Yes — in the MIKAEL draft context, this paragraph is basically the thesis-level synthesis you’ve been circling around. It joins Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 very well:

• Chapter 4: how circulation is made possible — venue, flow, sorting, norms, moral economy, tolerating contradictions ( #9XAKTW Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation , #L252MY Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation Across the chapter, I sustain the view that the character of Brīvbode as a non-monetary site of exchange is held together less by a single definition than by the moral economy that allows incompatible orientations to coexist. , #M3VCHH Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations Freecycling in Brīvbode is sustained by a plurality of meanings that are compatible enough to coexist within the same space. Givers come to resolve the moral weight of unwanted things, the site’s permanence and visibility offer a trusted route for it. Takers come for dignity, experimentation, craft materials, social contact or simple convenience. The moral economy of exchange holds these heterogenous orientations together, as it is actively maintained against the pressure of resellers, heavy takers and people looking for charity, yet flexible enough to accommodate them when the alternative is overflow. ).

• Chapter 5: what circulation costs and who carries that cost — labour, care, gendered responsibility, invisible work ( #DM28T4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode Rasa, the principal manager of Brīvbode, compared the swapshop’s operation to the flight of a bumblebee: while seemingly defying the laws of aerodynamics, it nevertheless continues to fly. This chapter examines the work that keeps Brīvbode running. Where the previous chapter examined freecycling as a practice – its venues, materials, meanings, and competencies, and the moral economy through which they cohere – this chapter turns to what that practice costs and to the people who pay it: in time, skill, and effort, and in the relational and ethical attention that the tasks of circulation demand. That labour is largely unpaid, unevenly distributed, and absorbed into existing practices of household management. , #EF5DET Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode The chapter is organized by two complementary registers. Consumption work (Wheeler and Glucksmann 2015) names the tasks the practice demands – acquiring, sorting, maintaining, divesting, transporting – and tracks how they are distributed across technical, modal, and processual dimensions of the division of labour. Care work, in the feminist tradition and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), names the relational and ethical orientation through which participants take this labour on, often without recognising it as work at all. , #5YXGE6 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion This chapter has examined the labour that sustains freecycling in Brīvbode, finding it distributed across structural, ethical, and gendered dimensions that existing circular economy frameworks tend to overlook. Wheeler and Glucksmann’s consumption work concept names the structure: tasks that paid institutions would perform in formal retail or waste management contexts are here absorbed by unpaid volunteers and participants, distributed across modal and processual dimensions that stretch well beyond the freeshop itself. The feminist ethics of care and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), together with Bankovska’s (2020) care not-work and Graeber’s (2018) account of work as what just needs to be done, name the orientation: much of this labour is not transferred from institutions onto reluctant consumers but self-imposed through ethical commitment and care – activities people perform because they cannot bring themselves not to. Miller (1998) names who bears it: consistently and disproportionately women, from household sorting and routing to managing others’ generosity to transmitting these competencies to the next generation. , #RX9JDU Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion What Brīvbode reveals — and what makes it analytically valuable for circular economy debates — is that the absence of price does not produce a frictionless flow of materials. It produces a different kind of work: gendered, ethically motivated, absorbed into household routines, and sustained by people who have organised their lives to be able to do it. Recognising this work as both consumption work and care work is the first step toward circular economy policy that can see it, support it, and not depend on its invisibility. ).

• Final conclusion: what this means for circularity as an anthropological/circular economy concept — circularity is not an automatic loop but an ongoing, situated accomplishment.

I think this paragraph belongs either near the beginning of the final conclusion, after you restate the research aim, or as the core final analytical paragraph replacing the current fragment cluster around #U2PZ9C Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange CONCLUSION Brīvbode operates within the conditions of overproduction, where the circulation of goods is shaped as much by excess as by need. While it enables reuse and access, it also absorbs the material overflow generated elsewhere. 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 that becomes especially evident in circular economy contexts where more participation is needed. While some consumption work is alleviated in Brīvbode, it is replaced by other types. , #FE5BCM Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange CONCLUSION 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. , #GUXEZX Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange CONCLUSION While alternative, they simultaneously overlap with some of the meanings present in capitalist consumption –... Brīvbode is at once an answer to a household problem and an arena where people work out possibly alternative relations to things. , #HMDEDU Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange CONCLUSION Brīvbode's moral economy is negotiated, situational practice where the meaning of "right circulation" is worked out in real time rather than determined in advance. .

The strongest conceptual move is this:

circularity is not a loop that closes by itself. It has to be kept moving.

That sentence is excellent because it converts “Keeping Things Moving” from a chapter title into the thesis argument. It also answers the “so what?”: Brīvbode shows circularity as practice, not as system diagram.

I would slightly adapt it to fit the draft’s existing vocabulary: “moral economy,” “consumption work,” “care work,” “overflow,” “non-domestic site,” and “incompatible orientations.” Maybe avoid introducing “moral-material practice” unless you want to define it, because the thesis already has strong terms doing that work.

A MIKAEL-compatible version could be:

What Brīvbode ultimately shows is that circularity is not a loop that closes by itself. It has to be kept moving. This movement depends on a non-domestic, semi-public infrastructure where objects can be detached from household routines, made visible, sorted, reclassified, and offered for new uses. It also depends on situated judgement: knowing when to insist on the norms of exchange, when to tolerate imperfect circulation, when to hold back desirable things, when to remove or redirect unsuitable items, and when to let contradictory meanings coexist. Keeping things moving is therefore not only a logistical task but the central practice through which Brīvbode’s moral economy is maintained. At the same time, this is where the limits of circularity become visible. The work of circulation is unevenly distributed, often gendered, dependent on care, and continually exposed to the surplus generated by the very consumption patterns it seeks to soften.

This version links directly to:

• Brīvbode as an infrastructure/node of divestment and acquisition ( #5XUPCJ Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home The material outcome of one practice present in Brīvbode (domestic divestment: things arrive) is a direct resource for another (sequential acquisition: things are taken), sustaining the circularity between different households and the freeshop. Instead of starting at the “shop”, freecycling in Brīvbode can be viewed as starting with the outward flow of things no longer needed or wanted in the household and the question of what to do with them. The practice of managing this flow (what Počinkova et al. (2023) call voluntary disposal) is what brings most givers to Brīvbode. The swapshop offers them an opportunity for circulating materials as well as a way of managing attachment and detachment from things. Brīvbode is one node in the available infrastructure of divestment, and is distinguished from others by what it means to route things through it. , #EKYQ3W Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation Following the trajectory of things moving through Brīvbode, I trace the incoming flow of things into Brīvbode, starting with the decisions of divestment in the households of participants. I look at how Brīvbode is positioned among possible routes of divestment, and turn to the site itself to see how its material elements sustain the practice of circulation, as well as how the competencies and norms at play let the swapshop cope with the constant pressure of overflow. )

• incompatible orientations held together through moral economy ( #L252MY Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation Across the chapter, I sustain the view that the character of Brīvbode as a non-monetary site of exchange is held together less by a single definition than by the moral economy that allows incompatible orientations to coexist. , #M3VCHH Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations Freecycling in Brīvbode is sustained by a plurality of meanings that are compatible enough to coexist within the same space. Givers come to resolve the moral weight of unwanted things, the site’s permanence and visibility offer a trusted route for it. Takers come for dignity, experimentation, craft materials, social contact or simple convenience. The moral economy of exchange holds these heterogenous orientations together, as it is actively maintained against the pressure of resellers, heavy takers and people looking for charity, yet flexible enough to accommodate them when the alternative is overflow. )

• pragmatic tolerance of resellers/heavy takers when overflow is the alternative ( #7FPBUS Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange The imperative to keep things flowing to avoid overflow creates a certain tolerance in case of suspicion for such practices that formally fall outside Brīvbode’s rules. Reselling is not allowed, yet resellers are a suspected presence in Brīvbode. Volunteers mentioned situations when other visitors in Brīvbode have told them they have recognized their divested items at the Āgenskalns flea market the following weekend, which Rasa acknowledges as straightforwardly unpleasant. Yet because it is not always possible to prove, there is also a working accommodation, and Rasa’s position is one of pragmatic acceptance: “At the same time it seems – if he'll find the next user for the thing anyway, the function is fulfilled. Better they make a little money and the thing finds its person, than some hoarder takes it and the things end up in a container." She laughs: "Well, what choice do I have but to believe… We support small businesses." , #ERMRTL Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange Viesturs frames this ecologically: "Well, I could see them now as forest sanitarians." Without moral approval, the resellers, the hoarders and heavy-takers are reframed as functional elements as they clear out the accumulation of materials that would otherwise clog the space. Viesturs response to this is tactical curatorial competency: if a person he suspects is present at the shop, he often doesn’t put new items out on the shelves until they leave. This is his practical judgement and competency to “read the room” enacted situationally. )

• removal/redirecting of unsuitable items and textile overflow ( #7CR75E Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation A stronger boundary emerges in relation to certain categories of items, such as medicine. In one instance, a regular visitor brought various medications, explaining their uses to the day manager. While the items were initially placed on the table for taking, a while later another worker quietly removed them, remarking to me, “I don’t think I support this.” The removal was not communicated directly to the donor, suggesting a reluctance to enforce the norm explicitly. Instead of a formal refusal, workers might suggest that perhaps the giver has not noticed the defects, but items could be washed and brought back or simply delay decisions until the giver is no longer present. , #WW8YUW Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Within the material realm, Brīvbode is also embedded in and dependent upon broader infrastructural arrangements in order to manage the overflow it cannot absorb. The swapshop passes leftover textiles – in some estimates up to 30 % of the received flow (Akule et al. 2023) – to textile collection containers. The shop would not be viable if it had to cover the costs of regular unsorted waste collection. Also, off-season clothing such as winter coats that take a lot of space are stored in collaboration with charity organisations that have access to larger storage premises. Brīvbode can sustain – in a pragmatic, improvised manner – because of this material entanglement instead of trying to resolve the full material cycle on its own. )

• Chapter 5’s argument that this is unpaid, gendered consumption/care work ( #5YXGE6 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion This chapter has examined the labour that sustains freecycling in Brīvbode, finding it distributed across structural, ethical, and gendered dimensions that existing circular economy frameworks tend to overlook. Wheeler and Glucksmann’s consumption work concept names the structure: tasks that paid institutions would perform in formal retail or waste management contexts are here absorbed by unpaid volunteers and participants, distributed across modal and processual dimensions that stretch well beyond the freeshop itself. The feminist ethics of care and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), together with Bankovska’s (2020) care not-work and Graeber’s (2018) account of work as what just needs to be done, name the orientation: much of this labour is not transferred from institutions onto reluctant consumers but self-imposed through ethical commitment and care – activities people perform because they cannot bring themselves not to. Miller (1998) names who bears it: consistently and disproportionately women, from household sorting and routing to managing others’ generosity to transmitting these competencies to the next generation. , #HM56MD Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion Circular consumption requires substantial labour, and that labour is unevenly distributed. Sustainability of initiatives like Brīvbode depends on a structural condition – the sufficiency-oriented, time-rich, predominantly female volunteer and participant base that circular economy policy rarely names or supports (Hobson et al., 2021). Some of this labour is unreflexive and habituated – Aiga's inner feeling that prevents easy disposal, Marija's building logistics naturalised into her social role. Some is deliberate and effortful – Kristīne's category-by-category method, Madara working on her impulse-acquiring. Both are labour, but they are differently visible, and the unreflexive forms are the hardest to see and the hardest for policy to reach. , #RX9JDU Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion What Brīvbode reveals — and what makes it analytically valuable for circular economy debates — is that the absence of price does not produce a frictionless flow of materials. It produces a different kind of work: gendered, ethically motivated, absorbed into household routines, and sustained by people who have organised their lives to be able to do it. Recognising this work as both consumption work and care work is the first step toward circular economy policy that can see it, support it, and not depend on its invisibility. )

One small caution: the phrase “when to discard” may sound too final/bin-like. In the Brīvbode argument, it is often more precise to say “remove or redirect unsuitable items”, because the thesis shows discarding, textile containers, storage elsewhere, and quiet refusal as part of the same pragmatic management of flow ( #WW8YUW Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Within the material realm, Brīvbode is also embedded in and dependent upon broader infrastructural arrangements in order to manage the overflow it cannot absorb. The swapshop passes leftover textiles – in some estimates up to 30 % of the received flow (Akule et al. 2023) – to textile collection containers. The shop would not be viable if it had to cover the costs of regular unsorted waste collection. Also, off-season clothing such as winter coats that take a lot of space are stored in collaboration with charity organisations that have access to larger storage premises. Brīvbode can sustain – in a pragmatic, improvised manner – because of this material entanglement instead of trying to resolve the full material cycle on its own. , #7CR75E Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation A stronger boundary emerges in relation to certain categories of items, such as medicine. In one instance, a regular visitor brought various medications, explaining their uses to the day manager. While the items were initially placed on the table for taking, a while later another worker quietly removed them, remarking to me, “I don’t think I support this.” The removal was not communicated directly to the donor, suggesting a reluctance to enforce the norm explicitly. Instead of a formal refusal, workers might suggest that perhaps the giver has not noticed the defects, but items could be washed and brought back or simply delay decisions until the giver is no longer present. ).

So: yes, this paragraph is doing the right work. It should become the spine of the final conclusion, probably placed after #JE7FK2 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange CONCLUSION This thesis is an ethnographic study of a swapshop to investigate how these spaces foster alternative consumption practices that possibly sustain alternative logics of value and ownership. This thesis is a contribution to the studies of circular consumption using ethnographic methods with practice theory approach. and used to reorganise the current fragments into a clearer contribution: Brīvbode reveals circularity as maintained movement, sustained by moral economy, consumption work, and care under conditions of overflow.

We have a pretty strong circular economy / circular consumption cluster in the corpus. For your thesis, I’d sort it like this:

1. Core circular economy framing + critique

These help define CE and critique the “closed loop” fantasy.

• Hobson — “Closing the loop or squaring the circle?” #8ZKAT7
  Good for the argument that CE is not just technical loop-closing; it needs attention to social/material arrangements and “generative spaces.” Useful for your line that circularity does not close by itself.

• Hobson — “The limits of the loops” #UMYA27
  Very useful for critical CE language. It includes the mainstream definition: keeping resources in use, extracting value, recovering/regenerating products at end of life ( #SF6H7V The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy 2021 Kersty Hobson Introduction: Circular Economy as ‘weak’ sustainability rebooted? 'an alternative to a traditional linear economy (make, use, dispose) in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service life' (Wrap 2019, no page) ). Good for setting up the limits of that imaginary.

• Shove & Rinkinen — “Material culture and the circular economy” #R69WZQ
  Very close to your argument. It takes CE through material culture/object relations. The excerpt with Stahel’s definition is useful: CE would turn goods at end of service life into resources for others; “reuse what you can, recycle what cannot be used, repair what is broken…” ( #RHNFFH Material culture and the circular economy 2023 Elizabeth Shove, Jenny Rinkinen 1. Introduction A “circular economy” would turn goods that are at the end of their service life into resources for others, closing loops in industrial ecosystems and minimizing waste... It would change economic logic because it replaces production with sufficiency: reuse what you can, recycle what cannot be used, repair what is broken, remanufacture what cannot be repaired. (Stahel, 2016: 435) ). Good for your “objects do not just circulate; relations to objects must be reorganised” point.

