving alms, and the begging that goes with it, often makes people feel uneasy in societies in which everyone is supposed to work for what they desire. Most visitors whom I encountered and spoke to at the give box highlighted that they liked the box because they could give things away that were “too good to throw away”, even though observation showed that these visitors were there to search for items to take rather than for the opportunity to place things. (151)

§15 Hence, visiting the box and browsing in public was okay since it was not concomitant with being a recipient of alms. This way “giving through the box” reached many people who would otherwise not be recipients of public welfare either because they are too ashamed to register or because they were just above the officially recognized level of poverty but still in need of things. (151)

§16 LETS exchange systems carve out a domain for non-monetary exchange which allows the reserving of financial means for other domains.

§17 At all give boxes that I have visited in situ or online, there were complaints about “hawks” who would patrol the give boxes for things that they then would sell at jumble sales or through other commercial platforms which continue to exist side-by-side with the new give boxes.

§18 This shows that for most people involved, give boxes are very much seen as being part of the register of giving of alms, giving to the poor and generosity. They are set apart from commercial exchange but also in practice from sharing which would leave more initiative with the receivers

§1 Not surprisingly, therefore, give boxes and similar new institutions always also share some of the properties of other modes of transfer. In this particular case they share with gift giving the fact that they are again based on generosity and are initiated by the givers who often want to rid themselves of certain items. They also have a commercial dimension insofar as the items found there can be re-introduced into commercial exchange by trying to sell them but also because the items transacted through give boxes free funds for purchasing other objects or services.

§2 Widlok – To distinguish one-way from two-way transfers does not tackle the underlying problem that insisting on “reciprocity” and “exchange” disregards the perspective of the practitioners and instead privileges a perspective that is usually called “bird’s eye view”, or “view from nowhere” or “perspective of structure”.

§3 Separating giving and receiving: ≠Akhoe Hai//om has a separate verb that means exactly that, namely “hanging around waiting for a share” (see Figure 3.2 and Box 7). The sequence is documented in many hours of field video recordings: people sit at a fireplace preparing food, cooking tea or simply having a smoke. Someone walks by, positions him- or herself next to the cooking pot or fire place and waits until those attending to the fire or pot provide him or her with a share. Occasionally, a hand is stretched out but often this is not necessary. In other instances, third parties, preferably children, act as intermediaries. As Peterson (1993) and many others have observed, children in many hunter-gatherer societies are free to move around and stimulate sharing from people whom they visit throughout the camp. Many sharing transactions take place via children (see Figure 1.2), that is to say they may be sent with portions of food to others, especially the elderly or visitors who are seated or housed at a distance. In many cases the distance is small enough for a direct transfer between adults but still the direct handing over is avoided. This leads us to the interpretation that an attempt is made to disconnect the act of giving from that of receiving, keeping the possible imposition or asymmetry created in transfers at a minimum.

§4 Disposal functions as a precondition to other practices (Want Not, Waste Not: A Practice-Theoretical Study of Textile Disposal in Everyday Life. Anna Schytte Sigaard, Oslo Metropolitan University, 2026)

§5 Sigaard, A.S. (2026) Want Not, Waste Not: A Practice-Theoretical Study of Textile Disposal in Everyday Life. PhD thesis. Oslo Metropolitan University.

§6 Our hopes to cut our ties with things while hopefully benefitting someone else.

§7 But people don't necessarily want to establish ties with previous owners

§8 People working on their social ties by circulating things from Brīvbode = care networks.

§9 Provision:

§10 “Patrimonial pleasure” (pleasure and pride for providing for kids)

§11 Pleasure versus guilt and restrictions

§12 Timothy Morton, in his writings about ecological awareness and living, often emphasizes the need to reimagine our relationship with the environment in ways that are not just about sacrifice and limitation, but also about joy and pleasure. His reference to a "solar-powered disco" is a metaphorical and literal example of this perspective.

§1 The ends and affects that are normatively available within a practice include not just practical goals but emotional orientations – the pleasure of the unexpected find, the satisfaction of the assembled set.

§2 A lot of strange crap – that enables experimentation

§3 Things a bit strange, ghostly.

§4 It functions as a place –

§1 Agnese: "Jo, nu labi, tā kā es ēdu augu izcelsmes pārtiku, un līdz ar to tas arī parasti ir izaicinājums. Es esmu jau pieradusi, ka man ir tā kā jāmeklē, man ir jāpiedomā, ka viss man nederēs... Un nu tāpat ar to lietu pasauli es arī saprotu, ka nu viss man nederēs, man ir tā kā jāpameklē mazliet, bet tas pat ir labi, jo tas varbūt arī mani tā kā ierobežo un apstādina."

§2 Agnese has developed the same orientation toward objects as toward food — constraints (vegan diet, material preferences, aesthetic coherence) are not frustrations but useful filters that slow down acquisition and make it more deliberate.

§1 "Mēs vienkārši aizbraucam tā kā uz muzeju. Citi iet uz muzejiem, mēs aizejam tur." Secondhand shopping as leisure, as culture. Why secondhand acquisition is pleasurable and meaningful in ways that retail is not – the serendipity, the sense of things finding their right home, the pleasure of assembling a coherent aesthetic from dispersed sources.

§2 Marta: "Man ļoti, ļoti, ļoti, ļoti patīk tieši staigāt, meklēt, pētīt... Man patīk tas, ka tu nekad nezini, kam tu uzdursies, un tā ir tā maģija." "Citi cilvēki iet uz muzejiem, man patīk pastaigāt... ne jau tikai kaut ko pirkt, bet arī meklēt iedvesmu."

§3 The most enthusiastic statement of secondhand acquisition as pleasure and process in your corpus. The search and the possibility of encounter as values.

§1 Jana: "Man vienmēr ir bijušas iesaukas, es biju 'humpalu princese'. Man vienmēr ļoti nepatīk, kad man ir drēbes un kādam ir tieši tādas pašas drēbes mugurā." The desire for uniqueness as a driver of secondhand acquisition – in a world of fast fashion uniformity, secondhand provides differentiation. This is a meanings dimension that is neither sustainability nor thrift but something closer to aesthetic autonomy. "Es arī pati šuvu savas drēbes, lai tikai nebūtu tā kā, kā citiem." The sewing competency as an extension of the same desire – making your own as the ultimate guarantee of uniqueness: the competency of sewing is sustained by the meaning of distinctiveness.

§2 "Gliterkleitā uz darbu atnākt... Es gribu viņu vilkt." Brīvbode also enables Jana's daily performance of festivity and pleasure. The glitter dress as everyday wear is only possible because Brīvbode provides a low-stakes supply chain – you can wear something spectacular without the commitment of having paid for it.

§3 Enabling experimentation

§4 "Man prieku sagādā tas, ka es varu dažādus tēlus no tiem apģērbiem taisīt. Piemēram, es vakar aizgāju uz savu pirmo cross-dresseru randiņu ar šo skaisto violeto parūku." "Es esmu dabūjis 43. izmēra laiviņas... Un tas kaut kādā veidā mani ir atkal, nu tā, izaicinājis to likt lietā." The freeshop is a space of low-stakes experimentation: you can try things without commitment, without cost, and without judgment in the context of Lastādija's queer-friendly environment.

§5 Zane R.: "Interesanta lieta, ko, man liekas, ir forši, ka var izmēģināt kaut kādus stilus par brīvu. Es paņēmu jaciņu, kura pēc stila laikam saucās bomber jacket. Un es tādu pati nekad nebūtu pirkusi. Man ir kaut kāda aizture pret to, kas ir street style." The jacket became one of her most-worn items. Brīvbode enabled a style experiment that she would not have risked financially. The absence of price removes the commitment that normally accompanies clothing acquisition.

