# Assistant conversation NDR9BJ - Canonical URL: - Resource IRI: - Type: assistant conversation - Mode: research ## Transcript ### 1. User > so maybe then brivbode is a particularly interesting case study because it is clearly a circular kind of thing, probably also eu funded, etc, ostensibly a sustainability initiative, ... but some things about it prevent it from becoming a kind of funnel or endpoint or legible part of economic systems? and umm this is tied up with its being a generative space... it's not charity, not a market, not a bin..... it does something that's contrary to the CE paradigm, and that something is in a way itself somehow ethnographic or anthropological.... ??? Brīvbode is the kind of initiative that the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan would happily count among its successes: a volunteer-run reuse site that diverts textiles from landfill at the edge of a city. But this thesis argues that the features which make Brīvbode work — its plural moral economy, the friction of valuation without price, the gendered care-laden labour of keeping it open, the biographical and relational attachments that route things through it — are precisely the features the CE paradigm cannot register. This illegibility is not a gap to be closed by better metrics; it is what generative spaces of circulation look like when ethnography rather than throughput accounting is doing the describing. ... Brīvbode is a textbook circular-economy initiative on paper: volunteer-run reuse infrastructure, diverts textiles from landfill, plausibly aligns with EU CE Action Plan and the Latvian textile collection mandate, the kind of place that would happily appear in a policy report as a “community-based circular initiative.” Its outputs are legible to CE accounting (tonnes diverted, items rerouted to textile collection, etc.). But ethnographically — and this is the move — the things that make it actually work, that recruit and retain its participants, that sustain it across years, are precisely the things that make it illegible to CE accounting. Plurality of meaning. Moral economy that bends. Friction as constitutive. A “purgatory for things.” Aiga’s thirty trips. Madara learning to switch off “free.” The wire offcuts no one will tell her aren’t being used. Witnessing circulation. Knowing whose things are whose. The shop as social rhythm, as biographical infrastructure, as a route for ethical labour you can’t help doing. Brīvbode is not a charity (organisers actively resist that), not a market (no price), not a bin (it actively curates against waste), and not a CE node (it refuses optimization in practice). It sits in a negative space defined by what it isn’t, and the positive content of that space is — as you say — irreducibly anthropological. It’s held together by the kind of social fabric ethnography is uniquely equipped to describe and policy is uniquely poorly equipped to register. ... try to flesh this out significantly and reason through it and situate it in the literature (use the "MIKAEL" tagged thesis as the current thesis draft) ### 2. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `list_documents` ```json {} ``` ### 3. Tool result: list_documents - #4V8VH7 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] - 2026 | Ieva Lange - #FYG32U Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] - 2026 | Ieva Lange Journal articles (91) - #QUD55H 'Saving' the city: Collective low-budget organising and urban practice - 2015 | Birke Otto, Hans Vollmer, Heike Derwanz, Paula Bialski | ephemera: theory & politics in organization | 20 pp. - #K52UPR A Critical Review of the Role of Repair Cafés in a Sustainable Circular Transition - 2021 | Mette Alberg Mosgaard, Rikke Marie Moalem | Sustainability | 26 pp. | doi:10.3390/su132212351 - #4EFC4F After Practice? Material Semiotic Approaches to Consumption and Economy [cited] - 2020 | David M. Evans | Cultural Sociology | 17 pp. | doi:10.1177/1749975520923521 - #9D34UM After taste: Culture, consumption and theories of practice - 2014 | Alan Warde | Journal of Consumer Culture | 25 pp. | doi:10.1177/1469540514547828 - #5Y2AD9 An order of distinction (or, how to tell a collection from a hoard) - 2018 | Katie Kilroy-Marac | Journal of Material Culture | 19 pp. | doi:10.1177/1359183517729428 - #FQRNAE Austerity and everyday life: Perspectives on practices of consumption and thrift - 2019 | Alison Hulme | Journal of Consumer Culture | 7 pp. | doi:10.1177/1469540519872079 - #9MNC8T Austerity Ireland, the New Thrift Culture and Sustainable Consumption - 2017 | Fiona Murphy | Journal of Business Anthropology | 17 pp. | doi:10.22439/jba.v6i2.5410 - #59QUM6 Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle [cited] - 2017 | Sally Eden | Journal of Consumer Culture | 21 pp. | doi:10.1177/1469540515586871 - #X8QHRR Calculating the Environmental Impact Reduction Due to Extended Lifespan of Clothing Through Clothing Swaps - 2025 | Agnė Jučienė, Inga Gurauskienė, Jolita Kruopienė | Sustainability | 22 pp. | doi:10.3390/su17104411 - #AVNZLE Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing [cited] - 2025 | Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg | Consumption and Society | 19 pp. | doi:10.1332/27528499y2024d00000032 - #XUHRZA Changing understandings of waste reduction and avoidance in moralities of thrift: A comparison of Mass Observers' narratives three decades apart [cited] - 2022 | Helen Holmes, Ulrike Ehgartner | Geoforum | 10 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.10.014 - #BQ2W57 Circular Consumption Practices as Matters of Care [cited] - 2025 | Elina Närvänen, Malla Mattila, Nina Mesiranta, Outi Koskinen | Journal of Business Ethics | 19 pp. | doi:10.1007/s10551-024-05888-5 - #57LWKZ Cities of care: A platform for urban geographical care research - 2020 | Emma R. Power, Miriam J. Williams | Geography Compass | 12 pp. | doi:10.1111/gec3.12474 - #JXXRQJ Citizen-Consumers as Agents of Change in Globalizing Modernity: The Case of Sustainable Consumption - 2010 | Gert Spaargaren, Peter Oosterveer | Sustainability | 22 pp. | doi:10.3390/su2071887 - #8ZKAT7 Closing the loop or squaring the circle? 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Storing and storying the serendipity of objects - 2013 | Patrick Laviolette | Things in Culture, Culture in Things | Approaches to Culture Theory | pp. 13-33 | 11 pp. - #PB2Z6X Introduction: commodities and the politics of value [cited] - 1986 | Arjun Appadurai | The Social Life of Things | Cambridge University Press | pp. 3-63 | 31 pp. | doi:10.1017/CBO9780511819582.003 - #WMSENQ Sustainable consumption as a systemic challenge: inter- and transdisciplinary research and research questions - 2015 | Philip J. Vergragt, Sylvia Lorek | Handbook of Research on Sustainable Consumption | Edward Elgar Publishing | pp. 19-31 | 14 pp. | doi:10.4337/9781783471270.00008 - #V4V7XC Sustainable Consumption, Behaviour Change Policies and Theories of Practice [cited] - 2012 | Andrew McMeekin, Dale Southerton, David Evans | The Habits of Consumption | Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies | pp. 113-129 | 17 pp. - #BZ63DX Sustainable practices: social theory and climate change - 2013 | Elizabeth Shove, Nicola Spurling | Sustainable Practices | Routledge | pp. 17-30 | 22 pp. | doi:10.4324/9780203071052-6 - #Y3CFPX The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach - 2023 | Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta | The Routledge Handbook of Catalysts for a Sustainable Circular Economy | Routledge | pp. 535-549 | 15 pp. | doi:10.4324/9781003267492-30 - #9DHD6K The cultural biography of things: commoditization as process - 1986 | Igor Kopytoff | The Social Life of Things | Cambridge University Press | pp. 64-92 | 15 pp. | doi:10.1017/CBO9780511819582.004 - #3SKV2A The cultural dimension of sustainable consumption practices: an exploration in theory and policy - 2013 | Gert Spaargaren | Innovations in Sustainable Consumption | Edward Elgar Publishing | 13 pp. | doi:10.4337/9781781001349.00022 - #72GVQ9 The Habits of Consumption [cited] - 2012 | Alan Warde, Dale Southerton | The Habits of Consumption | Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies | pp. 1-25 | 25 pp. - #KWZ2A4 Theories of Practice and Sustainable Consumption [cited] - 2015 | Alan Warde, Daniel Welch | Handbook of Research on Sustainable Consumption | Edward Elgar Publishing | pp. 84-100 | 17 pp. | doi:10.4337/9781783471270.00013 - #Q8AKGZ Towards a Better Accounting of the Roles of Body, Things and Habits in Consumption - 2012 | Harold Wilhite | The Habits of Consumption | Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies | pp. 87-99 | 13 pp. Doctoral theses (3) - #QRRZP2 Consumption and Practice: Unfolding Consumptive Moments and the Entanglement with Productive Aspects - 2013 | Benjamin Julien Hartmann | 157 pp. - #ZC3PHV Patchworks of Care: Ethics and Practice of Care in the Organic Food Movement in Latvia - 2020 | Agnese Bankovska | 234 pp. - #8EVNK8 The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings - 2025 | Réka Tölg | 138 pp. Reports (1) - #XBPXDL Inconspicuous consumption: the sociology of consumption and the environment - 1998 | Alan Warde, Elizabeth Shove | 17 pp. Spreadsheet (1) - #XGCWS4 Ieva coded excerpt spreadsheet ### 4. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `get_document` ```json { "id": "4V8VH7" } ``` ### 5. Tool result: get_document THESIS #4V8VH7 Title: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia Outline: - 1 #ZF9EYF Introduction - 1.1 #LAR465 Latvian context and research - 1.2 #MUKRGA A note on terms - 1.3 #FVXBEK The structure of the thesis - 2 #L759F3 Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework - 2.1 #Q2WXHP Theories of Practice - 2.2 #WULWDF Theories of Practice to Study Alternative Practices? - 2.3 #HQ4PZX Consumption practices - 2.4 #23NMLX Consumption Work - 2.5 #ULSUAX Conclusion - 3 #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle - 3.1 #ZXRYYU The site - 3.2 #3CQF69 Setting the scene: A day in Brīvbode - 3.3 #U3GSXB Ethnography of Practice - 3.4 #VMQSHJ Participant observation - 3.5 #GU86TB Interviews - 3.6 #BRBBF9 Data analysis - 3.7 #TGAMBJ Research ethics - 4 #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation - 4.1 #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home - 4.2 #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow - 4.3 #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation - 4.4 #PZH45P Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange - 4.5 #7Z8WUY Letting Go: Attachment Without Price - 4.6 #W2WRDC What People Find Here: Plural Meanings of Acquisition - 4.7 #GTJY22 Quiet or Reflected Sustainability? - 4.8 #A3X9XX Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations - 5 #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode - 5.1 #N8D3HT Time to Give: Volunteers and the Sufficiency Lifestyle - 5.2 #SLFJ9K Priceless Valuation: Sorting, Curation, and Care - 5.3 #EBTHSE Not the Bin: Modal Labour and the Informal Route - 5.4 #L38KUE It’s On Me: Networks, Gender, and the Transmission of Care - 5.5 #75D5UH Conclusion - 6 #M9WQLY CONCLUSION - 7 #FTE3UX SUMMARY - 8 #9GJAHS LIST OF SOURCES - 9 #TY2EB4 KOKKUVÕTE ### 6. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "limit": 10, "query": "circular economy generative spaces Brivbode not charity not market not bin" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "limit": 10, "query": "purgatory for things Aiga thirty trips Madara free wire offcuts witnessing circulation" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "limit": 10, "query": "Circular Economy Action Plan textile collection Latvia EU funded Brivbode" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4V8VH7", "limit": 10, "query": "not charity moral economy exchange Brīvbode" } ``` ### 7. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction Matching paragraph #BTDD45: 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. 2. Source: Repair for a Broken Economy: Lessons for Circular Economy from an International Interview Study of Repairers (#4YG3VP), Duncan McLaren, Johan Niskanen, Jonas Anshelm, p. 0 Context: #LVPP8A Repair for a Broken Economy: Lessons for Circular Economy from an International Interview Study of Repairers Matching excerpt #4TVHFQ: 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. 3. Source: Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle (#59QUM6), Sally Eden, p. 8 Context: #5V87AY Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle #R4FPWC Implosion 3: Mainstream/alternative and the sustainability and ethics of divestment Matching excerpt #J4A6NB: However, most writing about 'the solidarity economy' is about practical projects, specifically their potential for social change and 'scaling up' their political organising into international networks (Miller, 2006), rather than theoretical analysis (Bauhardt, 2014: 62). However, some of its ideas, such as shared values, can still be applied to Freecycling consumption practices. For example, the idea of developing into a social movement was mentioned by one Freecycle group on their login webpage (see above), but it was rarely evident in online posts. The solidarity economy's principle of reciprocity across the community was also evident where people posted both 'Offered' and 'Wanted' items, thus both giving to and taking from their Freecycle group. Giving was also cast in a non-hierarchical way, as a sensible alternative to the rubbish bin, rather than a philanthropic or top-down gesture of charity to those less wealthy, again echoing ideas from the solidarity economy. However, because being active in Freecycling rarely builds 'social relationships', not least because of the relative anonymity of Internet interactions, Freecycling does not really fulfil that condition of 'the solidarity economy' ideal. 4. Source: Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy (#8ZKAT7), Kersty Hobson, p. 0 Context: #ECVDXM Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy #BWE4XA Abstract Matching excerpt #AKL7LC: Heightened concerns about long-term sustainability have of late enlivened debates around the circular economy (CE). Defined as a series of restorative and regenerative industrial systems, parallel socio-cultural transformations have arguably received less consideration to date. In response, this paper examines the contributions human geographical scholarship can make to CE debates, focusing on ‘generative spaces’ of diverse CE practices. Concepts infrequently discussed within human geography such as product service systems and ‘prosumption’ are explored, to argue that productive potential exists in bringing these ideas into conversation with ongoing human geographical research into practices, materialities, emergent political spaces and ‘everyday activism’. 5. Source: Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy (#8ZKAT7), Kersty Hobson, p. 6 Context: #ECVDXM Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy #75DDTN IV Distributing politics and markets in the CE Matching excerpt #3LXGFJ: existing modes of governance. For example, as part of the UK Government's 'Resource Security Action Plan', a Circular Economy Task Force has in recent years been created in the form of a multi-sector, public-private body. Its role is framed as being one of 'developing links', 'addressing opportunities and concerns', as well as spreading 'leadership thinking and best practice and to provide a forum for policy innovation' (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2012: 29). Such 'soft' goals and institutional forms are far from novel (Evans, 2012), particularly around issues of production and consumption (see Driessen et al., 2012). Political scientists, for one, have spent decades categorizing and explaining how and why these networked forms of governance come about and operate (e.g. see Bevir, 2011, 2013). Whilst also contributing to this literature, human geographers and other critical social researchers have been considering the implications of shifting regulatory and governance interventions into other modes and spaces (e.g. Amundsen et al., 2010; Bulkeley and Betsill, 2005; While et al., 2010). This includes examining how urban and community spaces can and/or do function as 'transition labs' (e.g. Nevens et al., 2013; see also Burch et al., 2014), an approach that recognizes the contingent and spatially specific nature of systemic change. Indeed, framing 'transitions' in the language of experimentation is not merely a metaphorical or rhetorical flourish. Rather, it touches upon a potentially productive line of inquiry and research within the 'generative' vein of scholarship referenced at the start of this paper. 