• Jensen et al. — “There is no sustainable circular economy without a circular society” #GKZ9HP
  Short but conceptually useful: CE cannot be only technical/economic cycles; it needs social transformation. This supports your claim that Brīvbode shows the social infrastructure and labour behind circularity ( #XC5NZN There is no sustainable circular economy without a circular society 2021 Charlotte Jensen, Florian Hofmann, Jakob Zwiers, Melanie Jaeger-Erben There is no sustainable circular economy without a circular society A Circular Economy (CE) aims to keep non-renewable resources in permanent use through the establishment of technical and economic cycles, minimizing energy loss and de-materializing production and consumption. A major goal of associated political strategies, such as the European Green Deal and the European Circular Economy Action Plan is to decouple resource use from economic growth to generate sustainable systems of consumption and production (SCP). Recent critical reflections on the CE debate, however, highlight the missing concern for social sustainability and social transformation. It is critiqued that CE has been conceptualized as an ecological modernization project that builds on capitalist economic growth narratives (Hobson and Lynch, 2016). ).

2. Circular consumption and practice theory

These are probably the backbone for your contribution.

• Camacho-Otero, Boks & Pettersen — “Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review” #PSBVW7
  This is the review article. It says CE research has focused more on production/business models than on consumption, and that less is known about how CE affects everyday life ( #5QVW6D Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review 2018 Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero 1. Introduction A circular economy (CE) aims at decoupling value creation from waste generation and resource use [1] by radically transforming production and consumption systems [2]. Most of the literature on the circular economy seems to focus on the production side, exploring circular business models [3], strategies to develop circular value propositions [4], and the benefits of such models [5]. Less attention seems to have been paid to how consumption and consumers would affect or be affected by the circular economy [2]. As suggested by Hobson et al. [6] the circular economy might translate into significant changes in people’s everyday lives, but there seems to be little understanding of such alterations in the scientific literature, and the policies promoting the circular economy [7]. Among such changes are the , #JGRGPR Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review 2018 Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero 1. Introduction Despite the realisation that the circular economy translates into significant changes in consumption, recent reviews on the circular economy do not provide comprehensive accounts of such issues. For example, Kirchherr et al. [2] found that only 19% of the papers defining the circular economy considered consumption, and highlighted that not enough is known about why consumers would participate in the circular economy or not. Van Eijk’s [10] review focussed on drivers and barriers to the circular economy, and although it included consumption and business/consumer acceptance as one of its thematic areas, the insights offered were rather general. Geissdoerfer et al. [11] investigated the relationship between the circular economy and sustainability, but did not make any significant reference regarding the consumer or consumption aspects. Finally, Ghisellini et al. [12] found that the existing literature on circular economy considers consumers to be passive and rational recipients that will follow labels and other production-side signals when making decisions. ). It also identifies gaps around equity, power, and free labour transferred to consumers ( #4DLFYA Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review 2018 Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero 6. Conclusions Moreover, questions regarding equity and power in the circular economy are missing from the literature, as different authors have already pointed out [6,7,24,167]. Given the alterations in ownership, such topics raise interesting questions; for instance, how would the power balance between companies and consumers alter in a 100% access-based economy, or how willing would consumers be to give up privacy for the sake of comfort? What about the free labour that companies are getting by transferring assemblage or repair responsibilities to consumers? What is the role of media and other cultural actors in creating the conditions for a transition to a circular economy? These gaps, in addition to the ones highlighted in the literature, provide a picture of new avenues for research that can contribute to better understanding the conditions that facilitate the transition to a circular economy. ). Very useful for positioning your thesis.

• Hobson et al. / Welch et al. — “Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda” #NUEUVY
  Essential for Chapter 5. It argues that CE debates underplay the labour required of “circular consumers” and asks who undertakes that work, to what ends, and how it is coordinated ( #629UVN Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. 2021 Dan Welch, Harald Wieser, Helen Holmes, Katy Wheeler, Kersty Hobson ABSTRACT Circular Economy frameworks have become central to debates and interventions that aim to reduce global resource use and environmental despoliation. As pathways to both systemic and micro-scale transformations, there remain many challenges to making Circular Economy actionable. One such challenge is facilitating the emergence of the 'circular consumer'. Here, we are all encouraged to shift everyday practices to consume new products and services and/or participate in the 'Sharing Economy': all of which are claimed, in some prominent debates, to automatically offer more 'convenience' for the consumer. In response, this paper argues that viewing such debates through the lens of Consumption Work offers a different picture of what it takes to be, and what we need to know about, the circular consumer. 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. This paper thus proposes a research agenda into this topic, outlining five, inter-related, critical issues that a Circular Economy research agenda must address, including questions of who undertakes Consumption Work; to what ends; and how its multiple forms are coordinated within and beyond the household. ). This is one of your strongest theoretical anchors.

• Fuentes, Närvänen & Mesiranta — “The Assembling of Circular Consumption” #Y3CFPX
  Very useful for your “kept moving” argument. It frames circular consumption not as a ready-made thing adopted by consumers, but as a continuous process/performance shaped by sociomaterial arrangements ( #ZAQHJX The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach 2023 Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta Introduction In this chapter, we conceptualise and empirically illustrate the formation of circular consumption. We approach circular consumption not as a ready-made pattern that end users simply adopt when they make choices about products and services, but as a continuous process and performance. Drawing upon the sociomaterial perspective, we argue that the performance of circular consumption is both enabled and shaped by broader sociomaterial processes. To understand the role that consumers play as catalysts of circular consumption, we must first understand how and under what conditions circular consumption is made possible. ). Also explicitly says CE depends on how people acquire, care for, get rid of, and circulate things ( #ZUYWH3 The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach 2023 Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta Introduction Consumption plays a pivotal role in the transition to a circular economy (CE). The ways in which we, as consumers, buy and use products and services, how we take care of these through maintenance and repair, and how we get rid of and circulate things no longer needed or wanted are crucial for such a change towards a CE (Hobson et al., 2021; Sijtsma et al., 2020). ).

• Tölg dissertation — “The (im)possibilities of circular consumption” #8EVNK8
  Very relevant because it works on clothing, care, valuation, households, and the limits of performing circular consumption in a landscape still organised for linear consumption. Useful quote: circular consumption requires acquiring, using and disposing differently, including second-hand acquisition, repair, maintenance, and reuse ( #Y6RG69 The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings 2025 Réka Tölg Introduction Connected to these ambitions, a central goal has become to engage consumers in the circular economy (CE) and bring about circular consumption (e.g., Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2013; European Commission, 2015). Performing circular consumption involves acquiring, using and disposing of goods in new ways. In the CE, consumers need to purchase differently, as according to circularity principles goods need to be acquired second-hand, from recycled sources or even accessed through rental services (Dissanayake and Weerasinghe, 2022; Machado et al., 2019). At the same time, consumers also need to use and dispose of their possessions differently, slowing the use of materials through repair and maintenance and ensuring reuse is equally important as closing material loops (Bocken et al., 2016; Geissdoerfer et al., 2017). ). Also very good for “linear landscapes” and how circularity becomes an add-on rather than a break with linear consumption ( #DK5UEU The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings 2025 Réka Tölg The (im)possibilities of circular consumption in linear landscapes This dissertation points out how retail market materialities, while enabling some forms of circular consumption, are also arranged to support the co-existence of circular and linear modes of consumption. As this dissertation shows, circular consumption as loops of circularity added to linear modes of consumption (see also Sutcliffe, 2022; Wethal and Hoff, 2024), becomes produced in retail settings. Even if consumers are enabled to do circular practices, such as repair or gentle laundry in their households through additional consumption work, the purchase of new items is not excluded in retail settings. Consumers are rather enabled to buy new garments and then perform additional repairs or upcycling as circular loops. Through mostly placing the circular consumption work in households, instead of handling it in stores, retail settings are arranged to enable the co-existence of linear and circular modes of consumption. This limiting of circular consumption to additional loops is contested, in some ways, by the case of the alternative denim retailer. In their stores, consumers are materially and discursively enabled through various market materialities to sidestep the linear modes of consumption and instead repair what they already own or opt for buying a repaired item. However, the more mainstream (retail) market arrangements mostly enable consumers to develop and enact circular competences as add-ons, instead of questioning and devaluing the linear fast-paced consumer culture. ).

3. Care, ethics, and circularity

These connect directly to your Chapter 5 and final conclusion.

• Fuentes & Tölg — “Care and circularity” #AVNZLE
  Key source. It argues that consumer care is built into the CE project: people must care for belongings, packaging, food, clothes, the environment, future others, etc. ( #A42MYV Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing 2025 Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg Introduction Circular consumption involves consumer practices that work towards extending product lifetimes and enabling multiple cycles of use and recycling (Mylan et al, 2016; Hobson, 2020; Sutcliffe, 2022). Accordingly, in a circular system, consumers need to acquire, use, look after and part with products in ways that recirculate or reuse materials and minimise waste. Therefore, consumers are asked to care for their belongings (Ackermann, 2018; Jaeger-Erben et al, 2021; Rabiú and Jaeger-Erben, 2022) while at the same time care for the environment and future generations. Although seldom made explicit, consumer care is thus built into the circular economy project. For example, consumers are asked to care for packaging – recycle, wash and fold it – and sort it into the appropriate bins. Consumers are also asked to care for food, plan their food shopping, ‘rescue’ food close to its expiration date and make meals from leftovers to reduce food waste. Furthermore, as this article will explore in more detail, they are urged to repair their clothes, wash them sparingly, and protect them from wear and tear. All these prompts are aimed at not only caring for consumption objects but also at caring for the environment, the welfare of distant others and future generations. ). It also shows circular clothing consumption requires care resources, not just responsibility ( #HS25S8 Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing 2025 Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg Discussion and conclusion Third, our analysis of caring in circular clothing practices highlights that the performance of circular consumption requires more than care awareness and responsibility-taking. Consumers also rely on care resources of different sorts. These resources, in turn, are often connected to and made available by wider market structures. This contributes to sociological circular consumption research, as it foregrounds how circular consumption is embedded and often shaped by wider market arrangements. As circular consumption research turns its attention to the home (for example, Greene et al, 2024), it is important to understand that performing different forms of circular consumption in the home is also embedded in a wider consumption landscape (Fuentes and Sörum, 2019). ). Very strong for Brīvbode as care-dependent circularity.

• Mesiranta et al. — “Circular Consumption Practices as Matters of Care” #BQ2W57
  Also very useful. It reframes circular consumption as care: tinkering, affective practice, ethico-political action ( #BWGPV6 Circular Consumption Practices as Matters of Care 2025 Elina Närvänen, Malla Mattila, Nina Mesiranta, Outi Koskinen Abstract While a circular economy (CE) paradigm shift has gained significant momentum among academics, practitioners, and policymakers, theory regarding its social aspects remains scant , especially theory based on an ethical, micro-level perspective . Circular consumption, referring to those consumption practices that aim to extend the lifetimes of objects and materials, involves ethical considerations. However, everyday circular consumption and its ethics have not gained a foothold in the CE literature . This article builds on the existing circular consumption literature by drawing insights from the posthuman feminist theorising of care, shifting the focus of care from humans to the complex relations between humans and nonhumans and conceptualising circular consumption practices as matters of care . This conceptualisation, which follows a thinking-with-theory approach, is based on empirical material constructed in two research projects focusing on frontrunner consumers in terms of circular consumption in Finland: food waste reduction and circular clothing consumption. We identify circular consumption as care by introducing three distinct perspectives: care as tinkering, care as affective practices, and care as ethico-political action . We show that approaching circular consumption practices as matters of care, while not always easy or straightforward, is an attempt to make consumption better : more attentive, inclusive, durable, and enjoyable . Our findings emphasise the interconnected nature of circular practices, the constant performativity of circular consumption, and nonhumans as crucial stakeholders in care relations. Consequently, we offer an alternative to technocentric CE perspectives and a way to promote a sustainable world through care. ). This supports your “moral-material practice” language, though you may want to translate it into your own vocabulary.

• Isenhour & Reno — “On Materiality and Meaning: Ethnographic Engagements with Reuse, Repair & Care” #CUWPC9
  Good anthropological bridge. They warn that CE logics focused on efficiency can miss labour, affective energy, and value redefinition involved in reuse/repair ( #Y8TS2B On Materiality and Meaning: Ethnographic Engagements with Reuse, Repair & Care 2019 Cindy Isenhour, Joshua Reno Conclusion As we hope the contributions to this special issue make clear, reuse and repair are about much more than economic efficiency. The recent emergence of advocacy for reuse marks a significant improvement upon our shockingly wasteful linear production-consumption system and makes a lot of sense in the context of simultaneous economic and environmental crises of modernity. But, we ought not to forget that reuse is also fundamentally about care and the investment of human labor and affective energy in the redefinition of value, not just attached to objects but also to social relations. While these practices are old, contemporary circular economy logics so heavily trained on calculations of energy and materials efficiencies, risk missing this important element of value and, without more reflection, subordinate societal interests to the logic of the market, rather than the inverse. ). Very Brīvbode.

4. Freecycling, swapping, reuse loops

These are most directly comparable to Brīvbode.

• Yeoh & Tan — “Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements?” #FHZZ6U
  Probably the closest empirical CE/freecycling comparison. It distinguishes short reuse loops from long recycling loops and foregrounds “rescue” and “recirculation” ( #NKZQC2 Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore 2024 Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan ABSTRACT This paper seeks to redress the over-emphasis on state-driven circular policies in public and academic discourses by attending to two physical community-based freecycling markets at the emerging frontiers of circular waste/resource management in Singapore. Freecycling markets that close short reuse loops are a counterpoint to policies that close long recycling loops. Drawing primarily on empirical data from ethnographic fieldwork, we argue that freecycling markets exemplify a sustainable materialist movement concerned about the sustainability of material resources vis-à-vis the closing/shortening of material circularity loops. This is achieved through the reconfiguration of (a) material flows and (b) material relations. The redirection of unwanted but reusable household objects away from the incinerator and towards potential reusers animates a shift from a linear to circular material flow. We contend that this redirection of material resources for reuse is augmented by rescue and recirculation, which are relatively neglected within the scholarship on circular R-behaviours. Additionally, freecycling markets seek to transform material relations by encouraging care and stewardship, instead of use and disposal. Crucially, we highlight how freecycling markets may be plagued with material constraints that render them not-so-sustainable-and-scalable, thereby shedding light on the practical limits of sustainable materialist action. Taken together, this paper extends the scholarship on circular economies by bringing work on sustainable materialism into a productive dialogue with that on circular activisms and R-behaviours. ). Also useful for R-behaviours: refuse, reduce, reuse/resell, repair, etc., with short loops close to consumers ( #P4K8SC Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore 2024 Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan 1. INTRODUCTION The transition towards a 'circular economy' has gained traction in the wake of a climate emergency and environmental crisis. As opposed to a linear take-make-dispose model, a circular economic paradigm has been touted as the solution to resource depletion and waste production by turning waste (i.e. outputs) into resources (i.e. inputs) for another production cycle. Such a transformation closes the circularity loop, which is realised via a range of R-behaviours (also called R-hierarchies or R-imperatives). Reike et al.'s (2018) hierarchy of circular R-behaviours, also called resource value retention options (ROs) include refuse (R0), reduce (R1), resell/reuse (R2), repair (R3), refurbish (R4), remanufacture (R5), repurpose (R6), recycle (material, R7), recover (energy R8) and re-mine (R9). They have divided their ten ROs into short, medium and long loops. Short loops (R0–R3) exist in proximity to the consumer. Medium loops (R4–R6) involve business networks for upgrading (e.g. refurbishing) a product that is indirectly linked to the consumer. Long loops (R7–R9) entail waste processing activities that are far removed from the consumer, with things being broken down and losing their original utility. ). Good for showing Brīvbode as short-loop circularity.