§1 Valentīna: "Kad no televīzijas man nāca virsū, es teicu – nekādā gadījumā, lai viņi neredz, ka esmu tik zemu kritusi, ka atnākusi uz Brīvbodi." "Nu, tas ir, piemēram, ja mani ieraudzīs kaut kur kamerās, kad es staigāju pa brīvbodēm... Tas ir tas pats, kas pa to miskasti."

§2 While some participants hinted at it, Valentīna is the only one who explicitly named the stigma associated with freecycling – it cuts against any simple narrative of it as normalized practice for people of all walks. While actively using Brīvbode and also praising the things acquired as high quality (“I dressed like a princess”), nevertheless, she also compares taking from Brīvbode to going through the trash bin. This case illustrates a friction between private value and public representation on public television, showing that the practice of freecyling is not fully normalized in Valentīna's social world and it carries symbolic costs that shape how and whether people participate: for some participants the meaning of freeshopping includes shame.

§3 "Viņa neiet uz to Brīvbodi. Viņai nevelk. Fū, fū, fū, fū... A es esmu prasta. Vienkārši prasta. Es aiziešu, un es dabūšu." Valentīna accepts the class distinction label "prasta" and reclaims it – she is practical, she goes where she can get things.

§4 Jana: "Omītes arī nāk un saka: 'Es savai meitai nesaku, kur es dabūju to jaciņu, jo viņa tad neņemtu.'" Marta: "Vecmāmiņa joprojām saka: 'Ššš, tikai nesaki nevienam, saki, ka bija dārgs.'" The injunction to conceal the secondhand origin — the grandmother's advice to lie about the price. These meanings were held by older people, however, often people mentioned people the contrast of their acquisition practices with some others who avoid anything second hand. Jana: "Māsa, kā tev liekas, to krekliņu, kas tev ir mugurā, pirms tam 10 meitenes jau nevilka? Nu, laikošanas kabīnē." Jana's counter-argument to the stigma: the fitting room is already secondhand contact. This is a clever rhetorical move that dissolves the distinction between new and used.

§5 People use a strategy of withholding information about the origin of things, especially when giving gifts and passing things acquired in Brīvbode to other people.

§6 Marta about family members: "'Ko tu mirušo apģērbu valkā?' or 'Kā vispār var kādus cita atkritumus...' Tāda ļoti negatīva attieksme." "Pēdējos gados vairs tik ļoti ne... kopš nu tas ir palicis daudz populārāk." The normalization of secondhand in recent years – Marta observes the shift within her own family. Changing meanings are shifting the practice’s recruit-ability.

§7 Similarly, there is a known folk theory of second hand clothing and things coming mainly in bulk from recently deceased people. As such, things are said to hold energy of the deceased person. Some participants adjusted this meaning to their practice – Ita: "Tā tīri teorētiski, teiksim, cilvēks uzvelk, un, ja tā enerģija, teiksim, konkrētajam jaunajam saimniekam der, tad viņš nejūt diskomfortu." Similarly, Linards using this spiritual language slightly laughingly claims that “we can transform it, we have here a purgatory of things has the ability to transform the aura of previous owners, so Brīvbode can function as a “purgatory of things” in their biographies. Linards: “Others say that things there have some kind of energy, or the aura of previous owners, maybe… We’re able to transform that… In a way, it’s also like a kind of purgatory for things.”

§8 Agate is the clearest example of generational normalization of secondhand consumption. She also called them “thrift shops”, using the English term. Her sustainability framing is explicit: she wants to avoid fast fashion, avoid microtrends, give clothes a second life. She uses the language of ecological responsibility and global collective action. She is not naive about the limits of individual action – she notes the contradiction between recycling carefully and celebrities flying private jets – but she maintains the practice regardless.

§9 She attributes the meaning her parents hold towards second hand acquisition to “soviet mentality” – they ask whether things are from a shop, they categorize thrift shops as automatically inferior regardless of the item's appearance. Her classmates, by contrast, find secondhand completely normal and are actively looking for thrift shop options for graduation dresses.

§1 Linards: “Daudzi jau arī neaizdomājas. Viņi domā, ka mēs esam kaut kāda Rīgas dome vai sociālais dienests vai whatever. Varbūt mums pašiem vairāk... Nu jā, mums bieži jautā, vai mēs esam labdarība. Tādā ziņā mēs neesam labdarība, manā izpratnē. Mūsu mērķis nav darīt labu, man tā šķiet, cilvēkiem. Mūsu mērķis ir darīt labu planētai. Jo labdarība vienmēr saistās ar kaut kādu tādu trūkumu un nabadzību. Man vairāk liekas, ka mums vajag to fun'a faktoru uzsvērt, to jautrības faktoru – mainīties, pārģērbties, whatever. Ka tas ir forši, ka tas ir fanīgi, ka tas ir līksmi.” – freeshopping as a form of play and pleasure rather than responsibility. This is Linards articulating what the practice should offer its carriers to recruit and retain them. The fun, playful dimension is a meaning that sustains his participation and that he thinks should be made more central.

§1 "Tas ir palicis laikam kaut kādā ziņā nedaudz otršķirīgi. Pārējais ir tik intensīvi..." Alise says the environmental/sustainability dimension has become secondary to the social and operational dimensions.

§2 Linards, asnwering whether he sees working in Brīvbode as helping the visitors or helping a cause (after discussing that it’s not a charity): “Man liekas, tas tagad tik dabiski, es to vairs tā pat nevērtēju. Tas jau citiem jāvērtē ir. Tā ir vienkārši lieta, ko es daru, neiedziļinoties viņas filozofiskajā nozīmē.” The practice has become sufficiently routinized for him that it no longer requires justification or much rumination about the meanings of it.

§3 At the beginning – values, but then when you’re there, it’s more about practice.

§4 Ideals are easy to divest...

§5 Agate represents the explicit end of the spectrum – the participant for whom environmental meaning is primary rather than peripheral. Placing her alongside Linards (environmental meaning is abstract and secondary) and Sandra (environmental meaning is implicit in an objection to waste) gives you the full range.

§6 At times I enquired whether environmental values is something people adhere to.

§7 Laura L.: "Man liekas, ka mana visneekoloģiskākā rīcība manā ikdienas dzīvē ir tekstils."

§8

§9 (Lifestyles of Enough) “Finally, the meanings attached to sufficiency-oriented consumption practices go way beyond altruistic motives like environmental concern. As a study by Kropfeld et al. (2018) showed, environmentally concerned consumers (with more altruistic motives) have a higher environmental impact than voluntary simplifiers (with more self-related motives). Personal or egocentric motives, therefore, can lead to sufficiency-oriented behavior, as the example for sharing services from this review showed. This is in line with Sandberg’s (2021) findings on sufficiency practices related to miscellaneous consumption, as she connects a reduction of consumption of various products (incl. clothing) to anti-consumption lifestyles such as voluntary simplicity or frugality.

§10 (Lifestyles of Enough) “Secondly, as environmental concern is not the only meaning attached to sufficiency consumer practices, other motivations and concerns should be considered in the development and promotion of new products or policy measures. These can address the desire to save money and time, to live a healthier lifestyle, or to be part of a community (Leng et al., 2016). A sufficiency-oriented social and institutional framework can accelerate sufficiency practices in becoming mainstream (Spangenberg and Lorek, 2019). However, the measures taken should not be one-time events only, but provide the space and opportunity for long-term regular exchange about practices and experiences (Heiskanen et al., 2018).