6. Source: Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore (#FHZZ6U), Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan, p. 3 Context: #MLNREG 3. LITERATURE REVIEW: R-BEHAVIOURS, SUSTAINABLE MATERIALISM, CIRCULAR ACTIVISMS #8K73BS 3.1 CIRCULAR R-BEHAVIOURS Matching excerpt #QGPQ9V: Recirculation, which is at the core of circular practices, has not been directly mentioned in discussions on R-behaviours. Rather, it is featured obliquely in resell/reuse (R2 in Reike et al's typology), with reselling as a means of returning a product to the market economy (without much adaptation) for reuse. Besides reselling, academics highlight a slew of material divestment networks for individuals to find 'relief from the burden of possession' (Roux and Guiot 2020: 398; Ong et al. 2020). These networks can be classified into (a) a gift economy (e.g. donations to charity, free-cycling, freeganing without a monetary transaction); and (b) a second-hand 'waste-based commodity frontier' (Pyyhtinen and Lehtonen 2022) involving the resale of things (e.g. deals with junk traders, flea markets, garage/car-bootsales, thrift/second-hand stores). Such divestment circuits are not mutually exclusive, as things may be sold at throwaway prices and a pure market logic may not always undergird monetary exchanges (Herrmann 1997). 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction Matching paragraph #FYJU8R: As Hobson et al. (2021) argue, research should examine non-domestic spaces where individuals come together around circular practices – regardless of whether these activities are explicitly labeled as “circular economy”. Other authors have reinforced this call for studies of community based dimensions of circular consumption (Luukkonen et al., 2024, Mesiranta et al., 2025). Brīvbode is such a space: a site where the ordinarily private labour of divestment and acquisition can become visible and socially acknowledged, and where volunteer labour sustains infrastructure continuous with the domestic labour it serves. 8. Source: The Political Economy of Circular Economies: Lessons from Future Repair Scenario Deliberations in Sweden (#LB5ACW), Duncan McLaren, Johan Niskanen, p. 0 Context: #PA8RHN The Political Economy of Circular Economies: Lessons from Future Repair Scenario Deliberations in Sweden #7H49AG Abstract Matching excerpt #27ETVL: The dominant technocratic and neoliberal imaginary of a circular economy dependent on corporate leadership, market mechanisms, and changed consumer behaviour is here explored using the findings of deliberative stakeholder workshops examining diverse scenarios for the promotion of repair as part of a circular economy. Stakeholder responses to four scenarios—digital circularity, planned circularity, circular modernism, and bottom-up sufficiency—are described with reference to the ideologies, interests, and institutions involved. We distinguish two levels of discourse in the stakeholder discussions. The main narrative in which individualist and consumerist ideologies dominate, even within ideals of sustainability, reflects a conjunction of corporate, labour, and public interests in the market liberal social democratic state, with proposed interventions focused on the institutions of markets and education. A subaltern narrative present in the margins of the discussions challenges the consumerist and productivist presumptions of the market liberal political economy and hints at more transformative change. These conflicting responses not only cast light on the ways in which the political economy of contemporary Sweden (within the European Union) constrains and conditions current expectations and imaginaries of circularity, but also suggest ways in which the future political economy of circular economies might be contested and evolve. 9. Source: Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review (#PSBVW7), Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero, p. 0 Context: #HHKK3Q Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review Matching excerpt #N94NFW: Abstract: A circular economy (CE) aims at decoupling value creation from waste generation and resource use by radically transforming production and consumption systems. Recent reviews on the topic of the circular economy have indicated that cultural barriers are a significant factor hindering the diffusion of so-called ‘circular’ business models, particularly the lack of consumer—or user—acceptance. However, none of them has provided an overview of the existing literature addressing such issues that can help academics and practitioners better understand consumption considerations when addressing the circular economy. Motivated by these observations, this paper presents the results of a literature review that summarises and discusses insights from 111 articles in terms of the problem area, theoretical approaches, methods, and tools that have been used to collect and analyse data, the main issues, and identified research gaps. The results show that most of the existing scientific work on the circular economy and circular solutions addressing consumption has focussed on identifying factors that drive or hinder the consumption of circular solutions. A smaller but expanding set of articles has focussed on offering insights into the nature, meaning, and dynamics of consumption in the context of the circular economy. According to this set of articles, consumption in the circular economy is anonymous, connected, political, uncertain, and based on multiple values, not only utility. A smaller set of papers has explored the integration of user and consumer perspectives into design processes. Although these contributions are relevant, opportunities for further research are still open, particularly regarding socio-material and cultural aspects of consumption in the context of the circular economy, and the role of digitalisation. In addition, more work could be done regarding strategies to foster not only acceptance but also the adoption and diffusion of the circular economy. Based on the findings of this literature review, some ideas for a research agenda on the issue of consumption in the circular economy are outlined. 10. Source: New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning (#XATD2A), Helen Holmes, p. 2 Context: #AHCZ2X New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning #4F5EEN 2. Situating provisioning #38LM6C 2.2. Circular economy and sharing economy Matching excerpt #56AZCA: 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. Approximate matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction Score: 0.651 Related paragraph #BTDD45: 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. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #75D5UH Conclusion Score: 0.598 Related paragraph #RX9JDU: 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. 3. Source: Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy (#8ZKAT7), Kersty Hobson, p. 0 Context: #ECVDXM Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy #7JJN4G Keywords Score: 0.61 Related excerpt #FJJWUG: circular economy, materialities, product service system, prosumer 4. Source: Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore (#FHZZ6U), Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan, p. 0 Context: #Q7N47M ABSTRACT #9A563U KEYWORDS: Score: 0.634 Related excerpt #8S6R7F: Circular economy, R-behaviours, sustainable materialism, reuse, rescue, recirculation 5. Source: Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore (#FHZZ6U), Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan, p. 9 Context: #6H5X72 6. SUSTAINABLE MATERIALISMS? MATERIALITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS #DAQJ2S 6.3 MORE-THAN-MATERIAL CONCERNS AND THE POLITICS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND SCALABILITY Score: 0.617 Related excerpt #XW2R88: Along with Milios and Dalhammar's (2020) call to identify strategic partnerships that can enable the reuse of material resources, we suggest that state/institutional assistance in the provision of market and storage spaces will be immensely helpful. On top of allocating space for infrastructure associated with long recycling/recovery loops (e.g. blue recycling bins, waste-to-energy plants), space is also needed for activities related to closing short reuse loops (see Hobson 2020 on circular spaces). In the last year (after our initial study of SRRFM and TnT) the first author has noticed another recurring freecycling market surfacing in the public housing estate where she lives (see Figure 4a, Figure 4b and Figure 4c). The Residents Committee 13 – which has state support and a dedicated space – near her has 6. Source: Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore (#FHZZ6U), Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan, p. 1 Context: #FRLSVA 1. INTRODUCTION Score: 0.614 Related excerpt #J46PZ3: 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). 