• Eden — “Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle” #59QUM6
  Good older Freecycle source. It links divestment to circularity and shows how objects move in and out of categories of value/waste ( #7FG779 Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle 2017 Sally Eden Implosion 1: Consumption/production and the rise of prosumption Hence, digital prosumption offers ways to collectively produce, change and reproduce moral ordering through (culturally mediated) interaction. Commodities are commodified (for purchase), then 'decommodified' (through use and personalisation) and sometimes may be 'recommodified' or 'recontextualised' (for resale) 'through a series of moments, of which exchange for money is just one' (Sayer, 2003, p. 346). In the case of divestment in particular, the implicit linearity and one-way directionality in typical analyses of commodity chains that end with disposal can be reimagined through circularity, with waste being reused, recycled and reinvented as other products, comparable to ideas of 'industrial symbiosis', 'industrial ecology' and 'closing the loop' of manufacturing/disposal (e.g. Jackson, 1996). Thus, in a study of e-waste, Lepawsky and Mather (2011) 'kept finding "value," not "waste"' as things/materialities moved into and out of the category of 'valueless' (p. 247). ). Useful for your value reclassification argument.

• Camacho-Otero et al. — “Consumer engagement in the circular economy: Exploring clothes swapping…” #UB9EAT
  Directly on clothes swapping from a social practice perspective. Good for clothing swaps as circular practices rather than individual consumer choices.

• Počinková et al. — “Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers’ voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events” #TBPJS6
  Useful for voluntary disposal/divestment and community-based swap infrastructures. This seems already woven into Chapter 4.

• Jučienė et al. — “Calculating the Environmental Impact Reduction Due to Extended Lifespan of Clothing Through Clothing Swaps” #X8QHRR
  More quantitative/environmental impact angle. Useful only if you need a “yes, swaps can reduce impact if lifespan is extended” reference, but less central anthropologically.

5. Repair, reuse, and household labour

These support the labour/maintenance side.

• Evans, Jackson & Beswick-Parsons — “Reuse practices and household consumption work” #V9QTJP
  Very relevant. It argues that reuse systems depend on household labour: sourcing, preparing, maintaining, recirculating objects, and asks who/state/market/household does the work ( #G26N4U Reuse practices and household consumption work 2026 David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons Conclusion Finally, conceptualizing these activities and tasks as 'consumption work' helps to understand the work that consumers are required to engage in as part of the transition to more circular forms of consumption. For example, the requirement on consumers to bring their own containers to reuse-refill stores results in several processual forms of labour, primarily that of decanting and recirculating . Whilst these activities may be interpreted as domestic labour due to them being household-based, we argue that they play a key role in the wider circuits of the reuse economy, extending well beyond the home. Allied to this, our sensitivity to how labour is distributed along the supply chain (Hobson et al., 2021) allows us to offer a rejoinder to the dominant framing of the role of 'consumers' in the circular economy. In contrast to the prevailing idea that the onus is on consumers to take up and 'accept' new business models and products, our work suggests that more emphasis should be placed on the retail sector to adapt to consumers' existing practices. Differentiating between reuse-refill and reuse-return methods of provisioning (EMF, 2019), raises questions about the nature and amount of consumption work and domestic labour involved in these different systems (Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b). Future studies could usefully turn their attention to this complexity and nuance. Our approach also raises questions about who (state, market, or household) is required to do what work to ensure the success of reuse systems. As things stand, most of the work falls to individuals who are required to source, prepare, and maintain objects ( recirculate ) in refill systems, integrating these practices into their existing domestic routines. With a growing interest in transitioning towards a shared packaging economy (reuse-return), it is imperative to think about how best to recognize and formalize the work carried out by households whilst also questioning how responsibility and care should be reconfigured and formalized across the wider supply-chain. ). Excellent for Chapter 5 and conclusion.

• Mosgaard & Moalem — “A Critical Review of the Role of Repair Cafés in a Sustainable Circular Transition” #K52UPR
  Useful if you need repair café literature as an adjacent community-based circular initiative. It frames repair within CE/sustainable transition ( #72MBD2 Critical Review of the role of Repair Cafes 2021 Mette Alberg Mosgaard, Rikke Marie Moalem Product Repair, Sustainability and Circular Economy Circular economy (CE) is viewed as being an alternative to a traditional linear economy of ‘take-make-dispose’ [15]. Furthermore, CE is often presented in ‘discourses’ in relation to a sustainable future, with an aim to the accomplishment of sustainable development [10,16]. The term ‘sustainable development’ is a guiding principle for development containing three aims to be accomplished simultaneously: environmental quality, economic prosperity and social equity [17]. The concept of CE is connected to sustainability and sustainable development [18,19], and is important for its ability to attract both business and policy communities to sustainability work [20]. ).

• McLaren, Niskanen & Anshelm — “Repair for a Broken Economy” #4YG3VP
  Good critical repair source. It argues repair is political, temporal, subject-making, but CE discourse often under-recognises these dimensions ( #4TVHFQ Repair for a Broken Economy: Lessons for Circular Economy from an International Interview Study of Repairers 2021 Duncan McLaren, Johan Niskanen, Jonas Anshelm Repair for a Broken Economy: Lessons for Circular Economy from an International Interview Study of Repairers Abstract: The idea of replacing the broken linear economy with circular forms to help address the current sustainability crisis is gaining world-wide traction in policy, industry, and academia. This article presents results from an international interview study with 34 repair practitioners and experts in different fields. The article aims to improve understandings of the potential of repair so as to contribute to a more just, sustainable, and circular economy. Through a five-step qualitative method the results reveal and explore three tensions inherent in repair: first, repair activities constitute different forms of subjectivity; second, repair entails different and sometimes contested temporalities; and finally, even though repair is deeply political in practice, the politics of repair are not always explicit, and some repair activities are actively depoliticized. The opportunities and obstacles embodied in these tensions are generative in repair practices and debates, but poorly reflected in contemporary circular economy discourse. We conclude that a richer, more inclusive, and politicized understanding of repair can support environmental justice in the implementation of circular economy (CE) and provide greater opportunities for just and transformational sustainability strategies and policies. ).

• McLaren & Niskanen — “The Political Economy of Circular Economies” #LB5ACW
  More macro/political economy of repair and future scenarios. Good if you want to gesture to circular economies as contested imaginaries, but probably not necessary unless expanding the conclusion.

6. Second-hand / material culture / circulation of things

Not always “CE” by title, but analytically important for your version of circularity.

• Bohlin — “‘It will Keep Circulating’” #ZJUEY4
  Very useful for second-hand things imagined as trajectories. It says if acquisition/living with/disposal are studied separately, we miss how people see pre-used goods as already circulating ( #QR9EJK ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets 2019 Anna Bohlin Coming Full Circle emerging 'circular economy', such popular notions of circularity have considerable implications for the study of second-hand consumption. If the stages of consumption (acquiring, living with, and disposing of second-hand goods) are investigated in isolation, one misses the sense in which people perceive pre-used goods as being on trajectories, and the extent to which motivation and desires at each of these stages is shaped by this consideration. In the case of second-hand consumption, then, the different phases are not just interlinked, but are typically seen as such by those involved. ). This supports your whole chapter structure.

• Bohlin & Appelgren — “Growing in Motion” #MBXQXR
  Strong for second-hand circulation as movement and value transformation.

• Bohlin & Appelgren — “Harnessing the Unruly” #B3CVMW
  Useful because it explicitly situates reuse in CE debates and critiques the practical limits/evidence gaps of CE ( #NRJXYE Harnessing the Unruly- Anthropological Contributions in Applied Reuse Projects 2020 Anna Bohlin, Staffan Appelgren Reuse and circular economy At the time that we began exploring reuse and second-hand consumption, discussions on the promises of the 'circular economy' (CE) had begun to emerge in Sweden. The concept circulated in national media, and in Gothenburg where we were doing fieldwork, various meetings, workshops, and lectures on the topic illustrated the growing interest in this new way of conceptualising the economy. Indeed, the City administration pilot project we collaborated with was called Circular Gothenburg. In short, CE thinking takes a systematic approach to the economy that should benefit industry, society, and the planet by disconnecting growth from resource exploitation. Inspired by the restorative and regenerative powers of ecological cycles in nature it argues for closing the loops of material flows in order to reduce resource extraction and waste production. In symbiotic networks corporations are supposed to turn waste and by-products into resources for production. Design for disassembling and recycling is crucial in this, as is design for care and repair in order to extend the lifespan of things before being returned for another production cycle (McDonough and Braungart, 2002; Webster, 2017). CE has received criticism, not least in regard to the limited evidence of large-scale practical CE cases (see Gregson et al. 2015; Blomsma and Brennan 2017; Valenzuela and Böhm 2017; Corvellec et al. 2020), but overall has been met with enthusiasm from industry, policy makers, and social movements and is being increasingly adopted as an imagined solution to sustainability challenges in Sweden. This is reflected for example in the way that the Swedish government sees it as a cornerstone of the sustainable consumption strategy (Ministry of Finance 2016), recently formed the Swedish Circular Economy Delegation (Government Offices of Sweden 2018) and ambitiously stated that "Sweden will develop the resource-effective, circular, bio-based economy" in its latest Government Declaration (authors' translation, Government Offices of Sweden 2019: 6). ).

• Berry & Isenhour — “Still good life” #3F4AVR
  Useful for reuse, value, and distributive labour. Good for arguing that redistribution is labour, not magic.

• Holmes — “New spaces, ordinary practices” #XATD2A
  Very relevant for alternative provisioning and ordinary practices; already cited. Helpful for framing Brīvbode as familiar practices placed in new non-domestic infrastructures.

Best stack for your final conclusion

For the paragraph we were discussing — circularity as something that must be kept moving — I’d lean on:

1. Hobson for limits of loop/CE critique: #8ZKAT7 , #UMYA27

2. Shove & Rinkinen for material culture/object relations in CE: #R69WZQ

3. Welch et al. / Hobson et al. for consumption work: #NUEUVY

4. Fuentes, Tölg, Mesiranta/Närvänen for care and circular consumption: #AVNZLE , #BQ2W57 , #Y3CFPX

5. Yeoh & Tan for freecycling/short reuse loops: #FHZZ6U

6. Bohlin for second-hand trajectories: #ZJUEY4

That gives you a clean literature bridge:
CE critique → circular consumption as practice → consumption work/care → freecycling/reuse loops → Brīvbode’s ethnographic contribution.

Yes. The thesis bibliography is not huge, but it is doing several distinct jobs. The most relied-upon sources are less a random literature cloud and more a set of workhorses that hold up different parts of the argument.

1. The two backbone frameworks

The thesis itself names the two main frameworks very clearly: practice theory and consumption work ( #SNLDAM Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Introduction The thesis draws on two main analytical frameworks. The first is practice theory, following Shove, Pantzar and Watson (2012) and other authors studying sustainable consumption practices. Freecycling is analysed as a practice-entity constituted by materials, meanings, and competencies. The second theoretical framework is Wheeler and Glucksmann's (2015) concept of consumption work that brings attention to the range of tasks required of consumers before or after the moment of exchange, on which consumption itself depends, especially within contexts of circular economy initiatives. It is extended here to include the volunteer labour of the freeshop and the divestment networks through which household surplus reaches it. Together these frameworks allow the thesis to attend to both what freecycling is as a recognisable social form, and what it costs in labour, skill, and care to sustain it. ). These are the most structurally important sources.

Shove, Pantzar & Watson / Shove

• Shove, Pantzar & Watson, The Dynamics of Social Practice ( #RU2ER4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Shove, E., Pantzar, M. and Watson, M. (2012) The dynamics of social practice: everyday life and how it changes. London: Sage. )

• Shove, Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience ( #3CALAB Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Shove, E. (2003) Comfort, cleanliness and convenience: the social organization of normality. Oxford: Berg. )

• Shove & Walker, “Governing transitions…” ( #SA7WPJ Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Shove, E. and Walker, G. (2010) ‘Governing transitions in the sustainability of everyday life’, Research Policy, 39(4), pp. 471–476. )

These give you the basic grammar of the thesis: practices as made from materials, meanings, and competencies. You use this explicitly in the theoretical framework ( #KSLB7G Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Theories of Practice 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: practice as entity. Shove and colleagues define a practice element frame consisting of meanings, materials, and competencies. “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. “Competencies” 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. ), and then again in the empirical chapters when you analyse Brīvbode as a practice made from a site, objects, norms, skills, and meanings.

This is probably the most foundational theoretical source cluster.

Warde / Welch & Warde

• Warde, “Consumption and theories of practice” ( #74NCY4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Warde, A. (2005) ‘Consumption and theories of practice’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 5(2), pp. 131–153. )

• Welch & Warde, “Theories of practice and sustainable consumption” ( #AVZ5K4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Welch, D. and Warde, A. (2015) ‘Theories of practice and sustainable consumption’. In: Reisch, L. and Thøgersen, J. (eds.) Handbook of research on sustainable consumption. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 84–100. )

• Warde & Southerton, The Habits of Consumption ( #UVK7TJ Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Warde, A. and Southerton, D. (eds.) (2012) The habits of consumption. Helsinki: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. )

Warde gives you the key move that consumption is not a separate “consumer behaviour” domain but a moment in practices ( #C6LN2K Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption practices 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: e.g. 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.” ). This lets you study Brīvbode not as “people choosing free things” but as a site where household practices of acquisition, storage, sorting, letting go, and reuse intersect. You also use Warde in methodology to justify studying circulation as a knot of practices ( #AL93KK Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Ethnography of Practice 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." ).

If Shove gives you the practice-elements frame, Warde gives you the consumption-as-practice-moment frame.