§11 concept of quiet sustainability

§12 Smith and Jehlička's (2013)

§13 Developed through research in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe, it describes sustainable practices — growing food

§14 that are widespread and effective but not represented by their practitioners as relating to environmental or sustainability goals.

§15 Quiet sustainability – sustainable practices without added sustainability meaning.

§16 • what matters in sustainability? e.g. people gather egg cartons because it is easy, but issues that are more impactful and require more resources are more difficult to enact.

§17 Alise says the environmental/sustainability dimension has become secondary to the social and operational dimensions.

§18 Several participants in this study trace their orientations toward thrift and reuse to generational experience of the scarcity of the early post-Soviet period, or to upbringings in which resources were used carefully as a matter of practical necessity rather than environmental commitment. Most do not frame their participation in Brīvbode primarily in environmental terms: they come because they have things to give away, because they sometimes find things they need, because it is convenient, because the space is familiar. Their practices have sustainable dimensions that they do not necessarily name or claim.

§19 This framing does not require flattening the diversity of participant orientations. Some visitors do articulate explicit sustainability motivations — concerns about fast fashion, about waste, about the environmental costs of overconsumption. The thesis holds both the quiet and the articulated dimensions without forcing them into a single category, and treats the tension between them as empirically interesting rather than theoretically problematic. One question that remains open is whether explicit articulation makes sustainable practices more effective at retaining practitioners — more resistant to disruption when material or social conditions change. This is beyond the scope of the present study but worth noting as a direction for future research.

§20 For some Brīvbode and such places are clearly ways to get rid of stuff in order to fulfill an ideal of a decluttered home. To get rid of stuff that doesn't align with the style of their home etc. Get rid of stuff in order to make other decisions about buying other things.

§1 Počinkova, L., Henninger, C.E., Le Normand, A. and Blazquez Cano, M. (2023) ‘Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers’ voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice’, Social Enterprise Journal, 22(6). doi:10.1108/SEJ-02-2023-0017.

§2 Tan, Qian Hui and B.S.A. Yeoh. 2024. Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore. Worldwide Waste 7(1): 1, 1–14. DOI: 10.3197/whpww.63857928646673

§1 "Es tiešām to nesaprotu, lai es ieguldītu savu laiku, enerģiju un resursus tik daudz, ja es to varu iznest piecās minūtēs uz miskasti?" Jana articulating the volunteer's puzzle: why do donors bring things to Brīvbode that require more effort to bring than to discard? The act of bringing to Brīvbode performs a moral work that throwing away does not – it relieves guilt, maintains the identity of responsible consumer, transfers responsibility to the freeshop.

§2 Austra: The mystery of the vadiņi – the coloured wire offcuts her husband produces. She claims she has never met the person who always takes them, but she imagines it is someone who makes art or does craft work with children. She brings them regularly partly because having something to bring is itself a motivation to come. Her husband generates surplus from his practice (wire-working), she routes it to Brīvbode from her practice (domestic management), an unknown third person absorbs it into their practice (craft or teaching).

§3 Laura L.: "Kāpēc es ne... nu kaut kādu raibu poliestera kleitu nenesīšu uz to Brīvbodi, jo, nu jā, man liekas, ka tas nevienam nepalīdzēs."

§4 Laura applies this observation to her own donation decisions — she would not bring fast fashion polester to Brīvbode because she judges it would be useless there. This is the quality threshold as a social judgment about who the space is for, not just a standard about condition or wear. Code under donor-side quality norm / social knowledge of visitor base.

§1 "Es vienkārši pieeju klāt un saku: 'Mēs strādājam tā un tā, un tāds princips ir, jūs varat atnest divas lietiņas, paņemt trīs lietiņas. Neviens neskatās, cik tu ņem, bet tev ir jāatnes kaut kas vietā.'" Jana actively enforces the reciprocity norm at Viskaļi.

§2 —

§3 ​​"No visiem, kas strādā Brīvbodē, principā es nopelnu vismazāk. Jo es strādāju kopā ar Iru tajās ceturtdienās... Kamēr man vēl ir visi tie administratīvie un projektu vadības un visas atskaites un visa sekošana līdzi. Tas ir neapmaksāts darbs." Direct statement of the labor imbalance. Alise does the most administrative work and earns the least. "Tā ir atbildība, ko esmu uzņēmusies labprātīgi, bet ko es ar tādu godaprātu arī gribu iznest un noturēt... Esmu atbildīga tikai savā priekšā."

§4 "Es atlieku, un es zinu, ka Aļona atnāks vakarā, nākot no dārziņa, un viņai būs mammai, ko iedot." The logistics of knowing who needs what: Alise holds things for specific people based on her knowledge of their circumstances. This is care work and consumption work simultaneously.

§1 Is it pearls before swines? The work of finding and recalibrating meaning. Alise: Motivācija jau mainās… Katrs jau cenšas atrast savu motivāciju.

§2 “Ja tu strādā tikai tiem cilvēkiem, kas iet tālāk, pārdod, un beigās viņi ir vienīgie, kas uz tā visa nopelna un tu velti savu brīvo laiku, tad pazūd tā motivācija. Tāpēc katrs mēģina atrast sevī interpretēt vai samierināt. Jo katram ir savi motīvi, sava latiņa, pie kuras visi viņi sāk besīt, vai kas spēj iepriecināt, sadusmot. Bet katrs cenšas ar sevi…”

§3 Difficult to see the point…

§1 No studentes lauka darba: “Ievai ir visuztrenētākā acs uz mantu kvalitāti; arī izvēloties mantas – visbiežāk apģērbu – ir konkrēti kritēriji, kam sekot, piemēram materiāla biezums vai veids (vilna, kašmirs u.c.). Īsāk sakot – kas ir dabai draudzīgāks, ekoloģiskāks un ilgmūžīgāks.”

§2 Linards: "Nu, fak, skaties, nu, kur lai liek. Mēģināt sasistematizēt sieviešu apģērbu. Tas ir kā koks ar daudziem zariem." Competency acquisition narrated explicitly – Linards describes the process of developing a taxonomy, getting confused, discovering that function matters more than type.

§1 "Tas filtrs man ir." Alise's curation work — knowing who needs what, holding things for specific people, routing objects to their right destinations — is described simply as a filter. The filter, knowing who needs what, holding things for specific people — this is competency in Shove's sense.

§2 "Jo katrai lietai var būt īpašnieks, viņš tikai kaut kādā pareizā kontekstā ir jāparāda tev." Curation as the skill of contextualizing objects — finding the right frame, the right audience, the right moment for each thing. This is valuable labor that the freeshop depends on but that visitors never see.

§1 Acquisition

§2 Temporal – coming first

§3 On Thursdays and Fridays it is not uncommon for visitors to gather before the opening time (12.00) and queue in front of the freeshop – during fieldwork sometimes more than ten people stood there waiting to be let in. The first two hours tend to be the busiest, and visitors look forward to seeing what's new in the freeshop.

§4 The queue, the rush, the gradual emptying. This temporal rhythm is a feature of the practice bundle, not just of one site.

§5 Agate: visits at the end of each season when she has sorted her wardrobe and identified gaps. She arrives early to avoid competition from peers. She has mapped the visitor typology and knows that older women have different tastes, which means she can pick through their discards without competition: "Es atnācu ātrāk, jo es zināju, ka būs veci cilvēki, un es zinu, ka viņiem neinteresē tas pats, kas man."