7. Source: Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore (#FHZZ6U), Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan, p. 11 Context: #8BW5TM 7. CONCLUSION Score: 0.609 Related excerpt #F6T6VP: Most market attendees partake in redirecting/reconfiguring linear material flows and subverting normative consumption patterns by driving 'new circulations' – rescuing, recirculating and ultimately reusing things, even if for a short period of time. Not unlike systems thinking that undergirds a circular logic, we have shown that 'energy' (i.e. volunteer, relational labour) as well as material inputs (i.e. things for recirculating, an available/accessible venue) are required for sustaining free(cycling) markets, and that this can only be accomplished as a community. Social relationalities, including collaborations among community groups are pivotal in lubricating alternative 'new circulations' that close material loops. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction Score: 0.66 Related paragraph #FYJU8R: As Hobson et al. (2021) argue, research should examine non-domestic spaces where individuals come together around circular practices – regardless of whether these activities are explicitly labeled as “circular economy”. Other authors have reinforced this call for studies of community based dimensions of circular consumption (Luukkonen et al., 2024, Mesiranta et al., 2025). Brīvbode is such a space: a site where the ordinarily private labour of divestment and acquisition can become visible and socially acknowledged, and where volunteer labour sustains infrastructure continuous with the domestic labour it serves. 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #A43655 Modal labour across socioeconomic modes Score: 0.597 Related paragraph #4PNKDC: Brīvbode brings together different forms of work – unpaid volunteering, household management, neighbourly help, care work, and informal exchange – in ways that blur distinctions between market and non-market activity and make the labour difficult to recognise as work at all, even though the system depends on it. As Mesiranta et al. (2025) describe, community-based circular consumption initiatives perform care work that more marketised arrangements cannot. Sequential reuse, as Hobson (2020) argues, depends not on material availability alone but on the social circularities – the relational labour – that keep things moving between people. 10. Source: Material culture and the circular economy (#R69WZQ), Elizabeth Shove, Jenny Rinkinen, p. 0 Context: #J8TDC3 Material culture and the circular economy #7H9E6C KEYWORDS Score: 0.622 Related excerpt #EUZWN7: circular economy, material culture, object relations, repair, sharing, re-use, material flow ### 8. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #L38KUE It’s On Me: Networks, Gender, and the Transmission of Care Matching paragraph #Y344XY: Madara does divestment work for her aunt whose belief that worn objects carry the energy of previous owners prevents her from donating. In order to get to Brīvbode, the objects must pass through Madara first. "I know that most likely they would simply be thrown away or burned." The most laborious divestment case came from Aiga, who spent months coordinating the recirculation of her relatives' possessions after a relocation, making thirty trips to Brīvbode. A single call to a clearance firm would have resolved everything in one visit, Aiga says, but she chose the harder route because she could not allow things to be discarded: “Sometimes you really do want to just throw it out, but that inner feeling simply won’t let me.” This is consumption work in Bankovska’s (2020) sense of care not-work — labour that is unremunerated, hard to see as work from the outside, and yet performed because the alternative is unbearable. It is care as obligation that cannot be put down. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Matching paragraph #CUBS5Q: "Man kaut kā mazāka vēlme ņemt visu, ko es redzu, par spīti tam, ka tas it kā ir tas 'brīv'... es kaut kā vairāk cienu to visu, kas tur ir izlikts." [I somehow feel less desire to take everything I see, despite the fact that it's all "free" – I somehow have more respect for everything that's laid out there.] Madara explicitly contrasts her response to freeness with others' – she imagines the hoarder who grabs because it's free, and positions herself as someone for whom freeness activates restraint rather than acquisition. This is the moral economy of freeshopping from the perspective of someone still in the early stages of learning the practice's norms. "Kādam varbūt tas 'brīv' rada vēlmi, ka viss ir bez maksas, tagad ņemam, ņemam, ņemam. Man tas nospēlē kaut kā tieši otrādāk." [For some, maybe "free" creates the urge that everything is free, so now we take, take, take. For me it works the opposite way.] "Es to uztveru kā apmaiņu. To vārdu 'brīvu' kaut kā izslēdzu... Sākumā tas tā bišķiņ mulsināja, ka esmu kā apzagusies." [I see it as exchange. I somehow switch off the word "free"… At first it was a bit confusing, as if I had stolen something.] This is competency acquisition: Madara is learning how to understand and inhabit the value regime of Brīvbode, and she narrates the process explicitly. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #SLFJ9K Priceless Valuation: Sorting, Curation, and Care Matching paragraph #4HW9DD: For visitors, the absence of price requires a new framework for what counts as legitimate taking. Madara recalled how disorienting the freeness was on her first visit: “At first it felt a bit like I was stealing.” She resolved this by reframing the transaction: “I see it as exchange. I somehow switch off the word ‘free’.” For her, freeness activates restraint rather than acquisition: “Someone maybe sees ‘free’ and thinks – everything is free, let’s take, take, take. For me it works the opposite way.” Her self-imposed restraint is itself valuation work — a moral framework constructed in the absence of the device that would otherwise supply one. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #75D5UH Conclusion Matching paragraph #HM56MD: 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. Source: Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore (#FHZZ6U), Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan, p. 7 Context: #9RHV7M 5. FREE(CYCLING) MARKETS: INTERVENTIONS IN MATERIAL(IST) CIRCULARITIES #MQYJLV 5.1 SHORTENING AND SUSTAINING MATERIAL CIRCULARITY LOOPS Matching excerpt #WTJQJQ: which is in line with sustainable materialism's privileging of a collective rather than an individualist politics (see Schlosberg and Coles 2019 ). This also resonates with Campbell-Johnston et al.'s (2020) argument that an item's sequential (re)use is not a given. Rather, (re)use is underpinned by relational labour bound up in what Hobson (2020) calls social circularities. For Teo, the 'meaningful relationships' that a non-monetary material exchange can foster among individuals are paramount, with the "free" in SRRFM denoting not just the free circulation of things but also skills and knowledge', especially those related to material resource conservation (e.g. location of repair clinics). 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work Matching paragraph #DGLFX7: Madara does divestment work for her aunt whose belief that worn objects carry the energy of previous owners prevents her from donating. In order to get to Brīvbode, the objects must pass through Madara first. "I know that most likely they would simply be thrown away or burned." The most laborious divestment case came from Aiga, who spent months coordinating the recirculation of her relatives' possessions after a relocation, making thirty trips to Brīvbode. A single call to a clearance firm would have resolved everything in one visit, Aiga says, but she chose the harder route because she could not allow things to be discarded: "Sometimes you really do want to just throw it out, but that inner feeling simply won't let me." This is consumption work as self-imposed ethical burden of activities that need to be done out of obligation. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work #GGGPNV Conclusion Matching paragraph #T5LNZ9: 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. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #L5PE5X Valuation work without the context of price Matching paragraph #MSGHYR: On the taking side, valuation work means learning what the absence of price actually requires. As a novice to freecycling practice, Madara was able to recall how disorienting the freeness was on her first visit: "At first it felt a bit like I was stealing." She resolved this by reframing the transaction: "I see it as exchange. I somehow switch off the word 'free'." For her, freeness activates restraint rather than acquisition: "Someone maybe sees 'free' and thinks – everything is free, let's take, take, take. For me it works the opposite way." The absence of price shifts valuation work onto participants, requiring them to develop frameworks of evaluation that the market would otherwise supply automatically. 9. Source: Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets (#MBXQXR), Anna Bohlin, Staffan Appelgren, p. 4 Context: #3U9XEW Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets1 #DSNHBJ Unpacking Circulation Matching excerpt #EU4GY7: In her influential article on ‘the global situation’, Anna Tsing directs our attention to the charisma of globalism, seductively engendering imaginations of ‘interconnection, travel, and sudden transformation’, but leaving much of the institutional and material foundations of a world of flows unexamined (2000: 330). An emphasis on the transience of circulation easily lends itself to ignoring infrastructure and imagining friction-free social, economic and political projects through the unleashed power of movement and flow. Tsing’s call to also scrutinize ‘hidden relations of production’ and ‘channel making’ in the context of globalization (2000: 337) is an important counterweight to this tendency, exemplified for example by attending to the material forms that allow the trafficking of things and people (Larkin 2013). Circulation is things in motion, but also the infrastructural framework facilitating, or obstructing that motion. 10. Source: The Social Life of Things (#PB2Z6X), Arjun Appadurai, p. 4 Context: #YP5HNF Introduction: commodities and the politics of value #W43P25 The spirit of the commodity Matching excerpt #HYEWBE: Gifts, and the spirit of reciprocity, sociability, and spontaneity in which they are typically exchanged, usually are starkly opposed to the profit-oriented, self-centered, and calculated spirit that fires the circulation of commodities. Further, where gifts link things to persons and embed the flow of things in the flow of social relations, commodities are held to represent the drive – largely free of moral or cultural constraints – of goods for one another, a drive mediated by Approximate matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PZH45P Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange Score: 0.391 Related paragraph #QKY57B: This reveals a hierarchy of meanings operating within Brīvbode’s moral economy. The object’s arrival to a sequential user is weighed as more important than the forbidden monetary transaction that may or may not occur along the way. The ethos of non-monetary exchange can be subordinated to the deeper logic of circulation. Besides, if visitors come with something in return, further trajectory is difficult to control. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #L38KUE It’s On Me: Networks, Gender, and the Transmission of Care Score: 0.39 Related paragraph #Y344XY: Madara does divestment work for her aunt whose belief that worn objects carry the energy of previous owners prevents her from donating. In order to get to Brīvbode, the objects must pass through Madara first. "I know that most likely they would simply be thrown away or burned." The most laborious divestment case came from Aiga, who spent months coordinating the recirculation of her relatives' possessions after a relocation, making thirty trips to Brīvbode. A single call to a clearance firm would have resolved everything in one visit, Aiga says, but she chose the harder route because she could not allow things to be discarded: “Sometimes you really do want to just throw it out, but that inner feeling simply won’t let me.” This is consumption work in Bankovska’s (2020) sense of care not-work — labour that is unremunerated, hard to see as work from the outside, and yet performed because the alternative is unbearable. It is care as obligation that cannot be put down. 3. Source: The Ethics of Waste: How We Relate to Rubbish (#83R4U2), Gay Hawkins, p. 25 Context: #Y4M56L Contents #6EJFNY Plastic Bags #KXBZUQ ETHICS AND AFFECT Score: 0.392 Related excerpt #VLWJAN: But unlike most waste education Calvino's story considers these practices in terms of their phenomenological and sacred resonances. The pleasure he gets from putting out the garbage is not the pleasure of being virtuous, of being a "good sort," it is the pleasure of habit and order. The gesture of throwing away is the "first and indispensable condition of being," for one is what one does not throw away. In the purifying ritual of putting out the rubbish we not only confirm who we are, the boundaries of the self, we also create the conditions for renewal. For Calvino every act of rubbish disposal is a little funeral that postpones our own inevitable demise, it is an offering "made to the underworld, to the gods of death and loss." 38 4. Source: Thinking Through Things: Theorising Artefacts Ethnographically (#BX2YWY), Amiria Henare, Martin Holbraad, Sari Wastell, p. 135 Context: #LSR3BS SEPARATING AND CONTAINING PEOPLE AND THINGS IN MONGOLIA #YWWK8Y Understanding kinship through things #NDTBBW Concealed relations in hidden things Score: 0.408 Related excerpt #NYA3XH: The practice of separating off a part at moments of transformation is also present at Mongolian rituals of death. Here, the giving away of pieces severs relations with the living in an acceptable way. When a person is about to be separated from their body, the dying person gives away their belongings in order to break attachment to people and things and free the soul (cf. Humphrey 2002). 19 Death can be seen as an extreme form of separation that does not allow for the possibility of return. While people create kinship through the accumulation of things, at death these things have to be disposed of, thereby cutting off further relations. It should be noted that deceased people's things are not kept in the household chest. Death is, thus, an extreme kind of separation that Mongolians have to manage in relation to ideas about the separation or containment of things. But it is not just at death that 'detachment from a person [is] achieved by giving something [of oneself] to them' (Humphrey 2002: 71). We have seen that living people also practise this form of detachment. Movement of people away from the house, in marriage for example, demands that people are separated on the condition that a part, or thing, is kept back. 5. Source: Thinking Through Things: Theorising Artefacts Ethnographically (#BX2YWY), Amiria Henare, Martin Holbraad, Sari Wastell, p. 135 Context: #LSR3BS SEPARATING AND CONTAINING PEOPLE AND THINGS IN MONGOLIA #YWWK8Y Understanding kinship through things #NDTBBW Concealed relations in hidden things Score: 0.407 Related excerpt #D9Y5BY: times throughout their life. 16 For example, a married female friend of mine, after having experienced a series of miscarriages attributed to spirit and human curses, drew on her natal family fortune by making offerings to their sacred tree. When the situation became worse due to intra-household feuds, she was able to return, albeit for a brief period, to her natal home. The umbilical cord is both an actual part of a person achieved through separation and an expression of a relation that, through separation, can reappear: its containment is achieved through departure, but it remains in order to allow for the possibility of return. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work Score: 0.42 Related paragraph #DGLFX7: Madara does divestment work for her aunt whose belief that worn objects carry the energy of previous owners prevents her from donating. In order to get to Brīvbode, the objects must pass through Madara first. "I know that most likely they would simply be thrown away or burned." The most laborious divestment case came from Aiga, who spent months coordinating the recirculation of her relatives' possessions after a relocation, making thirty trips to Brīvbode. A single call to a clearance firm would have resolved everything in one visit, Aiga says, but she chose the harder route because she could not allow things to be discarded: "Sometimes you really do want to just throw it out, but that inner feeling simply won't let me." This is consumption work as self-imposed ethical burden of activities that need to be done out of obligation. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #3X7JKL The circulation of things and things that sustain it #WY6KPH Managing the flow on site #QLVPVE Meanings: the moral economy of exchange Score: 0.391 Related paragraph #MB7WW5: This reveals a hierarchy of meanings operating within Brīvbode’s moral economy. The object’s arrival to a sequential user is weighed as more important than the forbidden monetary transaction that may or may not occur along the way. The ethos of non-monetary exchange can be subordinated to the deeper logic of circulation. Besides, if visitors come with something in return, further trajectory is difficult to control. 8. Source: Disposal and Simple Living: Exploring the Circulation of Goods and the Development of Sacred Consumption (#MNFABA), Hélène Cherrier, p. 8 Context: #EQEY4S Disposal and simple living: exploring the circulation of goods and the development of sacred consumption #E3HJRJ The study #EX99B7 Moving toward the sacred Score: 0.443 Related excerpt #U7M9N6: commerce and transferred to sacredness with an eternal life of transit between hands and ownership. The circulation of goods is explicit in Simon's story. Inspired by "eastern spirituality and yoga," Simon gave most of his belongings to strangers in a railway station. The choice of a railway station is linked to his childhood dream to travel and discover the world. He expressed that the individuals who would take his belongings could bring his goods to "great destinations." Further in his narrative, Simon explains leaving his profane capitalist money in a sacred temple. 9. Source: Not moving things along: hoarding, clutter and other ambiguous matter (#R9KEKQ), Neil Maycroft, p. 3 Context: #NQ7M35 Not moving things along: hoarding, clutter and other ambiguous matter #6FDS9Y From clutter to board? Score: 0.395 Related excerpt #6M639S: The above mentioned train journey, however, reveals an interesting and novel twist to these practices of disposition; the 'spill over' of unwanted objects into the space between garden and rail line. Small strips of land which separate the boundary of the property from the rail bed are often used to dispose of various goods. Spatially a fraction of extra distance but conceptually a world of difference as stuff placed there is rubbish and no longer ambiguous stuff whose future utility has not yet been resolved. It is a curious kind of rubbish, however, which stays visible and lingers. It is moved along no further unless by others 10. Source: Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social (#VKBZ23), Theodore R. Schatzki, p. 60 Context: #Z2SWYL Mind/Action/Body #5L95FY The Expressive Body Score: 0.395 Related excerpt #3Q79C2: an inner realm are further fabrications likewise signified by acts and gestures. 27) ### 9. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Matching paragraph #TT4B8P: Data indicates that second-hand acquisition remains a significant part of the textile market in the Baltic States, particularly in Latvia, where it accounts for a substantial share of total consumption. In 2018 around 40% of textile consumption in Latvia was second-hand (Watson et. al., 2020). The collection system in Latvia has undergone rapid expansion and formalization through new legislation. Latvia introduced mandatory separate textile collection in 2023, reflecting the broader EU regulatory direction established by the Circular Economy Action Plan and the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction Matching paragraph #577FMZ: The bulk of things circulating in Brīvbode are textiles – mostly clothing, but also home textile. Textiles have been identified as a priority sector in the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission, 2020), and EU Textile Strategy (2022-ongoing) states that textiles should be durable, repairable, reusable, and reuse should be part of the desired system outcome. [..] [Statistics on Baltics as the destination in the circular economies of other countries…] 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #L2U838 Latvian context and background Matching paragraph #WAKMKA: In recent years the landscape has diversified further, with online groups, neighbourhood swapping events, book and plant exchange shelves, digital resale platforms, and informal stall-based initiatives all forming part of a dispersed network of everyday circulation practices. Latvia introduced mandatory separate textile collection in 2023, reflecting the broader EU regulatory direction established by the Circular Economy Action Plan and the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #QXGS6P Policies Matching paragraph #H59VTK: The bulk of things circulating in Brīvbode are textiles – mostly clothing, but also home textile. Textiles have been identified as a priority sector in the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission, 2020), and concrete regulatory frameworks, including the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles promote mandatory separate collection of textile waste and extend producer responsibility schemes. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction Matching paragraph #VQQ25N: Practices of divestment are changing, shaped by new infrastructure and policy developments – Latvia introduced mandatory textile collection in 2023, and new secondhand platforms and practices are expanding the routes available for household goods. A study of Brīvbode contributes to understanding this changing practice landscape by offering an empirical account of one specific site where divestment, acquisition, and non-monetary exchange come together, at a particular moment in the development of circular consumption practices in Latvia. 6. Source: The Political Economy of Circular Economies: Lessons from Future Repair Scenario Deliberations in Sweden (#LB5ACW), Duncan McLaren, Johan Niskanen, p. 17 Context: #PA8RHN The Political Economy of Circular Economies: Lessons from Future Repair Scenario Deliberations in Sweden #5L8TZC Results #R7U3NC Institutions Matching excerpt #H8DQRU: also indications of sympathy for more vigorous or larger-scale interventionism—reflecting broader political trends in which expansionary economic policies have been revived as “green new deals”. The EU Green Deal, for example, is presented as an action plan for a “clean, circular economy” [72], in response to financial and climate crises, and is now also positioned as tackling the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The EU Green Deal is however also basically an expression of market liberalism, pinpointing consumer choice, the “right to repair”, consumers playing “an active role in the ecological transition” through informed choices, and new business models based on renting and sharing goods and services [38, p.8]. 7. Source: Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. (#NUEUVY), Dan Welch, Harald Wieser, Helen Holmes, Katy Wheeler, Kersty Hobson, p. 4 Context: #N9U32S Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. #9LCL7B 4. The circular economy and Consumption Work: a research agenda Matching excerpt #GLJYR8: There are several areas of research that stem from the above point. For one—while case studies of recycling, product service systems, and sharing platforms make up the bulk of the literature—it is notable that the practices of leasing, purchasing long-lasting products, co-ownership, and pooling are understudied (Wieser, 2019). This is a clear omission, as many of these practices are heavily implicated in current CE debates and policies. For example, the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy considers prolonging product lifetimes as an important component of the CE (European Commission, 2015), exemplified in the 2019 'Right to Repair' legislation, which is a part of this overall strategy (Ehgartner and Hirth, 2019; Harrabin, 2019b). Therefore, question here include what forms of CW are involved in realising this goal; how are the prerequisites for this work (e.g. access to information) currently distributed; and what is needed, to address any barriers that additional CW might create for consumers? 