2. Consumption work: the second major pillar

Wheeler & Glucksmann

• Wheeler & Glucksmann, Household Recycling and Consumption Work ( #2HA496 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Wheeler, K. and Glucksmann, M. (2015) Household recycling and consumption work: social and moral economies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. )

This is one of the most heavily relied upon sources in Chapter 5. It gives you the term consumption work and the technical/modal/processual dimensions of labour ( #ZBGB9J Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption Work 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. ). You use it to show that Brīvbode does not simply “enable reuse”; it redistributes sorting, cleaning, carrying, deciding, routing, and maintaining work across households, volunteers, and the site itself ( #EF5DET Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode The chapter is organized by two complementary registers. Consumption work (Wheeler and Glucksmann 2015) names the tasks the practice demands – acquiring, sorting, maintaining, divesting, transporting – and tracks how they are distributed across technical, modal, and processual dimensions of the division of labour. Care work, in the feminist tradition and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), names the relational and ethical orientation through which participants take this labour on, often without recognising it as work at all. , #SZG4E8 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Not the Bin: Modal Labour and the Informal Route If §5.2 traced the valuation work the absence of price creates, this section turns to the kind of arrangement in which that work takes place. Wheeler and Glucksmann’s modal dimension names how labour is distributed across different socioeconomic arrangements — paid and unpaid, formal and informal, market and non-market, household and institution — and how the same task takes on a different character depending on which arrangement it is embedded in. The same act of sorting used clothes is paid retail work in a thrift chain, contracted labour at a municipal textile collection point, unpaid domestic labour at home, and something else again at Brīvbode. The question this section asks is what kind of arrangement Brīvbode is, modally speaking, and what difference its form makes for the labour that runs it and the people it recruits. , #8JYYXC Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange It’s On Me: Networks, Gender, and the Transmission of Care Wheeler and Glucksmann's processual dimension attends to how labour is distributed across the full span of a consumption process. In Brīvbode, this dimension is most visible in the extended divestment networks through which household surplus reaches the swapshop. The work that sustains Brīvbode is continuous with domestic consumption work which is consistently organised through women's labour. ).

This is probably the single most important source for Chapter 5.

Hobson et al. 2021

• Hobson, Holmes, Welch, Wheeler & Wieser, “Consumption work in the circular economy” ( #TJVD8Y Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Hobson, K., Holmes, H., Welch, D., Wheeler, K. and Wieser, H. (2021) ‘Consumption work in the circular economy: a research agenda’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 321, 128969. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128969 )

This extends Wheeler & Glucksmann into circular economy debates. It is central to your argument that circular economy participation requires labour, and that this labour is unevenly distributed ( #J4M2WK Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Introduction We live in a context of overproduction where managing the flow of things in households becomes both a practical and a moral problem. In the case of textiles in particular, large quantities of clothing circulate through markets at increasing speed while average use time continues to decline. Circular economy policies increasingly position reuse and extended product lifetimes as solutions, yet the success of it depends on everyday practices that are labour-intensive and socially uneven (Hobson et al. 2021). , #BTDD45 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Introduction Hobson et al. (2021) argue that research into circular economy consumption work must “move beyond the domestic sphere and space of the household” to examine consumption-based practices in other spaces, including Repair Cafés and community-based circular economy models, whether or not these are explicitly labelled as such. Brīvbode is such a space: a semi-public site where the ordinarily private labour of divestment and acquisition becomes visible and socially acknowledged, and where volunteer labour — sorting, curating, maintaining quality standards, and managing social dynamics — sustains the infrastructure through which things continue to circulate. , #HM56MD Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion Circular consumption requires substantial labour, and that labour is unevenly distributed. Sustainability of initiatives like Brīvbode depends on a structural condition – the sufficiency-oriented, time-rich, predominantly female volunteer and participant base that circular economy policy rarely names or supports (Hobson et al., 2021). Some of this labour is unreflexive and habituated – Aiga's inner feeling that prevents easy disposal, Marija's building logistics naturalised into her social role. Some is deliberate and effortful – Kristīne's category-by-category method, Madara working on her impulse-acquiring. Both are labour, but they are differently visible, and the unreflexive forms are the hardest to see and the hardest for policy to reach. ). It also gives you the bridge from Brīvbode to circular economy scholarship: circularity requires work, not just willingness.

This is one of the most important sources for the thesis contribution.

3. Circulation, divestment, and the life of things

This cluster supports Chapter 4 especially.

Gregson

• Gregson, Living with Things ( #L2X3H2 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Gregson, N. (2007) Living with things: ridding, accommodation, dwelling. Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing. )

• Gregson, Metcalfe & Crewe, “Moving things along” ( #DWW2K4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Gregson, N., Metcalfe, A. and Crewe, L. (2007) ‘Moving things along: the conduits and practices of divestment in consumption’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32(2), pp. 187–200. )

Gregson is crucial for divestment: how people get rid of things, move things along, and manage the moral and material burden of excess. You use this to frame divesting as a meaningful practice, not merely disposal ( #CLU5VP Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Noting how meanings migrate across practices, Shove et al. (2012) mention how thrift, for example, is no longer expressed through darning socks at home – now a rather rare practice – but has moved, as Gregson (2007) shows, into methods and styles of disposal and divestment. Divesting responsibly has become one of the ways people sustain and recreate identity in relation to their things. , #V83RLN Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home The act of bringing things to Brīvbode performs moral work that throwing away does not – it can relieve guilt of having acquired unnecessarily, maintain the identity of a responsible consumer, and transfer some of the responsibility for what happens next to the swapshop. Divesting well and finding a route that feels appropriate to the object's remaining value is itself a practice with normative dimensions: there are right and wrong ways to let things go, and Brīvbode offers one of the right ways. ).

Evans 2020

• Evans, “After Practice?” ( #WVDJ99 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Evans, D. (2020) ‘After practice? Material semiotic approaches to consumption and economy’, Cultural Sociology, 14(4), pp. 340–356. )

Evans helps expand “consumption” beyond acquisition into attachment, devaluation, divestment, detachment, and disposal ( #N7QTYJ Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption practices This thesis aligns with practice theoretical perspectives on sustainable consumption that attend 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). 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). ). This is very useful because your thesis is exactly about the full trajectory of things — not only taking but also letting go.

Appadurai / Kopytoff tradition, though lightly in bibliography

• Appadurai, The Social Life of Things ( #APK3TR Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Appadurai, A. (ed.) (1986) The social life of things: commodities in cultural perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. )

This is part of the background material culture/value tradition. It is less structurally central than Shove/Warde/Wheeler, but it gives legitimacy to following objects through changing regimes of value.

4. Alternative provisioning, reuse, and freecycling

These sources make Brīvbode comparable to other non-market or semi-market reuse settings.

Holmes

• Holmes, “New spaces, ordinary practices” ( #NYQXWE Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Holmes, H. (2018) ‘New spaces, ordinary practices: circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning’, Geoforum, 88, pp. 138–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.11.022 )

• Ehgartner & Holmes, “Changing understandings of waste reduction…” ( #S3YTB3 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Ehgartner, U. and Holmes, H. (2022) ‘Changing understandings of waste reduction and avoidance in moralities of thrift: a comparison of Mass Observers’ narratives three decades apart’, Geoforum, 137, pp. 105–114. )

Holmes is important for the idea that alternative provisioning spaces do not necessarily invent entirely new practices; they rearrange ordinary ones in new settings. You use Holmes to frame Brīvbode as familiar practices placed into a new non-domestic, non-monetary infrastructure ( #XKELL5 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Introduction Consumption and divestment practices are changing, shaped by new infrastructure and policy developments – Latvia introduced mandatory textile collection in 2023, and new secondhand platforms are expanding the routes available for sequential flows of 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. Freecycling, as viewed in this thesis, is a practice that contains elements that are widely shared and common but are placed and enacted in a new context of non-monetary exchange in a non-domestic site. Thus I argue that Brīvbode offers to practitioners somehow familiar, yet new ways of relating to objects and people (Holmes, 2018). ). Holmes also supports your methodological point that handling objects can open conversation ( #ZYK94K Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Participant observation Even though the principles are similar, each Brīvbode location has its specifics, and over the months of fieldwork – usually my weekly shifts in Lastādija – I renewed my competence in managing the flow of materials, evaluating and sorting donations, tidying, moving objects, witnessing and mediating occasional tensions in the shop. I took fieldnotes during and after visits, and occasionally photographed the space and its contents. As handling material objects is a kind of activity that eases conversation (Appelgren and Bohlin, 2015; Holmes, 2018), sorting things alongside someone or commenting together on an object easily opens exchanges, and I used these opportunities for informal chatting with fellow volunteers and visitors. ).

Eden

• Eden, “Blurring the boundaries…” ( #JNBSSG Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Eden, S. (2017) ‘Blurring the boundaries: prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 17(2), pp. 265–285. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540515586871 )

This is your Freecycle / prosumption / circularity source. It helps place Brīvbode in the broader freecycling literature and shows how value/waste categories shift as things circulate.

Počinková et al.

• Počinková et al., “Exploring the role of community-based enterprises…” ( #6JMQ9V Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES 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). https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-02-2023-0017 )

Important for clothing disposition and swapping events. You use this especially around “voluntary disposal” and how community-based swap infrastructures help people route unwanted clothes.

Camacho-Otero et al.

• Camacho-Otero, Pettersen & Boks, “Consumer engagement in the circular economy…” ( #4RABAB Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Camacho-Otero, J., Pettersen, I.N. and Boks, C. (2020) ‘Consumer engagement in the circular economy: exploring clothes swapping in emerging economies from a social practice perspective’, Sustainable Development, 28(1), pp. 279–293. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2002 )

Useful for clothes swapping as circular economy practice from a practice theory angle. It is supportive rather than foundational.

Tan & Yeoh

• Tan & Yeoh, “Freecycling markets as sustainable materialist movements?” ( #6SDD7L Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Tan, Q.H. and Yeoh, B.S.A. (2024) ‘Freecycling markets as sustainable materialist movements? Closing reuse circularity loops in Singapore’, Worldwide Waste, 7(1), pp. 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3197/whpww.63857928646673 )

This is very relevant to your final argument because it is about physical freecycling markets, short reuse loops, rescue, recirculation, and the limits of scalability. It strengthens the “Brīvbode as short-loop circularity” framing.

5. Care, ethics, and gendered responsibility

This cluster underwrites the care side of Chapter 5 and the conclusion.

Mesiranta et al.

• Mesiranta et al., “Circular consumption practices as matters of care” ( #3HCC78 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Mesiranta, N., Mattila, M., Koskinen, O. and Närvänen, E. (2025) ‘Circular consumption practices as matters of care’, Journal of Business Ethics, 200, pp. 13–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05888-5 )

You rely on this to conceptualise circular consumption as care, not just efficient resource management ( #5YXGE6 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion This chapter has examined the labour that sustains freecycling in Brīvbode, finding it distributed across structural, ethical, and gendered dimensions that existing circular economy frameworks tend to overlook. Wheeler and Glucksmann’s consumption work concept names the structure: tasks that paid institutions would perform in formal retail or waste management contexts are here absorbed by unpaid volunteers and participants, distributed across modal and processual dimensions that stretch well beyond the freeshop itself. The feminist ethics of care and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), together with Bankovska’s (2020) care not-work and Graeber’s (2018) account of work as what just needs to be done, name the orientation: much of this labour is not transferred from institutions onto reluctant consumers but self-imposed through ethical commitment and care – activities people perform because they cannot bring themselves not to. Miller (1998) names who bears it: consistently and disproportionately women, from household sorting and routing to managing others’ generosity to transmitting these competencies to the next generation. ). It supports the argument that Brīvbode is held together by ethical attention and responsibility.

Tölg & Fuentes

• Tölg & Fuentes, “Care and circularity” ( #C84FMM Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Tölg, R. and Fuentes, C. (2025) ‘Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing’, Consumption and Society, 4(2), pp. 213–231. https://doi.org/10.1332/27528499Y2024D000000032 )

This is also central for Chapter 5. It helps you say that circular clothing consumption requires care resources, not just good intentions. In your thesis this becomes: Brīvbode works because people care enough to sort, bring, repair, curate, withhold, and redirect things.

Miller

• Miller, A Theory of Shopping ( #BZQJQS Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Miller, D. (1998) A theory of shopping. Cambridge: Polity Press. )

• Miller, The Comfort of Things ( #L2ZHSM Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Miller, D. (2008) The comfort of things. Cambridge: Polity Press. )

Miller gives you the gender/care/household moral economy argument. You use A Theory of Shopping directly to argue that consumption is often organised around care for others, and that women frequently become moral agents in household consumption ( #2RA8WL Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption Work The thesis also attends to the gendered distribution of this work. Ethnographic research has demonstrated that consumption is often organised around care for others, and that women often function as moral agents in household consumption, regulating what goes in and out of households (Miller, 1998, Reno, 2016). 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. , #PNGSGT Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange It’s On Me: Networks, Gender, and the Transmission of Care Miller's (1998) 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 as they are the ones acquiring, managing, and disposing of goods in relation to the needs of children, partners, and wider social networks. Wheeler and Glucksmann (2015) find the same gendered pattern in recycling: women typically take responsibility for sorting while men handle transport. The fieldwork conducted for this thesis reflects this consistently. Anna states it directly: "It's on me. I'm the one who supplies everyone with clothes and shoes." Silvija organises all divestment decisions in her household and says her husband "would just throw it in the bin." Men's role, where it appears, is typically transport and carrying the bags that women have sorted, selected, and prepared. , #5YXGE6 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion This chapter has examined the labour that sustains freecycling in Brīvbode, finding it distributed across structural, ethical, and gendered dimensions that existing circular economy frameworks tend to overlook. Wheeler and Glucksmann’s consumption work concept names the structure: tasks that paid institutions would perform in formal retail or waste management contexts are here absorbed by unpaid volunteers and participants, distributed across modal and processual dimensions that stretch well beyond the freeshop itself. The feminist ethics of care and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), together with Bankovska’s (2020) care not-work and Graeber’s (2018) account of work as what just needs to be done, name the orientation: much of this labour is not transferred from institutions onto reluctant consumers but self-imposed through ethical commitment and care – activities people perform because they cannot bring themselves not to. Miller (1998) names who bears it: consistently and disproportionately women, from household sorting and routing to managing others’ generosity to transmitting these competencies to the next generation. ).

Horton

• Horton, “Just use what you have” ( #9M9D7K Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Horton, K. (2020) 'Just use what you have: Ethical fashion discourse and the feminisation of responsibility', in Parkins, I. and Dever, M. (eds.) Fashion: New feminist essays. Routledge, pp. 109–123. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003010418 )

Useful for the feminisation of responsibility. This supports your argument that sustainable/circular practices often become gendered labour.

6. Local and contextual sources

These are not theoretical workhorses but they are important for grounding.

• Akule, Milbreta & Brizga, textile report ( #JTWV2Q Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Akule, D., Milbreta, U. and Brizga, J. (2023) Collection and use of post-consumption textiles in Latvia. Riga: Green Liberty. )

• Watson et al., Baltic textile circularity report ( #KJPCEP Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Watson, D., Hvass, K.K., Moora, H., Martin, K., Nausėdė, V., Gurauskiene, I. and Akule, D. (2020) Post-consumer textile circularity in the Baltic countries: current status and recommendations for the future. TemaNord 2020:526. Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers. https://doi.org/10.6027/temanord2020-526 )

These support the Latvia/Baltic textile context: overproduction, textile collection, second-hand flows, post-consumer textile systems. They are evidence scaffolding for the introduction and context.

7. Methodology sources

These are doing quieter but important work.