§6 In contrast, Sandra: Sandra's fatalism is analytically significant for practice theory. It is a specific temporal and dispositional orientation toward the practice – she does not bring deliberate choice to the encounter but trusts the encounter itself. This is the opposite of Agate's strategic visiting. Both are competencies, differently developed. Sandra's orientation means the practice demands relatively little conscious cognitive work from her — it has become genuinely routine. Warde is interested in the meanings that make practices intelligible and motivating to their carriers. The meaning this speaker attaches to secondhand acquisition — that objects find their right owner, that there is something fateful in the encounter — is one of the meanings that sustains her participation in secondhand practices more broadly.

§7 Competition management

§8 Agate also avoids coming with friends who share her taste: "Es cenšos nenākt ar draudzenēm." This is sophisticated resource management – she knows that the supply of things matching her specific aesthetic is limited and that competition from similar-minded peers would reduce her chances of finding what she wants.

§9 Regularity of visits, dropping by to see what’s available

§10 "Man liekas, tur lielākā daļa ir tādi pastāvīgie. Ļoti, nu, ļoti reti ir tā, ka iepeld pilnīgi..."

§1 (moral economies of access and restraint)

§2 Marta: "Ja es nevaru izlemt – iegādāties vai paņemt vai ne, tad ir ļoti vienkārši. Ja es neesmu pārliecināta, tātad man nevajag." A clean decision rule that Marta has developed explicitly. Practical wisdom, an embodied heuristic that simplifies a complex decision. Brīvbode has changed Marta's relationship to uncertainty about her own things – where before she hoarded because she might need something, now she releases because she knows someone else probably needs it more. The existence of the infrastructure changes the decision logic. This is a direct empirical instance of how material infrastructure shapes practice.

§3 "Man bija ļoti daudz dažādu veidu... pēdējos pāris gadus es kaut kā esmu no tā atkāvusies, ka es tā vairs nedaru. Es tiešām ļoti izvērtēju, vai man tā lieta tiešām ir nepieciešama."

§4 Marta describes a conscious shift away from impulse acquiring in secondhand contexts – she recognizes her own past behavior as a problem and has worked to change it. This is deliberate practice modification. Most participants describe their habits as givens; Marta describes working on hers.

§5 Marta: “Es tiešām cenšos nebūt tā tante ar trīs maisiem, kas staigā katru dienu tur no vienas točkas uz otru. To es cenšos nepieļaut un cenšos arī sadraudzēties maksimāli ar tām lietām, kas man ir.” Making peace with what you have – sufficiency as an active practice of relationship with objects rather than deprivation. This is a positive formulation of sufficiency that does not rely on environmental discourse.

§1 Normative learning in action. Marta is developing the practical norms of freeshopping participation — what counts as appropriate taking — through participation and observation. Marta: “Pati pirmā reize man bija ļoti mulsinoša... Es biju izpildījusi mājasdarbu, es biju salikusi maisiņu, un es tiešām centos pēc savas minimālās saprašanas par šo vietu salasīt kaut ko, kas varētu būt tiešām tāds noderīgs un pietiekami daudzpusīgs. Bet tāpat mani nepameta tā sajūta, ka es esmu tā kā apzagusies, vai kāds neskatās. Nu, tā muļķīgi tagad tā teikt, bet tas koncepts ir tik ļoti tāds nepierasts, un man arī tā sirdsapziņa neļautu vienkārši ienākt, paņemt, aiziet, un es arī cenšos vienmēr atnest kaut ko. Un nevis uztvert, ka kaut kas par brīvu. Es to vārdu "brīvu" kaut kā izslēdzu. Es to uztveru kā apmaiņu. To, kas man, to es nolieku, un…”

§2 Marta narrates the process of learning to understand freeness as exchange, learning what counts as appropriate taking, developing the decision heuristic.

§3 Agate (beyond novice but not yet so practiced that everything is taken for granted) evaluates acquisition carefully too: "Es apsveru, vai es varētu pieskaņot savām citām drēbēm... vai es viņu vispār valkāšu." She actively tries to avoid the pattern she recognizes in herself – buying from thrift shops impulsively and then returning the things unused. This is the same self-management work that Marta and Jana describe, but in a 16-year-old who has already developed a reflective relationship to her own consumption patterns.

§4 Zane R.: "Es cenšos piefiksēt, kas man ir tā doma regulāri, ka, nu, pietrūkst šitādas lietas, lai šis līdz galam strādātu." Zane maintains a list on her phone of things she is looking for. She has invested in stylist consultations – colour analysis, silhouette work – not for vanity but as a practical tool to reduce acquisition errors. Knowing what works means she can say no to more things. This is constraint as a competency, very close to Agnese's parallel observation. Both use limitation as a filter that makes acquisition more deliberate.

§5 "Es esmu bijusi uz stilista konsultāciju, pat uz vairākām." The stylist consultation framed not as luxury consumption but as an investment in knowing your own preferences – which in turn reduces waste. This is a sophisticated and counterintuitive observation: spending money on a consultant saves money and material by preventing wrong acquisitions. Worth a brief mention in your Chapter One analysis of how participants develop competencies for selective acquisition.

§1 "Es esmu krājēja. Jā, es esmu krājēja." Līga names herself a hoarder without shame but also without satisfaction. She links it to scarcity experience — not having had much as a student, learning to keep things because things were hard to come by. The accumulation habit is understood as a survival response to past material insecurity.

§2 "Es domāju, ka tas tā vairs nebūs. Ir jāmainās." But she is actively working to change. The turning point was a month-long solo trip through Europe after her employment ended: "Es aizbraucu, un tad ar to arī sākās, ka tagad, nu, tagad tas ir izdarīts, tagad ir jādomā kaut kas par lietām, kas ir par daudz." Travel — where you carry only what fits in a bag — reframed her relationship to possessions. This is a biographical rupture that catalyzed practice change.

§3 "Es labāk šobrīd lēnā garā atbrīvojos... man nav vienkārši žēl paņemt somu un aizbraukt." The war anxiety dimension: she is releasing things partly because she wants to be able to leave quickly if necessary. The geopolitical context of Latvia — proximity to Russia, uncertainty since 2022 — appears explicitly in her divestment motivation.

§1 Repair Cafe?

§2 Zane's repair work is the most developed instance of extended object life in your corpus. Not just repairing things she owns — she repairs professionally, she teaches others to repair, she attends Repair Cafe as a volunteer practitioner.

§3 "Aktīvi es pati laboju lietas kopš es sāku studēt."

§4 "Laboju lietas par maksu." Repair as livelihood, not just personal ethics, connecting the personal practice of object stewardship to an economic activity. The reduced work hours that enable her current lifestyle are in part funded by repair work.

§5 "Man mamma vienmēr ir šuvusi, adījusi, darījusi visas lietas. Un kaut kāda tāda ar rokām darbošanās vienmēr ir bijusi, nu, tāda normāla." The repair competency is intergenerational – learned from her mother.

§1 "Man ir bijis tā, ka man sakrājas maisiņš, kad sakrājas, tad es aiznesu."

§2 The maisiņš system: things accumulate in a bag at home until it is full, then the bag goes to Brīvbode. This is the most common divestment rhythm in your corpus — accumulate, then release in batches — and Līga states it simply.

§3 "Ceturtdien divus aiznesu, tad piektdien divus."

§4 For larger quantities she splits across days — two trips on Thursday, two on Friday. This is logistics management under self-imposed constraint: she will not ask for help or hire transport, so she works within the limits of what she can carry alone.