• Nicolini, practice theory as package/method/vocabulary ( #T3EV8P Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Nicolini, D. (2017) ‘Practice theory as a package of theory, method and vocabulary: affordances and limitations’. In: Jonas, M., Littig, B. and Wroblewski, A. (eds.) Methodological reflections on practice-oriented theories. Cham: Springer, pp. 19–34. )

• Sedlačko, ethnography with sensibility for practice ( #KBACMG Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Sedlačko, M. (2017) ‘Conducting ethnography with a sensibility for practice’. In: Jonas, M., Littig, B. and Wroblewski, A. (eds.) Methodological reflections on practice-oriented theories. Cham: Springer, pp. 47–60. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52897-7_4 )

• Bourdieu ( #DHF6T6 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ), Giddens ( #9V3STH Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Giddens, A. (1984) The constitution of society. Cambridge: Polity Press. )

Bourdieu and Giddens are background ancestors of practice theory, but the thesis is not really built on them. Nicolini and Sedlačko are more directly useful for explaining how to study practices ethnographically.

Most relied-upon sources, in plain terms

If I had to name the real “load-bearing wall” sources:

1. Shove, Pantzar & Watson 2012 — practice as materials/meanings/competencies ( #RU2ER4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Shove, E., Pantzar, M. and Watson, M. (2012) The dynamics of social practice: everyday life and how it changes. London: Sage. ; used in #KSLB7G Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Theories of Practice 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: practice as entity. Shove and colleagues define a practice element frame consisting of meanings, materials, and competencies. “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. “Competencies” 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. ).

2. Warde 2005 — consumption as a moment in practices ( #74NCY4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Warde, A. (2005) ‘Consumption and theories of practice’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 5(2), pp. 131–153. ; used in #C6LN2K Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption practices 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: e.g. 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. Wheeler & Glucksmann 2015 — consumption work ( #2HA496 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Wheeler, K. and Glucksmann, M. (2015) Household recycling and consumption work: social and moral economies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ; used in #ZBGB9J Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption Work 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. , #EF5DET Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode The chapter is organized by two complementary registers. Consumption work (Wheeler and Glucksmann 2015) names the tasks the practice demands – acquiring, sorting, maintaining, divesting, transporting – and tracks how they are distributed across technical, modal, and processual dimensions of the division of labour. Care work, in the feminist tradition and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), names the relational and ethical orientation through which participants take this labour on, often without recognising it as work at all. ).

4. Hobson et al. 2021 — consumption work in circular economy ( #TJVD8Y Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Hobson, K., Holmes, H., Welch, D., Wheeler, K. and Wieser, H. (2021) ‘Consumption work in the circular economy: a research agenda’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 321, 128969. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128969 ; used in #BTDD45 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Introduction Hobson et al. (2021) argue that research into circular economy consumption work must “move beyond the domestic sphere and space of the household” to examine consumption-based practices in other spaces, including Repair Cafés and community-based circular economy models, whether or not these are explicitly labelled as such. Brīvbode is such a space: a semi-public site where the ordinarily private labour of divestment and acquisition becomes visible and socially acknowledged, and where volunteer labour — sorting, curating, maintaining quality standards, and managing social dynamics — sustains the infrastructure through which things continue to circulate. , #HM56MD Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion Circular consumption requires substantial labour, and that labour is unevenly distributed. Sustainability of initiatives like Brīvbode depends on a structural condition – the sufficiency-oriented, time-rich, predominantly female volunteer and participant base that circular economy policy rarely names or supports (Hobson et al., 2021). Some of this labour is unreflexive and habituated – Aiga's inner feeling that prevents easy disposal, Marija's building logistics naturalised into her social role. Some is deliberate and effortful – Kristīne's category-by-category method, Madara working on her impulse-acquiring. Both are labour, but they are differently visible, and the unreflexive forms are the hardest to see and the hardest for policy to reach. ).

5. Gregson 2007 / Gregson et al. 2007 — divestment and moving things along ( #L2X3H2 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Gregson, N. (2007) Living with things: ridding, accommodation, dwelling. Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing. , #DWW2K4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Gregson, N., Metcalfe, A. and Crewe, L. (2007) ‘Moving things along: the conduits and practices of divestment in consumption’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32(2), pp. 187–200. ).

6. Evans 2020 — full-cycle consumption beyond acquisition ( #WVDJ99 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Evans, D. (2020) ‘After practice? Material semiotic approaches to consumption and economy’, Cultural Sociology, 14(4), pp. 340–356. ; used in #N7QTYJ Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption practices This thesis aligns with practice theoretical perspectives on sustainable consumption that attend 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). 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). ).

7. Holmes 2018 — ordinary practices in new provisioning spaces ( #NYQXWE Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Holmes, H. (2018) ‘New spaces, ordinary practices: circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning’, Geoforum, 88, pp. 138–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.11.022 ; used in #XKELL5 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Introduction Consumption and divestment practices are changing, shaped by new infrastructure and policy developments – Latvia introduced mandatory textile collection in 2023, and new secondhand platforms are expanding the routes available for sequential flows of 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. Freecycling, as viewed in this thesis, is a practice that contains elements that are widely shared and common but are placed and enacted in a new context of non-monetary exchange in a non-domestic site. Thus I argue that Brīvbode offers to practitioners somehow familiar, yet new ways of relating to objects and people (Holmes, 2018). ).

8. Mesiranta et al. 2025 + Tölg & Fuentes 2025 — circular consumption as care ( #3HCC78 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Mesiranta, N., Mattila, M., Koskinen, O. and Närvänen, E. (2025) ‘Circular consumption practices as matters of care’, Journal of Business Ethics, 200, pp. 13–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05888-5 , #C84FMM Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Tölg, R. and Fuentes, C. (2025) ‘Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing’, Consumption and Society, 4(2), pp. 213–231. https://doi.org/10.1332/27528499Y2024D000000032 ; used in #5YXGE6 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion This chapter has examined the labour that sustains freecycling in Brīvbode, finding it distributed across structural, ethical, and gendered dimensions that existing circular economy frameworks tend to overlook. Wheeler and Glucksmann’s consumption work concept names the structure: tasks that paid institutions would perform in formal retail or waste management contexts are here absorbed by unpaid volunteers and participants, distributed across modal and processual dimensions that stretch well beyond the freeshop itself. The feminist ethics of care and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), together with Bankovska’s (2020) care not-work and Graeber’s (2018) account of work as what just needs to be done, name the orientation: much of this labour is not transferred from institutions onto reluctant consumers but self-imposed through ethical commitment and care – activities people perform because they cannot bring themselves not to. Miller (1998) names who bears it: consistently and disproportionately women, from household sorting and routing to managing others’ generosity to transmitting these competencies to the next generation. ).

9. Miller 1998 — gendered care and household consumption ( #BZQJQS Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Miller, D. (1998) A theory of shopping. Cambridge: Polity Press. ; used in #PNGSGT Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange It’s On Me: Networks, Gender, and the Transmission of Care Miller's (1998) 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 as they are the ones acquiring, managing, and disposing of goods in relation to the needs of children, partners, and wider social networks. Wheeler and Glucksmann (2015) find the same gendered pattern in recycling: women typically take responsibility for sorting while men handle transport. The fieldwork conducted for this thesis reflects this consistently. Anna states it directly: "It's on me. I'm the one who supplies everyone with clothes and shoes." Silvija organises all divestment decisions in her household and says her husband "would just throw it in the bin." Men's role, where it appears, is typically transport and carrying the bags that women have sorted, selected, and prepared. ).

10. Eden / Počinková / Tan & Yeoh / Camacho-Otero — freecycling, swapping, circular reuse comparators ( #JNBSSG Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Eden, S. (2017) ‘Blurring the boundaries: prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 17(2), pp. 265–285. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540515586871 , #6JMQ9V Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES 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). https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-02-2023-0017 , #6SDD7L Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Tan, Q.H. and Yeoh, B.S.A. (2024) ‘Freecycling markets as sustainable materialist movements? Closing reuse circularity loops in Singapore’, Worldwide Waste, 7(1), pp. 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3197/whpww.63857928646673 , #4RABAB Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Camacho-Otero, J., Pettersen, I.N. and Boks, C. (2020) ‘Consumer engagement in the circular economy: exploring clothes swapping in emerging economies from a social practice perspective’, Sustainable Development, 28(1), pp. 279–293. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2002 ).

One bibliography warning

Chapter 5 currently leans on Bankovska (2020) and Graeber (2018) in the care/work framing ( #5YXGE6 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion This chapter has examined the labour that sustains freecycling in Brīvbode, finding it distributed across structural, ethical, and gendered dimensions that existing circular economy frameworks tend to overlook. Wheeler and Glucksmann’s consumption work concept names the structure: tasks that paid institutions would perform in formal retail or waste management contexts are here absorbed by unpaid volunteers and participants, distributed across modal and processual dimensions that stretch well beyond the freeshop itself. The feminist ethics of care and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), together with Bankovska’s (2020) care not-work and Graeber’s (2018) account of work as what just needs to be done, name the orientation: much of this labour is not transferred from institutions onto reluctant consumers but self-imposed through ethical commitment and care – activities people perform because they cannot bring themselves not to. Miller (1998) names who bears it: consistently and disproportionately women, from household sorting and routing to managing others’ generosity to transmitting these competencies to the next generation. , #S6HFAC Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode Bankovska’s (2020) ethnography of the Latvian organic food movement bridges the two: drawing on Graeber (2018: 156), she observes that care is not always a joyful act but often involves unanticipated effort, obligation, hesitation, and disgust. The boundaries between consumption work, care work, and volunteer work are difficult to maintain in practice, and that is precisely what allows the labour that sustains Brīvbode to remain invisible to participants and to circular economy policy alike. ), but I did not see them in the visible bibliography list #9GJAHS Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES LIST OF SOURCES . Add them if they remain in the text. Tiny bibliography gremlin, easily defeated.

Here is the distilled list rewritten as what each source does in the thesis — not just “what it is about,” but what kind of argumentative work it performs for you.

1. Shove, Pantzar & Watson 2012 — practice as assembled from elements

Shove, Pantzar and Watson give the thesis its basic analytical grammar: Brīvbode is not treated as an organisation, a place, or a set of individual choices, but as a practice assembled from materials, meanings, and competencies. This lets you show that circulation depends on shelves, bags, volunteers, sorting skills, ideas of usefulness, norms of exchange, and practical know-how all holding together provisionally ( #RU2ER4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Shove, E., Pantzar, M. and Watson, M. (2012) The dynamics of social practice: everyday life and how it changes. London: Sage. ; used in #KSLB7G Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Theories of Practice 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: practice as entity. Shove and colleagues define a practice element frame consisting of meanings, materials, and competencies. “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. “Competencies” 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. ). In other words, Brīvbode “works” only because these elements are repeatedly connected in performance.

2. Warde 2005 — consumption as a moment within practices

Warde lets the thesis escape the figure of “the consumer” and follow what people are actually doing with things. His argument that consumption is not itself a practice but a moment in many practices allows Brīvbode to be analysed as a point where domestic routines of acquisition, storage, use, care, divestment, and disposal become visible in one semi-public site ( #74NCY4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Warde, A. (2005) ‘Consumption and theories of practice’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 5(2), pp. 131–153. ; #C6LN2K Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption practices 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: e.g. 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.” ). This is why the thesis can study circulation rather than isolated acts of “giving” or “taking.”

3. Wheeler & Glucksmann 2015 — consumption work

Wheeler and Glucksmann provide the language for naming the labour hidden behind apparently simple consumption. Their concept of consumption work makes visible the sorting, cleaning, carrying, deciding, storing, repairing, routing, and coordinating that must happen before things can be reused or passed on ( #2HA496 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Wheeler, K. and Glucksmann, M. (2015) Household recycling and consumption work: social and moral economies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ; #ZBGB9J Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption Work 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. ). In the thesis, this turns Brīvbode from a charming free shop into a labour system — one that depends on unpaid, informal, and unevenly distributed work ( #EF5DET Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode The chapter is organized by two complementary registers. Consumption work (Wheeler and Glucksmann 2015) names the tasks the practice demands – acquiring, sorting, maintaining, divesting, transporting – and tracks how they are distributed across technical, modal, and processual dimensions of the division of labour. Care work, in the feminist tradition and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), names the relational and ethical orientation through which participants take this labour on, often without recognising it as work at all. ).

4. Hobson et al. 2021 — circular economy as labour redistribution

Hobson et al. make the circular economy concrete by asking: who has to do the work that circularity requires? Their argument that circular economy initiatives depend on intensified and unevenly distributed consumption work allows the thesis to position Brīvbode as more than a local curiosity: it becomes an ethnographic case of the hidden social labour behind circularity ( #TJVD8Y Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Hobson, K., Holmes, H., Welch, D., Wheeler, K. and Wieser, H. (2021) ‘Consumption work in the circular economy: a research agenda’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 321, 128969. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128969 ; #BTDD45 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Introduction Hobson et al. (2021) argue that research into circular economy consumption work must “move beyond the domestic sphere and space of the household” to examine consumption-based practices in other spaces, including Repair Cafés and community-based circular economy models, whether or not these are explicitly labelled as such. Brīvbode is such a space: a semi-public site where the ordinarily private labour of divestment and acquisition becomes visible and socially acknowledged, and where volunteer labour — sorting, curating, maintaining quality standards, and managing social dynamics — sustains the infrastructure through which things continue to circulate. ). This source supports the claim that circular consumption is not only about keeping materials in use, but about reorganising responsibility, time, and care ( #HM56MD Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion Circular consumption requires substantial labour, and that labour is unevenly distributed. Sustainability of initiatives like Brīvbode depends on a structural condition – the sufficiency-oriented, time-rich, predominantly female volunteer and participant base that circular economy policy rarely names or supports (Hobson et al., 2021). Some of this labour is unreflexive and habituated – Aiga's inner feeling that prevents easy disposal, Marija's building logistics naturalised into her social role. Some is deliberate and effortful – Kristīne's category-by-category method, Madara working on her impulse-acquiring. Both are labour, but they are differently visible, and the unreflexive forms are the hardest to see and the hardest for policy to reach. ).

5. Gregson / Gregson, Metcalfe & Crewe — divestment as practice

Gregson gives the thesis a way to treat getting rid of things as socially and morally significant, not as the end of consumption. Her work on divestment and “moving things along” helps frame Brīvbode as one route through which people detach objects from domestic life while preserving their value, usefulness, or moral promise ( #L2X3H2 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Gregson, N. (2007) Living with things: ridding, accommodation, dwelling. Wantage: Sean Kingston Publishing. ; #DWW2K4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Gregson, N., Metcalfe, A. and Crewe, L. (2007) ‘Moving things along: the conduits and practices of divestment in consumption’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 32(2), pp. 187–200. ). In the thesis, this supports the idea that bringing things to Brīvbode is not just disposal by nicer means; it is a way of performing responsibility toward objects and toward oneself as a decent consumer ( #CLU5VP Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Noting how meanings migrate across practices, Shove et al. (2012) mention how thrift, for example, is no longer expressed through darning socks at home – now a rather rare practice – but has moved, as Gregson (2007) shows, into methods and styles of disposal and divestment. Divesting responsibly has become one of the ways people sustain and recreate identity in relation to their things. , #V83RLN Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home The act of bringing things to Brīvbode performs moral work that throwing away does not – it can relieve guilt of having acquired unnecessarily, maintain the identity of a responsible consumer, and transfer some of the responsibility for what happens next to the swapshop. Divesting well and finding a route that feels appropriate to the object's remaining value is itself a practice with normative dimensions: there are right and wrong ways to let things go, and Brīvbode offers one of the right ways. ).