§1 "Bērniem bija kaut kāda tāda vecmāmiņa, kas dzīvo Londonā, viņa labu gribot sūta vienkārši milzu pakas ar dāvanām, un tur jau es nevaru izvēlēties, kas tur būs, tas tur būs. Un es reizēm daru tā, ka es atsaiņoju, paskatos, kas tur ir, un daļu noslēpju, pirms bērni vispār ierauga, jo nebūtu šeit vietas tam visam."

§2 The grandmother in London who sends large packages of gifts creates an inflow problem: Agnese cannot control what arrives, must intercept items before the children see them (and thus become attached), and must then route the surplus elsewhere. This is consumption work generated by others' giving — the labor of managing generosity that does not match the household's needs. The interception of gifts before children see them is a specific practical competency that no other participant in your corpus describes.

§3 "Arī kāds nes, teiksim, sava bērna drēbes mums iedod, jo tas bērns ir lielāks un ir izaudzis, un klāt pieliek vēl tur kaut ko, nu tā kā bez prasīšanas."

§4 Unsolicited additions to gift transfers — people add extra items without being asked. The recipient bears the cost of routing the unwanted additions. This is a small but real instance of how the consumption work of divestment is transferred from donor to recipient.

§1 Many of the regular visitors did significant divestment work for other people.

§2 "Mēs nevaram arī izmērīt, cik daudz cilvēku gūst labumu, jo tas nav tikai 1:1, kas atnāk." (from radio interview) – Brīvbode's social reach extends beyond the people who physically visit.

§3 Ira rescues things from the street before the garbage collectors arrive. This is the moral weight of objects — things that have value should not be destroyed.

§4 Valentīna: "Vienkārši visi zina, ka es eju uz to Brīvbodi, tad man kādreiz pilnīgi cilvēki no mājas saka... Kādreiz, nu, tā iedod." Like Ira, Valentīna has become a logistics node for her building – neighbors give her things to take because she goes. The labor of carrying others' divestment falls on those who are already most embedded in the practice.

§5 "Viņi visi zina, ka es eju uz Brīvbodi un atdod." Others give her things and she takes them. She does not describe this as a choice or a service; it is just what happens because she is known as the person who goes. This is consumption work that has become naturalized into her role. ​​The practice has become part of Valentīna's known social identity in her building. It recruits additional participation from neighbors who route their divestment through her. This is how practices expand their reach through existing social networks. The practice of bringing things to Brīvbode has become a weekly routine organized around and through Ita. The practice has stabilized into a rhythm that recruits additional participation from neighbors. This is the temporal and social structure of practice in action.

§6 "Es kādreiz arī pienāku pie viņiem vai kā." She also goes to neighbors to collect things – active divestment work on behalf of others who do not or will not come themselves. This mirrors Ira's pattern exactly, though at a smaller scale.

§7 JANA: "Darba kolēģes sajūsmā. Viņas izmanto mani. Viņas sagatavo paciņas, kas man jānogādā uz Brīvbodi. Un tad viņas saka: 'Vai tu vari apskatīties kaut ko priekš viņām?'"

§8 Austra also takes for her husband — finding larger sizes for him as his weight has changed — and occasionally for a grandchild or a distant relative with young children. The consumption work extends outward from her household to the family network.

§1 "Es tur 30 reizes braukāju uz turieni."

§2 Līga helped relatives relocate and spent months coordinating the dispersal of their possessions — arranging Facebook pickups, allocating specific items to specific people who had expressed interest, making trip after trip. She explicitly acknowledges that a single call to a clearance firm would have resolved everything in one visit: "Ja būtu firma, viņi izmestu ārā vienāpiegājienā viss, un viss jau ir tīrs." She chose the harder route because she could not allow things to be discarded.

§3 This is your most extreme example of consumption work as self-imposed labor burden. The 30 trips are not incidental — they are the direct cost of refusing the easy disposal option.

§4 “Dažkārt tiešām gribas izmest ārā, bet, nu, man tā iekšējā sajūta neļauj to darīt vienkārši.”

§5 The inner sense that prevents easy disposal. This phrase appears early and recurs throughout the interview as the motor of Līga's behavior. It is not a fully articulated ethical framework — she cannot explain it — but it functions as a powerful constraint on how she manages material excess. This is Schatzki's practical normativity in its most visceral form: an embodied orientation that shapes action without being consciously derived from principles.

§6 ITA

§7 "Kaimiņi arī ir sapratuši... gandrīz sanāk katru nedēļu." "Vai arī mēs pa ceļam kaut kur sarunājam satikties un tad viņi nodod, tā teikt, savu nesamo."

§8 Ita has built an elaborate neighbor logistics network among the interviewees. At least five neighbors regularly give her things. She coordinates pickups, meets neighbors en route, takes commissions for specific items. This is consumption work that has become a near-weekly routine organized entirely around Brīvbode. The logistics of collection: coordinating meeting points, carrying others' divestment on their behalf. This is invisible labor that neighbors outsource to Ita because she is willing and organized.

§9 "Ir tikai viens cilvēks, kas atsaucās un teica, ka viņš grib zināt adresi... bet pārējie saka, 'Nu, nē, tas ir speciāli jābrauc.'" Only one neighbor out of many actually goes themselves. The rest route their divestment through Ita. The barrier of special travel is real – but it also reveals how consumption work is delegated to those most embedded in the practice.

§10 "Daži arī saka, ka viņiem savukārt derētu kaut kas tāds un tāds. Es saku, labi, paskatīšos."

§11 She also takes acquisition commissions – neighbors request specific items and she looks for them. This is full-service consumption work: both divestment logistics and acquisition scouting on behalf of others.

§12 MARTA: "Man ir ļoti labs piemērs... viena no tajiem maisiem ir manas tantes vecās drēbes... ja es nebūtu viņai piedāvājusi šādu ideju un pati noorganizējusi... Es zinu, ka visticamāk viņas tiktu vienkārši izmestas vai sadedzinātas."

§13 Marta performs divestment labor for her aunt who would otherwise burn the clothes (because of her belief in object energy — she will not donate things that have been worn). This is a remarkable case: the aunt's refusal to participate in secondhand circulation creates a routing problem that Marta solves by acting as an intermediary. The objects cannot go directly from aunt to Brīvbode — they have to pass through Marta first. This is consumption work that is invisible, voluntary, and generated by another household member's beliefs.

§14 "Es arī esmu izstāstījusi ģimenei, draugiem, kuri, nu, viņi acis nemirkšķinot izmet to, kas viņiem ir lieks... Un tad es saku: 'Nē, ir iespēja... tādā jaukākā veidā.'"

§15 Marta actively recruits others into responsible divestment. She is doing the informational work of spreading knowledge of Brīvbode and persuading people to use it rather than throw away. This is a form of consumption work that extends beyond her own household.

§1 Ita: "Ejot iznest atkritumus... bija novietotas riepas, bet virs riepām bija kāzu kleita... Es domāju, neļausim tai kleitai... un tajā pat brīdī, kā viņa tika uzkarināta, ieradās citi klienti, mamma ar meitu. Kleitu paņēma."

§1 Valentīna: "A citi domā, kur viņa te ņēma? Vai tad viņa pirka, vai viņa kā? Brīvbodē atnāca un vsjo." — The competency of knowing how to use Brīvbode effectively — when to come, what to look for — gives Valentīna access to goods that others cannot explain. This is practical knowledge as social capital.

§2 Brīvbode is not a craft practice or a domestic routine where embodied skill is the most visible element. Freeshopping does not require years of training to enact. The competency element is real but it is mostly social and evaluative rather than physical: knowing how to navigate the space, read quality, judge what to take and what to leave, manage the implicit norms of exchange. These are competencies but they are harder to see than, say, the skill of a carpenter or a cook.

§3 The data is rich in the normative and relational dimensions of the practice – the moral economy material, the rules of exchange, the implicit expectations about reciprocity and appropriate behavior. It reflects something true about freeshopping as a practice: what makes it distinctive and what makes it work is not primarily embodied skill but the moral and social order that participants reproduce and contest.

§4 Kersty Hobson on consumption work in the circular economy – the activities, skills, and labor (cognitive, emotional, temporal resources) involved in acquiring, managing, and disposing of goods in a sustainable way.

§5 Women as moral agents in consumption (Miller)

§6 The relation between the size of our homes and the movement of stuff – in order to fulfill the ideal of declutter in a small sized home one needs to have strong boundaries – emotional labour.

§7 Consumption work as part of care work; the burdens and joys of care and responsibility (repair, thoughtful donation, where Brīvbode stands in comparison to other options people might consider).

§8 The competencies required for participation in Brīvbode: e.g. skills in identifying value in used items (e.g., repair potential, quality);

§9 Emotional work: letting go of items, managing desires and impulses;

§10 Care networks (taking for others, bringing from others), reciprocity, and informal exchanges;

§11 Ira maintains a parallel logistics network extending far beyond Brīvbode – the dog shelter neighbor, Ukrainian refugees, elderly neighbors in Daugavgrīva. The freeshop is one node in a larger system she personally manages. This is a specific instance of Ira's logistics work: identifying a need, identifying a match, communicating across distance, coordinating a visit. This is consumption work that is invisible, uncompensated, and entirely self-organized. Ira accumulates requests over time and matches them against future arrivals. This is a form of inventory management that exists entirely in her head and through her personal relationships.

§12 Care as social work: fostering responsibility and trust within the Brīvbode community; examples of breaking trust – giving unusable things; taking or giving too much.

§13 Consumption work / social norms & competencies – ko nest, ko nest ir vēlams, ko nevēlams, kas ir vērtīgs.

§14 Consumption work gives the tools to describe the attentive, relational, morally loaded dimensions that practice theory tends to flatten. These frameworks are in tension but the tension is productive — it reflects a real tension in the practice itself, between what people do without thinking and what they do with considerable intentional effort. Rather than choosing between them, you can use the tension to show that divestment work involves both registers, often in the same person and sometimes in the same act. VS Consumption work is compatible with practice theory in a way that care ethics isn't, because it stays within the same basic assumption — that what matters is what people do, not what they intend. It adds the labor and gender dimensions that practice theory undersells without introducing the intentionality problem. It fits more of your data more consistently. And the combination of practice theory and consumption work has a cleaner internal logic: practices require work, that work is unequally distributed, making it visible is the analytical contribution.

§15 Intention is there as well.

§16 Daniels par consumption – ka gribētu, lai kāds pasaka priekšā; decision fatigue, saturation

§17 Tā kā reizē gan varas attiecības – pateikt otram, kas viņam vajadzīgs, gan palīdzība.

§18 koncentrēties uz apmaiņu starp brīvbodi un mājsaimniecību: uzsvars uz mājasdarbu sadalījumu; the invention of clutter etc. minimālisma kultūru un dzīvesveidu; domestic household: the methodological focus? How stuff flows in and out.

§19 For one, some CE modes of provision appear to make consumers feel obliged to take care of, and be responsible for, the condition of goods. One example can be found in a refillable milk bottle scheme (Vaughan et al., 2007) where consumers took extra care of, and felt some stewardship towards, the reused and returned bottles even though this was not required for them to participate in the service. However, other studies report the opposite effect i.e. consumers taking less care with sequentially accessed goods (e.g. Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012).

§20 Reno: Wife – the one who decides what consumable commodities may enter their home from the outside and how. (barriers to scavenging)

§21 “Someone unfamiliar with scavenging may depict it as a purely individualistic and utilitarian pursuit of goods, meant for people without the means to buy things new. Scavengers, according to this reading, are just like capitalist shoppers: people interested in getting a good deal on things they want. The obverse assumption, more critical of consumerism, is that an attachment to buying things new – and, by extension, an avoidance of scavenging – is associated with an inability to remake and repair things as they break down. Practices of scavenging highlight that ordinary consumption is both more active and more passive than is generally understood. It is active in that consumers are choosing to buy rather than make, and to acquire new rather than reuse. But it is also passive, because the only agency consumers exert is in their choice of what product to buy and where to purchase it, whereas scavengers are often forced to experiment with, and learn more about, what they salvage.” (124)

§22 “Horton (2020) argues that much of the ethical and sustainable fashion discourse reinforces what she terms the ‘feminization of responsibility’, whereby women are positioned as both the cause of fashion’s environmental and social problems and the solution through their individual consumer choices. Such expectations are consistent with historical gender roles where women have been responsible for maintaining clothing, ensuring presentability, and managing household consumption.” (Schytte Sigaard, 2026: 14)

§23 [103] Horton, K. (2020). Just use what you have: Ethical fashion discourse and the feminisation of responsibility. In I. Parkins & M. Dever (Eds.), Fashion: New feminist essays (pp. 109-123). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003010418

§24 Consequently, women may perceive themselves as responsible not only for their own appearance but also for that of the home and other household members, with a poorly decorated home or poorly dressed family members reflecting poorly on them.

§25 Kalpot lietām – mēģināt visu salabot, tas prasa tik daudz pūļu.

§26 Consumption work – acquisition, decision making, maintenance, getting rid of stuff

§27 ““Consumption work” refers to the activities, skills, and labor that individuals and households engage in to acquire, use, manage and dispose of consumer goods.” (Glucksman —-

§28 Integrating the concept of consumption work into a practice-theoretical analysis can provide a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities and challenges involved in shifting consumption patterns.

§29 By applying the concept of consumption work, I explore how participants in the freeshop engage in various forms of labor to make the most of the resources available to them. This includes the physical labor of acquiring and maintaining items, the cognitive labor of evaluating and deciding, and the emotional labor involved in their consumption practices. This concept helps illuminate the active, skilled, and labor-intensive nature of consumption, especially in alternative economic spaces like the freeshop.

§30 The disposal of goods is increasingly analyzed as part of consumption work. In anthropology, sociology, and consumer studies, disposal is recognized as an important phase in the lifecycle of objects and an integral part of the broader process of consumption.

§31 For one, some CE modes of provision appear to make consumers feel obliged to take care of, and be responsible for, the condition of goods. One example can be found in a refillable

§32 milk bottle scheme (Vaughan et al., 2007) where consumers took extra care of, and felt some stewardship towards, the reused and returned bottles even though this was not required for them to participate in the service. However, other studies report the opposite effect i.e. consumers taking less care with sequentially accessed goods (e.g. Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012).