6. Evans 2020 — consumption as full cycle of attachment and detachment

Evans helps stretch the concept of consumption across the whole life of objects in households. By adding devaluation, divestment, and disposal to acquisition, appropriation, and appreciation, Evans gives the thesis a vocabulary for following things as they gain, lose, and transform meaning ( #WVDJ99 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Evans, D. (2020) ‘After practice? Material semiotic approaches to consumption and economy’, Cultural Sociology, 14(4), pp. 340–356. ; #N7QTYJ Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption practices This thesis aligns with practice theoretical perspectives on sustainable consumption that attend 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). 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). ). This is crucial because Brīvbode sits exactly at the hinge between detachment and possible reattachment: one household’s ending becomes another household’s beginning.

7. Holmes 2018 — new spaces, ordinary practices

Holmes helps show that Brīvbode is both familiar and strange: it rearranges ordinary practices of giving, taking, sorting, and reusing in a new non-domestic setting. This lets the thesis avoid overstating Brīvbode as a radical alternative while still showing what is distinctive about it: the same everyday practices are made public, visible, social, and non-monetary ( #NYQXWE Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Holmes, H. (2018) ‘New spaces, ordinary practices: circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning’, Geoforum, 88, pp. 138–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.11.022 ; #XKELL5 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Introduction Consumption and divestment practices are changing, shaped by new infrastructure and policy developments – Latvia introduced mandatory textile collection in 2023, and new secondhand platforms are expanding the routes available for sequential flows of 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. Freecycling, as viewed in this thesis, is a practice that contains elements that are widely shared and common but are placed and enacted in a new context of non-monetary exchange in a non-domestic site. Thus I argue that Brīvbode offers to practitioners somehow familiar, yet new ways of relating to objects and people (Holmes, 2018). ). Holmes also supports the methodological insight that handling objects together is a way of making practices speak ( #ZYK94K Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Participant observation Even though the principles are similar, each Brīvbode location has its specifics, and over the months of fieldwork – usually my weekly shifts in Lastādija – I renewed my competence in managing the flow of materials, evaluating and sorting donations, tidying, moving objects, witnessing and mediating occasional tensions in the shop. I took fieldnotes during and after visits, and occasionally photographed the space and its contents. As handling material objects is a kind of activity that eases conversation (Appelgren and Bohlin, 2015; Holmes, 2018), sorting things alongside someone or commenting together on an object easily opens exchanges, and I used these opportunities for informal chatting with fellow volunteers and visitors. ).

8. Mesiranta et al. 2025 + Tölg & Fuentes 2025 — circular consumption as care

Mesiranta et al. and Tölg & Fuentes let the thesis name circularity as a care-demanding practice rather than a neutral sustainability technique. They foreground the ethical, affective, and practical work involved in maintaining objects, extending their lives, and passing them on responsibly ( #3HCC78 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Mesiranta, N., Mattila, M., Koskinen, O. and Närvänen, E. (2025) ‘Circular consumption practices as matters of care’, Journal of Business Ethics, 200, pp. 13–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05888-5 ; #C84FMM Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Tölg, R. and Fuentes, C. (2025) ‘Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing’, Consumption and Society, 4(2), pp. 213–231. https://doi.org/10.1332/27528499Y2024D000000032 ). In Brīvbode, this becomes visible in sorting, curating, withholding, redirecting, repairing, tolerating, and making judgements about what should happen to things. These sources support the claim that circularity needs care resources, not only environmental values ( #5YXGE6 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion This chapter has examined the labour that sustains freecycling in Brīvbode, finding it distributed across structural, ethical, and gendered dimensions that existing circular economy frameworks tend to overlook. Wheeler and Glucksmann’s consumption work concept names the structure: tasks that paid institutions would perform in formal retail or waste management contexts are here absorbed by unpaid volunteers and participants, distributed across modal and processual dimensions that stretch well beyond the freeshop itself. The feminist ethics of care and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), together with Bankovska’s (2020) care not-work and Graeber’s (2018) account of work as what just needs to be done, name the orientation: much of this labour is not transferred from institutions onto reluctant consumers but self-imposed through ethical commitment and care – activities people perform because they cannot bring themselves not to. Miller (1998) names who bears it: consistently and disproportionately women, from household sorting and routing to managing others’ generosity to transmitting these competencies to the next generation. ).

9. Miller 1998 — household consumption as gendered care

Miller gives the thesis a way to understand household consumption as care for others, and therefore as gendered moral labour. His work helps explain why women so often appear as the people who know what family members need, what can be passed on, what should be saved, and what must not simply be thrown away ( #BZQJQS Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Miller, D. (1998) A theory of shopping. Cambridge: Polity Press. ; #2RA8WL Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption Work The thesis also attends to the gendered distribution of this work. Ethnographic research has demonstrated that consumption is often organised around care for others, and that women often function as moral agents in household consumption, regulating what goes in and out of households (Miller, 1998, Reno, 2016). 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. ). In Chapter 5, this becomes central to showing that Brīvbode’s circulation is sustained through competencies already formed in gendered household management ( #PNGSGT Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange It’s On Me: Networks, Gender, and the Transmission of Care Miller's (1998) 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 as they are the ones acquiring, managing, and disposing of goods in relation to the needs of children, partners, and wider social networks. Wheeler and Glucksmann (2015) find the same gendered pattern in recycling: women typically take responsibility for sorting while men handle transport. The fieldwork conducted for this thesis reflects this consistently. Anna states it directly: "It's on me. I'm the one who supplies everyone with clothes and shoes." Silvija organises all divestment decisions in her household and says her husband "would just throw it in the bin." Men's role, where it appears, is typically transport and carrying the bags that women have sorted, selected, and prepared. ).

10. Eden / Počinková / Tan & Yeoh / Camacho-Otero — freecycling, swapping, and reuse comparators

These sources locate Brīvbode within a wider field of freecycling, clothing swaps, and community-based reuse, while helping specify what is distinctive about this case. Eden gives the link between freecycling and shifting categories of value and waste ( #JNBSSG Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Eden, S. (2017) ‘Blurring the boundaries: prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 17(2), pp. 265–285. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540515586871 ). Počinková et al. support the framing of voluntary clothing disposition through community-based swap infrastructures ( #6JMQ9V Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES 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). https://doi.org/10.1108/SEJ-02-2023-0017 ). Camacho-Otero et al. connect clothes swapping to circular economy practice theory ( #4RABAB Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Camacho-Otero, J., Pettersen, I.N. and Boks, C. (2020) ‘Consumer engagement in the circular economy: exploring clothes swapping in emerging economies from a social practice perspective’, Sustainable Development, 28(1), pp. 279–293. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2002 ). Tan and Yeoh are especially close to Brīvbode because they treat physical freecycling markets as short-loop circularity, based on rescue, recirculation, and material relation-building rather than only recycling ( #6SDD7L Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange LIST OF SOURCES Tan, Q.H. and Yeoh, B.S.A. (2024) ‘Freecycling markets as sustainable materialist movements? Closing reuse circularity loops in Singapore’, Worldwide Waste, 7(1), pp. 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3197/whpww.63857928646673 ). Together, these sources make Brīvbode legible as part of circular consumption scholarship, while your ethnography adds the grounded detail of how such circulation is actually kept moving.

Yes — let’s treat “circularity” not as one concept but as a cluster of meanings moving through the bibliography. Different sources make circularity mean slightly different things: a loop, a practice, a form of labour, a care relation, a critique of consumer capitalism, a short reuse circuit, a moral promise, or a policy fantasy. That is actually useful for your thesis, because Brīvbode sits exactly in the gap between these meanings.

1. Circularity as the policy/diagram ideal: keeping materials in loops

In the circular economy literature, circularity often begins as a systems idea: materials should stay in use longer, waste should be designed out, and objects should move through loops rather than linear take–make–dispose chains. This appears in the CE “butterfly diagram” logic: preserve natural capital, circulate products and materials for longer, and design out waste ( #35H953 Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review 2018 Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero 2. Background Although the concept of the circular economy is widely used by academics and practitioners, there is little agreement regarding what it means. One of the most used definitions was coined by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation and is represented in the now-famous ‘butterfly diagram’ [1]. In this visualisation, the circular economy is divided into two cycles, a biological cycle and a technical cycle, both of which are comprised of actors and activities. At the centre of the diagram is the consumer for the biological cycle and the user for the technical cycle. Other stakeholders involved in this definition are the service provider, the product manufacturer, and the parts manufacturer. This diagram is accompanied by three principles that the foundation coined as the circular economy principles. First, the preservation and enhancement of natural capital, second, the longer circulation of products and materials in both cycles, and third, designing out waste. ). Stahel’s formulation, quoted by Shove and Rinkinen, captures the classic promise well: circular economy would turn goods at the end of one service life into resources for others — “reuse what you can, recycle what cannot be used, repair what is broken…” ( #RHNFFH Material culture and the circular economy 2023 Elizabeth Shove, Jenny Rinkinen 1. Introduction A “circular economy” would turn goods that are at the end of their service life into resources for others, closing loops in industrial ecosystems and minimizing waste... It would change economic logic because it replaces production with sufficiency: reuse what you can, recycle what cannot be used, repair what is broken, remanufacture what cannot be repaired. (Stahel, 2016: 435) ).

For Brīvbode, this is the broad background: it is a place where goods at the end of one household life may become resources for another. But your thesis shows that the diagram is too clean. The loop does not close because the object has “potential”; it closes, partially and unevenly, because people sort, carry, judge, display, take, refuse, redirect, and care.

2. Circularity as consumer/practice transformation

Tölg gives a direct definition of circular consumption: it means acquiring, using, and disposing of goods differently — acquiring second-hand, repairing, maintaining, and ensuring reuse rather than only recycling ( #Y6RG69 The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings 2025 Réka Tölg Introduction Connected to these ambitions, a central goal has become to engage consumers in the circular economy (CE) and bring about circular consumption (e.g., Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2013; European Commission, 2015). Performing circular consumption involves acquiring, using and disposing of goods in new ways. In the CE, consumers need to purchase differently, as according to circularity principles goods need to be acquired second-hand, from recycled sources or even accessed through rental services (Dissanayake and Weerasinghe, 2022; Machado et al., 2019). At the same time, consumers also need to use and dispose of their possessions differently, slowing the use of materials through repair and maintenance and ensuring reuse is equally important as closing material loops (Bocken et al., 2016; Geissdoerfer et al., 2017). ). This is very close to your object trajectory through Brīvbode: things arrive through divestment, are sorted and made visible, then possibly acquired and reinserted into use.

But Tölg’s stronger contribution is that circularity is difficult because everyday life remains organised for linear consumption. Circular consumption is performed in “linear landscapes,” where buying new remains easy and circular practices are often add-ons ( #DK5UEU The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings 2025 Réka Tölg The (im)possibilities of circular consumption in linear landscapes This dissertation points out how retail market materialities, while enabling some forms of circular consumption, are also arranged to support the co-existence of circular and linear modes of consumption. As this dissertation shows, circular consumption as loops of circularity added to linear modes of consumption (see also Sutcliffe, 2022; Wethal and Hoff, 2024), becomes produced in retail settings. Even if consumers are enabled to do circular practices, such as repair or gentle laundry in their households through additional consumption work, the purchase of new items is not excluded in retail settings. Consumers are rather enabled to buy new garments and then perform additional repairs or upcycling as circular loops. Through mostly placing the circular consumption work in households, instead of handling it in stores, retail settings are arranged to enable the co-existence of linear and circular modes of consumption. This limiting of circular consumption to additional loops is contested, in some ways, by the case of the alternative denim retailer. In their stores, consumers are materially and discursively enabled through various market materialities to sidestep the linear modes of consumption and instead repair what they already own or opt for buying a repaired item. However, the more mainstream (retail) market arrangements mostly enable consumers to develop and enact circular competences as add-ons, instead of questioning and devaluing the linear fast-paced consumer culture. , #MC25VK The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings 2025 Réka Tölg The challenges of circular consumption Against this background, further understanding is needed of how consumers manage to perform circular consumption in a landscape and everyday life that is organised for the linear mode of consumption. Thus, the current possibilities of circular consumption need to be explored in relation to everyday life and a consumption landscape that is socially, culturally and materially patterned for the linear, take-make-dispose logic. How and under what conditions is circular consumption possible to perform? How do consumers carry out the new forms of efforts and extend previous activities required for circular consumption? How do they manage different challenges that arise? And when do these challenges lead to failures of performing circular consumption? ). This speaks directly to Brīvbode’s tension: it is a circular site embedded in overproduction, fast fashion, household overflow, and the ongoing availability of cheap goods.

In your terms: Brīvbode does not abolish linear consumption; it creates a place where some of its surplus is reworked.

3. Circularity as something assembled, not simply chosen

Fuentes, Närvänen and Mesiranta are useful because they refuse to treat circular consumption as a ready-made behaviour that individuals simply adopt. They frame circular consumption as a continuous process and performance, enabled and shaped by sociomaterial arrangements ( #ZAQHJX The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach 2023 Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta Introduction In this chapter, we conceptualise and empirically illustrate the formation of circular consumption. We approach circular consumption not as a ready-made pattern that end users simply adopt when they make choices about products and services, but as a continuous process and performance. Drawing upon the sociomaterial perspective, we argue that the performance of circular consumption is both enabled and shaped by broader sociomaterial processes. To understand the role that consumers play as catalysts of circular consumption, we must first understand how and under what conditions circular consumption is made possible. ). Their key question is: under what conditions is circular consumption made possible?

That is almost exactly your Brīvbode question. Brīvbode assembles circularity through a room, shelves, boxes, opening hours, trust, volunteers, donors, norms, sorting categories, and tacit knowledge. Circularity here is not “people choosing reuse” in the abstract; it is a temporary arrangement of materials, meanings, and competencies that makes reuse doable.

Their discussion of circular consumption as recirculating goods through acquisition, appropriation, appreciation, devaluation, divestment, and disposal also connects nicely to your Evans/Warde framing ( #KRBVR9 The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach 2023 Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta Theories of practice and the assembling of circular consumption The previously discussed broad definition of consumption is important to the issue of circular consumption, as it includes not only the purchase and use of goods but also the processes and activities connected with the goods' (de)valuation and disposal or recirculation. Circular consumption is, in large, about recirculating goods through the phases of consumption. A consumption object, such as a piece of clothing, ideally moves in a CE through several rounds of acquisition, appropriation, and appreciation in several sets of different consumers' practices before it is finally used up. , #YWSREJ The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach 2023 Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta Practice theory in the field of consumption Acquisition entails processes of exchange, such as purchasing, but it can also include other ways in which people gain access to goods, such as gifting, trading, or borrowing. Appropriation involves the process of giving meaning to the things acquired and making them fit into one's everyday life. Appreciation refers to various forms of pleasure and satisfaction from the use of goods. Devaluation is understood as the counterpart of appreciation, which entails the loss of value, either materially through wear and tear, or the loss of cultural meanings, for example, by something going out of style. Divestment is the counterpart of appropriation and refers to instances in which goods no longer fit consumers and their everyday practices and are therefore divested from use. Finally, the counterpart of acquisition, disposal, involves the various ways in which goods are disposed of, such as gifting, recycling, or binning (Evans, 2019). Thus, a single good – a service or a product – can go through multiple phases of consumption from being acquired, appropriated, and appreciated to being devalued, divested, and disposed. ).

4. Circularity as hidden labour / consumption work

Hobson et al. and Wheeler & Glucksmann shift the question from “how do materials circulate?” to “who does the work that allows them to circulate?” Hobson et al. argue that circular economy discourse often underplays the labour required of the “circular consumer”: circularity demands varied, unevenly distributed forms of consumption work ( #629UVN Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. 2021 Dan Welch, Harald Wieser, Helen Holmes, Katy Wheeler, Kersty Hobson ABSTRACT Circular Economy frameworks have become central to debates and interventions that aim to reduce global resource use and environmental despoliation. As pathways to both systemic and micro-scale transformations, there remain many challenges to making Circular Economy actionable. One such challenge is facilitating the emergence of the 'circular consumer'. Here, we are all encouraged to shift everyday practices to consume new products and services and/or participate in the 'Sharing Economy': all of which are claimed, in some prominent debates, to automatically offer more 'convenience' for the consumer. In response, this paper argues that viewing such debates through the lens of Consumption Work offers a different picture of what it takes to be, and what we need to know about, the circular consumer. 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. This paper thus proposes a research agenda into this topic, outlining five, inter-related, critical issues that a Circular Economy research agenda must address, including questions of who undertakes Consumption Work; to what ends; and how its multiple forms are coordinated within and beyond the household. ). They also point out that CE labour is moved along supply chains and often obscured by claims of consumer convenience ( #FH5JP3 Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. 2021 Dan Welch, Harald Wieser, Helen Holmes, Katy Wheeler, Kersty Hobson assertion that is far from proven to date. Finally, CW inherently concerns divisions of labour. There has been little engagement in CE literature to date with how labour is being moved along the supply chain in new forms of allegedly 'circular' business models: and the implications for such shifts, in terms of what is being expected of, and what is possible for, the consumer/user. Such concerns must be central to a research agenda on CE CW, if any interventions are not to exacerbate already-existing inequalities or have knock-on effects of increasing overall resource-use. In short, just as energy-intensive processes are needed to sustain the material flows of the CE, so it goes for some forms of labour: labour that sits behind, and remains obscured by, headline assumptions such as those of increased consumer convenience. Thus, to fully evaluate the core claims for the all-round benefits of CE, understanding the complexities of CE CW needs to be part of an enlarged and critical research agenda. ).

This is one of the deepest connections to Brīvbode. The swapshop looks like a free-flowing place where unwanted things find new users. But Chapter 5 shows that this flow depends on unpaid sorting, emotional detachment, transport, quality assessment, social mediation, and the curatorial work of making objects available again ( #EF5DET Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode The chapter is organized by two complementary registers. Consumption work (Wheeler and Glucksmann 2015) names the tasks the practice demands – acquiring, sorting, maintaining, divesting, transporting – and tracks how they are distributed across technical, modal, and processual dimensions of the division of labour. Care work, in the feminist tradition and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), names the relational and ethical orientation through which participants take this labour on, often without recognising it as work at all. , #5YXGE6 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion This chapter has examined the labour that sustains freecycling in Brīvbode, finding it distributed across structural, ethical, and gendered dimensions that existing circular economy frameworks tend to overlook. Wheeler and Glucksmann’s consumption work concept names the structure: tasks that paid institutions would perform in formal retail or waste management contexts are here absorbed by unpaid volunteers and participants, distributed across modal and processual dimensions that stretch well beyond the freeshop itself. The feminist ethics of care and its recent applications to circular consumption (Mesiranta et al. 2025; Tölg and Fuentes 2025), together with Bankovska’s (2020) care not-work and Graeber’s (2018) account of work as what just needs to be done, name the orientation: much of this labour is not transferred from institutions onto reluctant consumers but self-imposed through ethical commitment and care – activities people perform because they cannot bring themselves not to. Miller (1998) names who bears it: consistently and disproportionately women, from household sorting and routing to managing others’ generosity to transmitting these competencies to the next generation. ). Circularity is therefore not frictionless. It is work — and your thesis shows that this work is gendered, ethical, and often invisible.

This is also where your critique of circular economy policy becomes sharp: circular systems often assume a supply of willing, skilled, time-rich people. Brīvbode shows who those people are.

5. Circularity as care

Mesiranta et al. and Tölg & Fuentes push further: circularity is not only work, but care. Tölg and Fuentes argue that consumer care is built into the circular economy project, even when it is not named as such: people are expected to care for things, packaging, food, clothes, the environment, and future others ( #A42MYV Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing 2025 Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg Introduction Circular consumption involves consumer practices that work towards extending product lifetimes and enabling multiple cycles of use and recycling (Mylan et al, 2016; Hobson, 2020; Sutcliffe, 2022). Accordingly, in a circular system, consumers need to acquire, use, look after and part with products in ways that recirculate or reuse materials and minimise waste. Therefore, consumers are asked to care for their belongings (Ackermann, 2018; Jaeger-Erben et al, 2021; Rabiú and Jaeger-Erben, 2022) while at the same time care for the environment and future generations. Although seldom made explicit, consumer care is thus built into the circular economy project. For example, consumers are asked to care for packaging – recycle, wash and fold it – and sort it into the appropriate bins. Consumers are also asked to care for food, plan their food shopping, ‘rescue’ food close to its expiration date and make meals from leftovers to reduce food waste. Furthermore, as this article will explore in more detail, they are urged to repair their clothes, wash them sparingly, and protect them from wear and tear. All these prompts are aimed at not only caring for consumption objects but also at caring for the environment, the welfare of distant others and future generations. ). They show that circular clothing consumption requires care awareness, responsibility-taking, and care resources ( #R3BCC8 Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing 2025 Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing In a circular system, consumers need to acquire, use, look after and part with products in ways that recirculate or reuse materials and minimise waste. Thus, although seldom made explicit, consumer care is built into the circular economy project. In this article, we aim to contribute to the emerging body of sociological work on circular consumption by foregrounding the role of care in the performance of circular clothing practices. Theoretically, we combine previous care literature with theories of practice. The analysis builds on an ethnographically inspired study of 24 households' circular clothing consumption. Our findings suggest that accomplishing circularity in everyday clothing consumption involves developing care awareness and taking on responsibility for the care of clothes as a way of caring for distant others. We also show that multiple care struggles and care dilemmas complicate the accomplishment of care in this context. The article ends by outlining the possible contributions of developing an awareness and understanding of how care and circular consumption are intertwined. , #RQVYTZ Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing 2025 Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg Discussion and conclusion These findings contribute to sociologically oriented, circular consumption research in several ways. First, we show that the notion of care needs to be taken into account when trying to understand and enable circular consumption. While conceptual work on circular consumption has highlighted the potential relevance of care for circularity (Hobson et al, 2021; Greene et al, 2024), this topic has received little focused empirical attention. We address this paucity, showing that the performance of circular consumption not only involves specific socio-material arrangements, know-how, time and consumer labour but is also enabled and shaped by the enactment of care. Care awareness, responsibility-taking, and access and mobilisation of care resources were all crucial to the performance of circular clothing consumption. ). Care alone is not enough; people need time, skills, infrastructures, and ways to resolve care dilemmas ( #U6RVL7 Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing 2025 Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg Discussion and conclusion However, in our analysis, we also found that caring for the environment or social others is not enough to perform different forms of circular consumption. Care resources were crucial when enacting care in the context of circular consumption. Without access to care resources, participants encountered what we termed 'care struggles'. Furthermore, participants were often aware of and took responsibility for multiple care needs, where meeting all of them simultaneously or with the same enactment of care was not possible. We highlighted how this led to care dilemmas, further complicating the performance of circular clothing consumption. , #HS25S8 Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing 2025 Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg Discussion and conclusion Third, our analysis of caring in circular clothing practices highlights that the performance of circular consumption requires more than care awareness and responsibility-taking. Consumers also rely on care resources of different sorts. These resources, in turn, are often connected to and made available by wider market structures. This contributes to sociological circular consumption research, as it foregrounds how circular consumption is embedded and often shaped by wider market arrangements. As circular consumption research turns its attention to the home (for example, Greene et al, 2024), it is important to understand that performing different forms of circular consumption in the home is also embedded in a wider consumption landscape (Fuentes and Sörum, 2019). ).

This is very Brīvbode. Donors care enough not to throw things away. Volunteers care enough to sort, rescue, wash, redirect, refuse, and sometimes tolerate imperfect uses. Rasa’s curation — holding a certain item for a certain person — is care and consumption work at once ( #7X9BV4 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Priceless Valuation: Sorting, Curation, and Care Curation extends valuation work beyond sorting into knowing and managing people’s needs. Rasa describes it as having “a filter.” She sometimes holds specific items for specific regular visitors based on accumulated knowledge about their life circumstances: a particular colour of top for a visually impaired visitor, a wedding gift set aside for a regular who recently moved from homelessness into social housing. This is care work and consumption work simultaneously — the kind of matching labour that in retail is performed automatically through pricing, display, and inventory systems, but here depends on Rasa’s relational knowledge of specific people, which cannot be systematised or delegated, and which makes Brīvbode function as something more than a drop-off point. ). But your thesis also shows care’s burden: caring for things can become exhausting, endless, and unequally carried.

So in this thesis, circularity is not only “closing loops”; it is care under pressure.

6. Circularity as short reuse loops, not long recycling loops

Tan and Yeoh are especially close to Brīvbode because they study physical freecycling markets. They distinguish short reuse loops from long recycling loops: short loops are preferable because they keep an object’s form, function, and value intact, rather than breaking it down into materials ( #J46PZ3 Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore 2024 Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan 1. INTRODUCTION Scholars working in the field of circular economies have identified the predominance of top-down, often technocratic and market-based approaches at the expense of ground-up collaborative grassroots initiatives (Hobson 2020; Böhm et al. 2023). We seek to redress this over-emphasis on state-driven circular policies in public and academic discourses by attending to two case studies at the emerging frontiers of Singapore's circular waste management. These case studies pertain to two physical community-based freecycling markets that facilitate the closing and shortening of circularity loops via reuse. Freecycling refers to the practice of giving and receiving something for free (i.e. without cost, Lou 2019). These freecycling markets serve as important counterpoints to the city state's implementation of household recycling, which closes long circularity loops. Compared to long recycling loops, short reuse loops are preferable because they are better at conserving materials and energy by retaining an object's form, function and value (Reike et al. 2018). ). They argue that freecycling markets redirect unwanted but reusable household objects away from disposal and toward new users, through “rescue” and “recirculation” ( #NKZQC2 Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore 2024 Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan ABSTRACT This paper seeks to redress the over-emphasis on state-driven circular policies in public and academic discourses by attending to two physical community-based freecycling markets at the emerging frontiers of circular waste/resource management in Singapore. Freecycling markets that close short reuse loops are a counterpoint to policies that close long recycling loops. Drawing primarily on empirical data from ethnographic fieldwork, we argue that freecycling markets exemplify a sustainable materialist movement concerned about the sustainability of material resources vis-à-vis the closing/shortening of material circularity loops. This is achieved through the reconfiguration of (a) material flows and (b) material relations. The redirection of unwanted but reusable household objects away from the incinerator and towards potential reusers animates a shift from a linear to circular material flow. We contend that this redirection of material resources for reuse is augmented by rescue and recirculation, which are relatively neglected within the scholarship on circular R-behaviours. Additionally, freecycling markets seek to transform material relations by encouraging care and stewardship, instead of use and disposal. Crucially, we highlight how freecycling markets may be plagued with material constraints that render them not-so-sustainable-and-scalable, thereby shedding light on the practical limits of sustainable materialist action. Taken together, this paper extends the scholarship on circular economies by bringing work on sustainable materialism into a productive dialogue with that on circular activisms and R-behaviours. , #GN9U22 Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore 2024 Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan 1. INTRODUCTION reconfigure material flows by redirecting unwanted but reusable household objects away from the incinerator and towards potential reusers, thereby closing/shortening circularity loops in the process. The redirection of material resources for cascading reuse is augmented by rescue and recirculation, which have been relatively neglected within the scholarship on circular R-behaviours. Here, rescue refers to the material practice of salvaging discarded but functional objects from the rubbish bin, so as to 'save' them from being re/down-cycled or incinerated. Rescue usually needs to happen earlier, or further upstream, before recirculation. 1 Recirculation entails re-distributing rescued/unwanted/surplus items to other potential end-users. Additionally, these markets seek to transform material relations/practices by encouraging stewardship (via reuse) and discouraging a consumerist, throw-away culture. ).

This gives you a strong vocabulary for Brīvbode. Brīvbode is not primarily recycling. It is not even only reuse in a generic sense. It is a short-loop infrastructure: things are kept recognisable, usable, socially meaningful, and available. A sweater remains a sweater, a plate remains a plate, toys remain toys — unless they fail the threshold and are redirected elsewhere.

But Tan and Yeoh also stress limits: freecycling markets may be environmentally sustainable but socially/spatially/labour-wise difficult to sustain ( #7FMJZN Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore 2024 Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan 7. CONCLUSION 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. These markets' failure to scale up and to multiply sideways instead may offer some transferable takeaways for sustainable circular activisms in densely-populated, land scarce cities. Notwithstanding the shortcomings of our sustainable materialist case studies, they represent 'small stories of closing loops' (Hobson 2020: 99). Rather than wait for radical shifts in the economic system, these are commendable efforts at carving out a prefigurative space-time for mainstreaming circular ). This resonates perfectly with Brīvbode’s bumblebee quality: it flies, but only through precarious arrangements of space, volunteer labour, and care.