§33 Agnese Bankovska on care: “Despite the commonly reproduced discourse on care as the ultimate manifestation of unconditional love, warm nurture and sacrifice (cf. critical research in feminist scholarship on care as a burden and unvalued obligation), caring about or for something is not necessarily a joyful and pleasant act or experience. Indeed, it is likely that a proper care act will involve plenty of unanticipated effort, the input of extra energy, some hesitation and maybe even disgust stemming from feelings of obligation and responsibility. In essence, such care can be seen as somewhat similar to what David Graeber has described as work itself: activities that we perform because they need to be done, to obtain or take part in something else (2018: 156).” (thesis, p. 13)

§34 Thus, returning to the definition of care (see Chapter Two for a definition of care by Fisher and Tronto [1991]), the acts of giving performed care not-work can be interpreted as a means of maintaining, continuing and repairing the world or spatiotemporality that is inhabited by the families of the TP movement. (Bankovska 2020, thesis, p. 83)

§35 Following Tronto, Muehlebach and Puig de la Bellacasa’s division between ethics and the practice of care in which ethics alludes to caring about and practice implies caring for (I talk in detail about this in Chapter Two)

§36 Reno on scavenging: “serendipitous enactments of human and material potential” (100)

§37 “illicit, nonmarket forms of acquisition can be said to estrange commodities from their ordinary paths of circulation. [..] Because they are acquired differently, they can seem radically opposed to the temporality and banality of ordinary shopping.”

§38 “Someone unfamiliar with scavenging may depict it as a purely individualistic and utilitarian pursuit of goods, meant for people without the means to buy things new. Scavengers, according to this reading, are just like capitalist shoppers: people interested in getting a good deal on things they want. The obverse assumption, more critical of consumerism, is that an attachment to buying things new – and, by extension, an avoidance of scavenging – is associated with an inability to remake and repair things as they break down. Practices of scavenging highlight that ordinary consumption is both more active and more passive than is generally understood. It is active in that consumers are choosing to buy rather than make, and to acquire new rather than reuse. But it is also passive, because the only agency consumers exert is in their choice of what product to buy and where to purchase it, whereas scavengers are often forced to experiment with, and learn more about, what they salvage.” (124)

§39 Successful scavenging originates from an ability to perceive value where others do not.

§40 “Acts of restoration and maintenance are thus gendered and linked to the ideological divide between materially productive work and socially reproductive labor – for example, the value accorded to working on a house in comparison to housework or housecleaning.” (126)

§41 Feminized reproductive labor like mending clothing or transforming leftovers into a new meal.

§42 redrawing boundaries between value and waste, dignity and emasculation, skill and failure

§43 Lucky finds and clever repairs interrupt the dreamlike phantasmic ways in which subjects and objects ordinarily relate to each other within consumer capitalism.”

§44 Reno: Wife – the one who decides what consumable commodities may enter their home from the outside and how. (barriers to scavenging)

§45 on material literacy, meaning the skills and knowledge about different materials, how durable they are and with what treatment they last longest. This includes knowledge about appropriate washing, storing (Figures 2 and 3) and other care techniques like using a lint shaver or an iron.

§46 Behavioural economics – criticized for focus on the individual. Behavioural economics doesn’t address consumption drivers – A nudge won’t fix overproduction, advertising, or socio-material routines.

§47 less about personal virtue, more about orchestrating habits through structural redesign

§48 Consumption work to become a circular consumer

§49 [Consumption Work refers to the labour integral to the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of goods and services. This paper argues that the nature and scope of such work has been underplayed in Circular Economy debates to date, and that becoming a circular consumer requires varied and unevenly distributed forms of Consumption Work, which in turn, has significant implications for the success of Circular Economy. - Hobson?]

§50 • getting stuff, sorting it and getting rid of things – part of often gendered housework, consumption work that is required for circular economy to function;

§51 • women as “moral agents” of their families – knowing what is best and being on moral guard…;

§52 Joprojām visa ņemšanās ar mājas, garderobes un bērnu mantām ir sievišķīgi kodēta. Kārtošana, lietu maiņa utt.

§53 Most notably, this work emphasizes that mundane everyday activities are labour intensive. For example, Collins and Stanes (2023) demonstrate how the practice of ‘storage’ requires remembering, planning, sorting, storing, unpacking, and reappraising.

§54 We distinguish four key phases of work associated with recirculation: first, objects are identified as suitable for reuse; second, they are prepared for reuse through an ongoing process of being cleaned and readied; third, they are stored and managed ready for use; and fourth, they are mobilised in shopping preparations. (Beswick-Parsons et al., 2025: 12-13)

§55 “those who are committed to reuse may see value where others don’t” (Beswick-Parsons et al., 2025)

§56 An example of acquisition functioning as a concerted social practice is found in Daniel Miller’s study of flea markets and antiques. For the participants, visiting these markets is a "highly regular commitment"—often a weekly ritual—focused on the constant circulation, exchange, and re-acquisition of objects. In this context, the routine of trading and collecting is more important than the individual objects themselves.This suggests that for some, the practice is not "using" the thing, but the rhythm of the search and the acquisition itself.

§57 Competencies: Practice theory focuses on understanding how habits, skills, and know-how are embodied and reproduced over time. Competencies, in this framework, are seen as the embodied dispositions that allow individuals to act competently within social practices. Emphasizing competencies helps to explain how practices are learned, maintained, and passed down. By focusing on the skills and knowledge that people acquire, practice theory can demonstrate how actions are structured, routine, and reproduced across contexts. This makes it easier to see how social practices persist or change over time.

§58 Second, the thesis attends to the gendered dimensions of this work. Miller's (1998) ethnographic research on shopping demonstrates that consumption is often organised around care for others rather than individual satisfaction, and that women frequently function as moral agents in household consumption — acquiring, managing, and disposing of goods in relation to the needs of children, partners, and wider social networks. The interviews conducted for this thesis consistently reflect this pattern: it is primarily women who sort and transport donations, who evaluate what the household needs, who coordinate the outward flow of goods. This is not a finding about individual choices but about how the practices of household goods circulation are socially organised and whose labour they recruit.

§1 the invention of clutter and decluttering (the invention of the profession of organising consultants; minimalist aesthetics, decluttering).

§2 Kā decluttering kā fenomens ir saistīts ar kapitālismu; kā šī estētika ir izplatījusies. Saistība ar consumption work un care work, labour at home – veidojot arī kārtošanas konsultanta profesiju, ceļot nodarbošanās statusu un prasot par to naudu, uzsverot to kā prasmi, kompetenci un zināšanas.

§3 Linards: "Man patīk tie daži bloga posti, kur ir Brīvbodei arī, nu, kur var redzēt, ka tur, kur ir pieci veidi, kā tikt vaļā no mantām, un tur parasti ir arī Brīvbode. Ļoti labi."

§4 “Pēc tam nākamnedēļ mums būs Panorāma ciemos. Cerams, ka arī vēl būs kādi jauni apmeklētāji un tamlīdzīgi. Nu, tas ir dažādi. Ka mēs radam tos viļņus. Un tad ir atkal kāds instagrameris pareklamējis,, ka ir jātīra māja un jānes viss projām. Tad mēs redzam - okei, šonedēļ bija jātīra virtuve, mēs redzam dakšiņu un krūzīšu pieplūdumu. (Ieva)”

§5 "Pieķeršanās jautājums tiek risināts. Viņš ir procesā." "Brīvbode palīdz, tā teikt, šim procesam attīstīties." "Šobrīd jau ir uz robežas, tāpēc es saku, ka ir jāatvadās jau no tā, kas jau ir atrasts."

§6 Ita is explicitly working on her attachment to things – she names it as a problem and frames it as ongoing work. Brīvbode as a tool for developing the capacity to let go. This is the freeshop as infrastructure for a personal practice of detachment. It is a positive framing of the same phenomenon that Alise describes as generating excess – from Ita's perspective, having a route makes it easier to release.

§7 Brīvbode as material infrastructure enabling the practice of letting go. The freeshop does not just receive things; it creates conditions that make divestment possible for people who otherwise could not do it. This is the role of material arrangement in sustaining practice.

§8 the practice of divestment requires competencies that include emotional regulation and the capacity to detach from objects. Ita is developing these competencies deliberately.

§9 Agnese is the most organized household goods manager in your corpus. She sorts by category, one category per session; she times major clearouts with seasonal changes; she keeps a bag of things to potentially sell before deciding their final route;

§10 "Man liekas, ka man palīdz tas, ka es pa kategorijām kārtoju, teiksim, tur šajā nedēļas nogalē bērnu drēbes izšķirošu, un tad tikai bērnu drēbes un nejaukt klāt neko citu."

§11 The category-by-category method is a competency she has developed deliberately. It is practical wisdom about how to make the work manageable. This is consumption work as household management labor — requiring time, organization, and decision-making energy.

§12 "Dažreiz ir žēl, ka paiet tās nedēļas nogale vienkārši neizejot no mājām un kaut ko kārtojot."

§13 The time cost of responsible divestment is stated plainly: weekend afternoons spent sorting rather than doing something else. This is the invisible labor made temporarily visible by the fact that it colonizes leisure time.

§14 DIVESTMENT ROUTES – What goes where?

§15 Agnese has specific routing logic for different kinds of objects (Brīvbode for bulk children's things, Otrā Elpa for potentially valuable items, Andele for things that can be sold, H&M container for worn-out textiles).

§16 Zane R.: "Es izvērtēju, cik tā lieta ir vērtīga. Nu, ja viņa ir vērtīga, tad es viņu cenšos pārdot sākumā... Tad, ja tas nenostrādā, tad es mēdzu likt lietas 'Atbrīvojies no lietām Rīga' grupā... un tad ja, piemēram, es esmu novērtējusi, ka lieta nav tā vērta, lai viņu pārdotu... tad es aizvedu, jā, uz brīvbodi."

§17 Zane has the most explicit and systematic routing hierarchy in your corpus: sell first (Andele, Facebook) → give via direct request (Facebook group) → Brīvbode for things that don't merit the effort of selling. The routing logic is both practical and moral: she prefers direct person-to-person transfer over anonymous donation because she can see that a specific person wanted the specific thing. Brīvbode is a reliable fallback for volume — when she has several boxes of things and cannot manage individual listings for each.

§18 "Risks, ko es redzu gan Otrā elpā, gan brīvbodē, gan vispār lietu ziedošanā, ir, ka nav skaidrs, vai otrā pusē būs tas cilvēks, kam šis būs nepieciešams."

§19 Alise: "Man ir izdevīgāk strādāt mazāk un vairāk veltīt laiku tam, lai es varu plānot maltītes, plānot kaut kādus pirkumus, domāt un meklēt par pirkumiem vai aizbraukt biežāk varbūt uz to 'second hand' un tur paskatīties vai sagaidīt, kamēr es atrodu to, ko man vajag." Core passage for the argument that careful consumption requires time, and time requires working less.

§1 Often their role is in transporting the divested household objects to Brīvbode, without extending their visits to look around the shop and engage further.

§2 Jana: "Tas ir mans. Kā es smejos, es esmu tas, kas apgādā visus ar drēbēm un apaviem."

§3 Explicit statement of gendered consumption work: Jana manages clothing acquisition for the whole household. She did this for her husband until he developed his own strong brand preferences. She does it for the children. This is Miller's moral agency in household consumption — stated with humor but quite direct.

§4 Austra: "Jā, es to daru. Viņam būtu vienalga, viņš izmestu arī miskastē." She makes the divestment decisions, organizes what goes where, and carries things to Brīvbode. Her husband would discard without routing — she is the one who routes. She also asks his opinion on specific items from the household, but the initiative and the labor are hers.

§5 "Svešas lietas šķirot ir easy, ļoti viegli. Bet kad ir tavējās, tad ir tāds, 'Nē, nu, bet šitā pērlīte noderēs vēl tam un tam.' Tu zini, ka nenoderēs."

§6 This is your most precise statement of why divestment is difficult — the asymmetry between evaluating others' things and your own. Jana can sort others' possessions quickly and ruthlessly; her own require negotiation, justification, deferral. This is attachment to objects stated as a practical problem rather than an emotional one.

§7 "Man ir regulāri tā, ka es jau salieku kasti, jau projām viņu atdodu. Un nākamajā dienā ir zvans, un tieši vajag to, kas tajā kastē bija."

§8 The divestment paradox — the moment you let go is the moment you discover you needed it. This is so consistent for Jana that she has stopped trying to resolve it and simply lets things stay. Analytically this is Evans's divestment process — the moment of decision is structurally unstable.

§1 Laura L.: "Tā drēbju stanga... man liekas, viņa vēl kādam varētu noderēt. Un es neesmu to vēl tā kā izrisinājusi."

§2 A clothes rail that no longer has a place in her apartment but which she cannot yet bring herself to take anywhere — it might be useful to someone, but the uncertainty paralyzes her. This is the divestment ambivalence in a domestic object rather than a garment: the sense that something is still good, someone could use it, but the act of routing it somewhere requires a decision she has not made.

§1 "Parasti jā, bet ja es zinu, ka es gribu aiznest kaut ko, lai viņas pārāk nesabēdājas, tad es aizskrienu bez viņām."

§2 "Bija gadījumi, kad mēs jau aiznesam un tad tas tiek likts viss pa plauktiem un kāda no meitenēm ierauga, ka viņa tomēr grib to lietu atpakaļ, tad ar asarām acīs un stiepj mājās atpakaļ."

§3 Divestment with children is not just a logistical challenge but a pedagogical one. Agnese sometimes goes without the girls to avoid the tears; other times she takes them and uses the visit as an occasion to discuss why they are giving things away, what makes a good divestment decision, what is too worn to donate.

§4 "Tā ir arī iespēja parunāties par lietām."

§5 Brīvbode visits as moral education. The children learn about material quality, about when something is good enough to give versus good enough only to discard, about not taking things they already have or that are not suitable. This is practice transmission to the next generation happening explicitly and consciously.

§6 "Es atsaiņoju, paskatos, kas tur ir, un daļu noslēpju, pirms bērni vispār ierauga." — The interception of gifts before children see them is the most specific practical competency in your corpus for managing the inflow problem in a household with children. It is simultaneously consumption work and child management work. Reframe as: the management of household material inflow when children are present requires specific competencies — including timing, interception, and pedagogical sequencing — that adults without children do not need to develop.

§1 [No Singapūras pētījuma] Campbell-Johnston et al.’s (2020) argument that an item’s sequential (re)use is not a given. Rather, (re)use is underpinned by relational labour bound up in what Hobson (2020) calls social circularities.

§2 Not unlike systems thinking that undergirds a circular logic, we have shown that ‘energy’ (i.e. volunteer, re-lational labour) as well as material inputs (i.e. things for recirculating, an available/accessible venue) are required for sustaining free(cycling) markets, and that this can only be accomplished as a community.

§3 Freecycling markets may be environmentally sustainable but not-so-sustainable with respect to the space, time and labour needed to run them in Singapore. Such a disjuncture illuminates the significance of contextualising sustainable materialist movements in its spatio-material and socio-cultural context. While material inputs in terms of reusable things are readily available, suitable spaces, unpaid volunteer labour and community networks necessary to organise and sustain such markets are in short supply.

§4 Tölg, R., & Fuentes, C. (2025). Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing. Consumption and Society, 4(2), 213-231. Retrieved Apr 23, 2026, from https://doi.org/10.1332/27528499Y2024D000000032