7. Circularity as changing value/waste categories

Eden’s Freecycle article helps with the idea that circularity involves things moving in and out of categories like commodity, gift, waste, useful object, and unwanted surplus. In Freecycle, objects are decommodified, recontextualised, and value is rediscovered where waste might otherwise be assumed ( #7FG779 Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle 2017 Sally Eden Implosion 1: Consumption/production and the rise of prosumption Hence, digital prosumption offers ways to collectively produce, change and reproduce moral ordering through (culturally mediated) interaction. Commodities are commodified (for purchase), then 'decommodified' (through use and personalisation) and sometimes may be 'recommodified' or 'recontextualised' (for resale) 'through a series of moments, of which exchange for money is just one' (Sayer, 2003, p. 346). In the case of divestment in particular, the implicit linearity and one-way directionality in typical analyses of commodity chains that end with disposal can be reimagined through circularity, with waste being reused, recycled and reinvented as other products, comparable to ideas of 'industrial symbiosis', 'industrial ecology' and 'closing the loop' of manufacturing/disposal (e.g. Jackson, 1996). Thus, in a study of e-waste, Lepawsky and Mather (2011) 'kept finding "value," not "waste"' as things/materialities moved into and out of the category of 'valueless' (p. 247). ). Tan and Yeoh also summarise Eden as showing how freecycling moves meanings and materials as things shift from “unwanted” to “wanted” ( #KE8NXD Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore 2024 Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan 3.1 CIRCULAR R-BEHAVIOURS Scholars have pointed out that the recirculation of things through freecycling networks plays a vital role in promoting reuse as well as less materialistic and more sustainable consumption habits (Eden 2017; Klug 2017; Lou 2019; Liu et al. 2020; Gregson 2023). Aside from a gift economy, freecycling has also been identified as a means of collaborative consumption plugged into a sharing economy (Wiesser 2019; Liu et al. 2019). Nevertheless, the relationship between freecycling and circularity has not been well examined thus far. An exception is Eden's (2017) elaboration of how prosumption (i.e. the blurring of production and consumption) is reformulated by the circular movements of meanings and materials as things are disassembled and reassembled as well as shift from being 'unwanted' to 'wanted'. Accordingly, she has highlighted the ways in which freecycling implicates other R-behaviours such as repair and repurposing, besides reuse. In handing things down and around, their materiality gets transformed, and value gets recirculated in these open-ended freecycling networks. More recently, smart phone applications and internet technologies have connected those wanting to buy/sell, rent, lend, barter/swap, freecycle/freegan' virtually (see Norbutas and Corten 2018; Liu et al. 2020 on freecycling groups online). Nonetheless, there is still value in physical markets, as seen in Milios and Dalhammar's (2020) work exploring the novel prospects of sharing re-usable items in Swedish recycling centres to gain insight into the most viable product groups for recirculation. Taken together, the rescue and recirculation of items in good ).

This supports your sorting/display argument. Brīvbode is a reclassification machine, but not a mechanical one. The same item can be rubbish, useful craft material, beautiful find, burden, charity object, resale opportunity, or ethical rescue, depending on who sees it and where it sits. Circularity here is partly a change in classification: not waste yet, not commodity anymore, not gift exactly, not charity ideally.

8. Circularity as ordinary practices moved into new spaces

Holmes is useful because she brings circularity down from policy and business models into ordinary provisioning. She argues that domestic life already contains forms of circularity — food sharing, repurposing, recycling — and that the interesting question is how these ordinary practices are reorganised in diverse economic spaces ( #56AZCA New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning 2018 Helen Holmes 2.2. Circular economy and sharing economy In a previous study with others (Mylan et al., 2016), I argue for recognition of the domestic as a site of CE; where practices that constitute domestic life, including food sharing, repurposing and recycling, already involve the circularity of materials. Similarly, Hobson (2016: 96) alludes to the importance of the household, and the materials which flow in and out, in expanding CE's realm. In addition, and as already noted, connections are being made between CE and SE. Lacy and Rutqvist (2015) describe the sharing platform, and the likes of Uber and Lyft Inc, as CE business models. Whilst not expressively stating the varying forms of economy at work, research by Niinimäki and Hassi (2011) likewise draws upon the links between PSS schemes involving fashion items, and more sustainable, circular modes of consumption. Thus, it is evident that the division between SE/CE is blurred and the two are often interwoven. Hobson (2016) also makes these connections to PSS and the interweaving of CE/SE, referencing models such as Zipcar. However, Hobson (2016) pushes at this further, referring to social enterprises and 'generative spaces' (p.98) of everyday activism, such as repair cafes, as spaces of the CE. Hobson's work bridges the lacunae between the sharing and circular economies, opening up the possibilities that diverse economic spaces offer to issues of circularity, sustainability and activism. As Hobson states (2016: 99), there is potential for 'rich engagement, through both further conceptual and empirical exploration'. This article empirically fleshes out what such spaces look like and how they engage in practices of circulating and sharing. ). Her “new spaces, ordinary practices” framing lets you say: Brīvbode is new not because giving, taking, sorting, or reusing are new, but because they are reorganised in a semi-public, non-monetary, permanent site ( #XKELL5 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Introduction Consumption and divestment practices are changing, shaped by new infrastructure and policy developments – Latvia introduced mandatory textile collection in 2023, and new secondhand platforms are expanding the routes available for sequential flows of 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. Freecycling, as viewed in this thesis, is a practice that contains elements that are widely shared and common but are placed and enacted in a new context of non-monetary exchange in a non-domestic site. Thus I argue that Brīvbode offers to practitioners somehow familiar, yet new ways of relating to objects and people (Holmes, 2018). ).

So Holmes helps you avoid romanticising Brīvbode. It is not a utopian outside of capitalism. It is a reconfiguration of ordinary practices of provisioning and divestment, made visible in a new setting.

9. Circularity as the full trajectory of things

Warde and Evans do not necessarily define “circularity” in CE terms, but they make your version of circularity analytically possible. Warde says consumption is not a practice in itself but a moment within practices ( #C6LN2K Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Consumption practices 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: e.g. 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.” ). Evans extends consumption across acquisition, appropriation, appreciation, devaluation, divestment, and disposal ( #NZ35DC After Practice? Material Semiotic Approaches to Consumption and Economy 2020 David M. Evans Theories of Practice and Material Semiotics The analysis that follows makes this argument through reference to three bodies of work: (i) actor-network approaches to market agencements ; (ii) perspectives on the social life of things, and (iii) discussions of ontological politics. In each case, I use brief examples from a recent project on the significance of 'freshness' in the agro-food sector 5 to demonstrate the basis and potential for integration with practice theoretic accounts of consumption. Before getting to this, it is important to present a working definition of consumption. I understand consumption as a process involving specific 'moments' beyond the act of acquisition. Following Warde (2005), I suggest that consumption also involves appropriation (use, personalisation and incorporation into people's everyday lives) and appreciation (involving personal and symbolic frameworks of judgement and evaluation). To each of these A's, I propose a counterpart D (Evans, 2019) such that consumption also involves devaluation (the loss of economic or use value, symbolic failure), divestment (the loss of personal meaning, the unravelling of attachments) and disposal (getting rid of things). These processes can involve goods, services and experiences which can either be accessed and disposed of through market exchanges or alternative channels. Consumers have 'some degree of discretion' in these processes, which are undertaken for 'utilitarian, expressive and contemplative' purposes (see Warde, 2005: 137). This definition is provisional and intended to frame engagement with each of the following three perspectives. ).

Together, they let you treat circularity as a trajectory through multiple practice moments rather than as a single act of “reuse.” A thing does not simply “enter the loop.” It is detached from one household, devalued or revalued, transported, sorted, displayed, noticed, acquired, appropriated again, and perhaps later divested again. This is why your chapter structure works: it follows things through phases of detachment and possible reattachment.

10. Circularity as tension, not resolution

The most important synthesis for your thesis is that these sources do not all produce one smooth concept of circularity. They generate a productive tension:

• CE policy imagines circularity as closed loops ( #35H953 Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review 2018 Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero 2. Background Although the concept of the circular economy is widely used by academics and practitioners, there is little agreement regarding what it means. One of the most used definitions was coined by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation and is represented in the now-famous ‘butterfly diagram’ [1]. In this visualisation, the circular economy is divided into two cycles, a biological cycle and a technical cycle, both of which are comprised of actors and activities. At the centre of the diagram is the consumer for the biological cycle and the user for the technical cycle. Other stakeholders involved in this definition are the service provider, the product manufacturer, and the parts manufacturer. This diagram is accompanied by three principles that the foundation coined as the circular economy principles. First, the preservation and enhancement of natural capital, second, the longer circulation of products and materials in both cycles, and third, designing out waste. , #RHNFFH Material culture and the circular economy 2023 Elizabeth Shove, Jenny Rinkinen 1. Introduction A “circular economy” would turn goods that are at the end of their service life into resources for others, closing loops in industrial ecosystems and minimizing waste... It would change economic logic because it replaces production with sufficiency: reuse what you can, recycle what cannot be used, repair what is broken, remanufacture what cannot be repaired. (Stahel, 2016: 435) ).

• Practice theory reframes it as sociomaterial performance ( #ZAQHJX The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach 2023 Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta Introduction In this chapter, we conceptualise and empirically illustrate the formation of circular consumption. We approach circular consumption not as a ready-made pattern that end users simply adopt when they make choices about products and services, but as a continuous process and performance. Drawing upon the sociomaterial perspective, we argue that the performance of circular consumption is both enabled and shaped by broader sociomaterial processes. To understand the role that consumers play as catalysts of circular consumption, we must first understand how and under what conditions circular consumption is made possible. ).

• Consumption work literature shows it as labour redistribution ( #629UVN Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. 2021 Dan Welch, Harald Wieser, Helen Holmes, Katy Wheeler, Kersty Hobson ABSTRACT Circular Economy frameworks have become central to debates and interventions that aim to reduce global resource use and environmental despoliation. As pathways to both systemic and micro-scale transformations, there remain many challenges to making Circular Economy actionable. One such challenge is facilitating the emergence of the 'circular consumer'. Here, we are all encouraged to shift everyday practices to consume new products and services and/or participate in the 'Sharing Economy': all of which are claimed, in some prominent debates, to automatically offer more 'convenience' for the consumer. In response, this paper argues that viewing such debates through the lens of Consumption Work offers a different picture of what it takes to be, and what we need to know about, the circular consumer. 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. This paper thus proposes a research agenda into this topic, outlining five, inter-related, critical issues that a Circular Economy research agenda must address, including questions of who undertakes Consumption Work; to what ends; and how its multiple forms are coordinated within and beyond the household. , #FH5JP3 Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. 2021 Dan Welch, Harald Wieser, Helen Holmes, Katy Wheeler, Kersty Hobson assertion that is far from proven to date. Finally, CW inherently concerns divisions of labour. There has been little engagement in CE literature to date with how labour is being moved along the supply chain in new forms of allegedly 'circular' business models: and the implications for such shifts, in terms of what is being expected of, and what is possible for, the consumer/user. Such concerns must be central to a research agenda on CE CW, if any interventions are not to exacerbate already-existing inequalities or have knock-on effects of increasing overall resource-use. In short, just as energy-intensive processes are needed to sustain the material flows of the CE, so it goes for some forms of labour: labour that sits behind, and remains obscured by, headline assumptions such as those of increased consumer convenience. Thus, to fully evaluate the core claims for the all-round benefits of CE, understanding the complexities of CE CW needs to be part of an enlarged and critical research agenda. ).

• Care literature shows it as ethical and affective work ( #R3BCC8 Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing 2025 Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing In a circular system, consumers need to acquire, use, look after and part with products in ways that recirculate or reuse materials and minimise waste. Thus, although seldom made explicit, consumer care is built into the circular economy project. In this article, we aim to contribute to the emerging body of sociological work on circular consumption by foregrounding the role of care in the performance of circular clothing practices. Theoretically, we combine previous care literature with theories of practice. The analysis builds on an ethnographically inspired study of 24 households' circular clothing consumption. Our findings suggest that accomplishing circularity in everyday clothing consumption involves developing care awareness and taking on responsibility for the care of clothes as a way of caring for distant others. We also show that multiple care struggles and care dilemmas complicate the accomplishment of care in this context. The article ends by outlining the possible contributions of developing an awareness and understanding of how care and circular consumption are intertwined. , #U6RVL7 Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing 2025 Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg Discussion and conclusion However, in our analysis, we also found that caring for the environment or social others is not enough to perform different forms of circular consumption. Care resources were crucial when enacting care in the context of circular consumption. Without access to care resources, participants encountered what we termed 'care struggles'. Furthermore, participants were often aware of and took responsibility for multiple care needs, where meeting all of them simultaneously or with the same enactment of care was not possible. We highlighted how this led to care dilemmas, further complicating the performance of circular clothing consumption. ).

• Freecycling literature shows it as short-loop reuse through rescue and recirculation ( #NKZQC2 Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore 2024 Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan ABSTRACT This paper seeks to redress the over-emphasis on state-driven circular policies in public and academic discourses by attending to two physical community-based freecycling markets at the emerging frontiers of circular waste/resource management in Singapore. Freecycling markets that close short reuse loops are a counterpoint to policies that close long recycling loops. Drawing primarily on empirical data from ethnographic fieldwork, we argue that freecycling markets exemplify a sustainable materialist movement concerned about the sustainability of material resources vis-à-vis the closing/shortening of material circularity loops. This is achieved through the reconfiguration of (a) material flows and (b) material relations. The redirection of unwanted but reusable household objects away from the incinerator and towards potential reusers animates a shift from a linear to circular material flow. We contend that this redirection of material resources for reuse is augmented by rescue and recirculation, which are relatively neglected within the scholarship on circular R-behaviours. Additionally, freecycling markets seek to transform material relations by encouraging care and stewardship, instead of use and disposal. Crucially, we highlight how freecycling markets may be plagued with material constraints that render them not-so-sustainable-and-scalable, thereby shedding light on the practical limits of sustainable materialist action. Taken together, this paper extends the scholarship on circular economies by bringing work on sustainable materialism into a productive dialogue with that on circular activisms and R-behaviours. , #GN9U22 Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore 2024 Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan 1. INTRODUCTION reconfigure material flows by redirecting unwanted but reusable household objects away from the incinerator and towards potential reusers, thereby closing/shortening circularity loops in the process. The redirection of material resources for cascading reuse is augmented by rescue and recirculation, which have been relatively neglected within the scholarship on circular R-behaviours. Here, rescue refers to the material practice of salvaging discarded but functional objects from the rubbish bin, so as to 'save' them from being re/down-cycled or incinerated. Rescue usually needs to happen earlier, or further upstream, before recirculation. 1 Recirculation entails re-distributing rescued/unwanted/surplus items to other potential end-users. Additionally, these markets seek to transform material relations/practices by encouraging stewardship (via reuse) and discouraging a consumerist, throw-away culture. ).

• Your ethnography shows it as situated, imperfect, and morally negotiated movement ( #M3VCHH Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations Freecycling in Brīvbode is sustained by a plurality of meanings that are compatible enough to coexist within the same space. Givers come to resolve the moral weight of unwanted things, the site’s permanence and visibility offer a trusted route for it. Takers come for dignity, experimentation, craft materials, social contact or simple convenience. The moral economy of exchange holds these heterogenous orientations together, as it is actively maintained against the pressure of resellers, heavy takers and people looking for charity, yet flexible enough to accommodate them when the alternative is overflow. , #MHM9Q5 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 2026 Ieva Lange Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations This does not resolve the tension running through the chapter of Brīvbode functioning simultaneously as a moral circularity infrastructure embodying an alternative value regime of exchange and responsible material life – and as a low threshold overflow channel that absorbs the surplus generated by the consumption patterns it aspires to counter. This tension just reflects the observed dynamic of how sustainable practices are embedded in contemporary life. ).

So the thesis can say something like:

In this literature, circularity shifts from a systems model of closed loops to an everyday accomplishment requiring infrastructures, competencies, labour, judgement, and care. Brīvbode contributes by showing how this accomplishment happens in a low-threshold, non-monetary site where objects are not simply kept in circulation but continually reclassified, morally negotiated, and materially managed under conditions of overflow.

That is the conceptual sweet spot. Brīvbode does not disprove circularity; it ethnographically thickens it. It shows circularity as a practice that is always being kept going, rather than a loop that simply closes.