8. Source: Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review (#PSBVW7), Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero, p. 17 Context: #HHKK3Q Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review #6YGVNY 6. Conclusions Matching excerpt #3MV65T: Funding: This research was conducted as part of the Circular European Economy Innovative Training Network funded by the EU through the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network Action. 9. Source: The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy (#UMYA27), Kersty Hobson, p. 6 Context: #WE2KWR The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy #VACME2 The Circular Economy: from disparate sub-disciplines to holistic framework? Matching excerpt #HVLB5Q: The results of CE interventions to date appear to back-up such arguments. On the one hand, the EU CE headline indicators – that track the outcomes of the 2015 CE Action Plan – show some encouraging trends. Recycling has increased across the region while relevant legislation is being recast (e.g. design and consumer rights). There is now an 'EU Strategy for Plastics in the Circular Economy' (European Commission 2019), which aims to make all plastic packaging used in the EU recyclable by 2030 (n.d.). In addition, it is claimed there has been a 6% increase in jobs in 'sectors relevant to the Circular Economy' (n.d.), a point that invites further questions about how one defines jobs in that category, given that the overall aim of the CE is to create new economic systems and practices across a wide range of sectors (see Moreau et al. 2017). 10. Source: The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy (#UMYA27), Kersty Hobson, p. 5 Context: #WE2KWR The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy #VACME2 The Circular Economy: from disparate sub-disciplines to holistic framework? Matching excerpt #9YUNCL: What, then, does the institutional uptake of CE discourses actually signal, in terms of on-the-ground interventions and implementation? At first glance, some commitments to this agenda are far from cursory. The European Commission frames its Circular Economy Action Plan as undergirding the European Green Deal, which 'aims to make our economy fit for a green future, strengthen our competitiveness while protecting the environment and give new rights to consumers' (European Commission 2020a, p. 1). Governance tools in deployment to help meet these goals include new legislation around products and consumer rights, 'Mandatory Green Public Procurement' criteria and targets, and planned future efforts for a Global Circular Economy Alliance to foster international agreements and aid cooperation around this agenda (see European Commission 2020b). As such, the European Commission has made CE a key regional framework, able to help 'boost the EU's competitiveness' (European Commission 2015, p. 7) and make 'an essential contribution to the EU's efforts to develop a sustainable, Approximate matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9GJAHS LIST OF SOURCES Score: 0.751 Related paragraph #JTWV2Q: Akule, D., Milbreta, U. and Brizga, J. (2023) Collection and use of post-consumption textiles in Latvia. Riga: Green Liberty. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction Score: 0.7 Related paragraph #577FMZ: The bulk of things circulating in Brīvbode are textiles – mostly clothing, but also home textile. Textiles have been identified as a priority sector in the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission, 2020), and EU Textile Strategy (2022-ongoing) states that textiles should be durable, repairable, reusable, and reuse should be part of the desired system outcome. [..] [Statistics on Baltics as the destination in the circular economies of other countries…] 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.64 Related paragraph #JNSARN: [Although, for participants this aspect is not always significant, Brīvbode sustains domestic reuse, without sending things to other countries (although leftovers are absorbed by the textile collection system.] 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.639 Related paragraph #TT4B8P: Data indicates that second-hand acquisition remains a significant part of the textile market in the Baltic States, particularly in Latvia, where it accounts for a substantial share of total consumption. In 2018 around 40% of textile consumption in Latvia was second-hand (Watson et. al., 2020). The collection system in Latvia has undergone rapid expansion and formalization through new legislation. Latvia introduced mandatory separate textile collection in 2023, reflecting the broader EU regulatory direction established by the Circular Economy Action Plan and the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #BA7Z5L LIST OF SOURCES Score: 0.751 Related paragraph #7TZFD8: Akule, D., Milbreta, U. and Brizga, J. (2023) Collection and use of post-consumption textiles in Latvia. Riga: Green Liberty. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #QXGS6P Policies Score: 0.725 Related paragraph #H59VTK: The bulk of things circulating in Brīvbode are textiles – mostly clothing, but also home textile. Textiles have been identified as a priority sector in the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission, 2020), and concrete regulatory frameworks, including the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles promote mandatory separate collection of textile waste and extend producer responsibility schemes. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #L2U838 Latvian context and background Score: 0.665 Related paragraph #WAKMKA: In recent years the landscape has diversified further, with online groups, neighbourhood swapping events, book and plant exchange shelves, digital resale platforms, and informal stall-based initiatives all forming part of a dispersed network of everyday circulation practices. Latvia introduced mandatory separate textile collection in 2023, reflecting the broader EU regulatory direction established by the Circular Economy Action Plan and the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #L2U838 Latvian context and background Score: 0.655 Related paragraph #VHLSGN: [Although, for participants this aspect is not always important, Brīvbode sustains domestic reuse, without sending things to countries (although leftovers are absorbed by the textile collection system]. – Brīvbode operates with everyday goods.] 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction Score: 0.649 Related paragraph #VQQ25N: Practices of divestment are changing, shaped by new infrastructure and policy developments – Latvia introduced mandatory textile collection in 2023, and new secondhand platforms and practices are expanding the routes available for household goods. A study of Brīvbode contributes to understanding this changing practice landscape by offering an empirical account of one specific site where divestment, acquisition, and non-monetary exchange come together, at a particular moment in the development of circular consumption practices in Latvia. 10. Source: Calculating the Environmental Impact Reduction Due to Extended Lifespan of Clothing Through Clothing Swaps (#X8QHRR), Agnė Jučienė, Inga Gurauskienė, Jolita Kruopienė, p. 1 Context: #AKDV4S Calculating the Environmental Impact Reduction Due to Extended Lifespan of Clothing Through Clothing Swaps #3MS6RE 1. Introduction Score: 0.608 Related excerpt #PK4ETC: The European Commission has adopted the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles to extend clothing life-cycle loops via reuse and repair activities [26,27]. For instance, business models that focus on selling secondhand clothes or renting clothing can effectively displace the need for new clothing, thus decreasing the environmental burden of production processes [28]. ### 10. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #A3X9XX Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations Matching paragraph #M3VCHH: 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. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PZH45P Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange Matching paragraph #QKY57B: This reveals a hierarchy of meanings operating within Brīvbode’s moral economy. The object’s arrival to a sequential user is weighed as more important than the forbidden monetary transaction that may or may not occur along the way. The ethos of non-monetary exchange can be subordinated to the deeper logic of circulation. Besides, if visitors come with something in return, further trajectory is difficult to control. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation Matching paragraph #L252MY: 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. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #MUKRGA A note on terms Matching paragraph #8S9QR2: However, the organizers have a complicated relationship with the term “freeshop”. As Brīvbode manager Rasa shared in an interview, the name already existed when she joined the initiative and they were trying to come up with alternative names in the beginning but did not manage to replace it. Their preferred term is “swapshop” which I also use in this thesis. “Swapshop”, as I discuss in Chapter 4, positions Brīvbode as a site of exchange rather than charity. However, as a descriptive term for “what actually happens there” I consider swapping not suitable enough, as it overstates the symmetry and implies an exchange with one to one logic, which is not the case in Brīvbode. In this thesis, I use the term “freecycling” to refer to the what is done in Brīvbode, as it emphasises the circularity aspect of the practice. While freecycling has its own specific origin, associated with the Freecycle Network, an online platform for giving things away locally, I use the term nonetheless because it captures the non-monetary circulation of goods without implying directness of swapping or the one-directionality of donation. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PZH45P Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange Matching paragraph #QU37KZ: Practices have normative meanings – understandings upheld about what correct participation looks like, what the practice is for, and who belongs in it. In Brīvbode, normative work is done by organisers to uphold the meaning of the freecycling as an exchange as opposed to a charity. This framing is a normative aspiration – a claim about who belongs and on what terms, actively maintained against pressure from resellers and heavy-takers. The normative aspiration is held together by a moral vocabulary of equality and reciprocity – the norm that participants bring something or at least contribute in kind or offer their help at the shop is part of what defines active participation in the practice rather than use of a service. This positioning work is felt as particularly needed by organisers also because Brīvbode is located in the neighbourhood of Gaiziņš night shelter. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PZH45P Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange Matching paragraph #UFJ4GC: Brīvbode operates on a similar logic: the physical space mediates between participants, making it possible to take without performing need. At the same time, Widlok notes that give boxes are not straightforwardly sharing practices – they tend to be understood within a moral register of charity or almsgiving rather than open-ended reciprocity, and tensions arise when participants extract items for resale rather than use. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #A3X9XX Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations Matching paragraph #MHM9Q5: 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. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PZH45P Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange Matching paragraph #KBESND: As Rasa puts it: “Exchange is a very honest way of operating, it requires responsibility from both sides. When both wealthy and poor, old and young can participate, and everyone knows it's on the basis of exchange, that you are equal, nobody gets a discount, nobody is more special. To many people we simply say: “We are not a charity. It's not the case that you come and now demand that you need clean trousers. We are not a charity point, this is an exchange point. Do you actually have something with you for exchange, before you start setting the rules here?” Nadja is very good at negotiating this. “Go to the Red Cross, go to other places that are specifically a charitable institution! We are not a help institution.”” 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Matching paragraph #HMDEDU: 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. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Matching paragraph #CUBS5Q: "Man kaut kā mazāka vēlme ņemt visu, ko es redzu, par spīti tam, ka tas it kā ir tas 'brīv'... es kaut kā vairāk cienu to visu, kas tur ir izlikts." [I somehow feel less desire to take everything I see, despite the fact that it's all "free" – I somehow have more respect for everything that's laid out there.] Madara explicitly contrasts her response to freeness with others' – she imagines the hoarder who grabs because it's free, and positions herself as someone for whom freeness activates restraint rather than acquisition. This is the moral economy of freeshopping from the perspective of someone still in the early stages of learning the practice's norms. "Kādam varbūt tas 'brīv' rada vēlmi, ka viss ir bez maksas, tagad ņemam, ņemam, ņemam. Man tas nospēlē kaut kā tieši otrādāk." [For some, maybe "free" creates the urge that everything is free, so now we take, take, take. For me it works the opposite way.] "Es to uztveru kā apmaiņu. To vārdu 'brīvu' kaut kā izslēdzu... Sākumā tas tā bišķiņ mulsināja, ka esmu kā apzagusies." [I see it as exchange. I somehow switch off the word "free"… At first it was a bit confusing, as if I had stolen something.] This is competency acquisition: Madara is learning how to understand and inhabit the value regime of Brīvbode, and she narrates the process explicitly. Approximate matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.583 Related paragraph #4FP5K7: Various exchange, divestment and second hand alternatives are currently available and are routinely used by people in Riga – online groups, charity shops and textile collection containers – but what sets Brīvbode apart is the operation on a physical site, the exchange without regulated monetary transaction, and a sustained volunteer infrastructure that makes repeated visits possible and socially meaningful. It is open every week, year-round, and this regularity is central to what it offers – a route for acquisition and divestment, but also a predictable rhythm that participants can build into their everyday routines. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #A3X9XX Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations Score: 0.581 Related paragraph #M3VCHH: 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. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.581 Related paragraph #HZ8D53: [Brīvbode focusing on domestic flows] 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #GTJY22 Quiet or Reflected Sustainability? Score: 0.576 Related paragraph #T6FW9N: In our conversation, Viesturs also positions Brīvbode against charity but from a different angle than Rasa: "Our goal is not to do good for people, I think. Our goal is to do good for the planet… Charity is always related to the meaning of poverty. I think that we need to emphasize the fun factor, the joy factor – swapping, changing clothes. That it's cool, fun, that it's joyful." He is not only describing the meanings that sustain his own participation, but also making a claim about which meanings should be foregrounded to recruit and retain more practitioners. This orientation is present in Brīvbode and practically expressed through organising photo shoots and parties, encouraging playfulness with clothing. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Score: 0.564 Related paragraph #GUXEZX: 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. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Score: 0.558 Related paragraph #HMDEDU: 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. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #MUKRGA A note on terms Score: 0.548 Related paragraph #8S9QR2: However, the organizers have a complicated relationship with the term “freeshop”. As Brīvbode manager Rasa shared in an interview, the name already existed when she joined the initiative and they were trying to come up with alternative names in the beginning but did not manage to replace it. Their preferred term is “swapshop” which I also use in this thesis. “Swapshop”, as I discuss in Chapter 4, positions Brīvbode as a site of exchange rather than charity. However, as a descriptive term for “what actually happens there” I consider swapping not suitable enough, as it overstates the symmetry and implies an exchange with one to one logic, which is not the case in Brīvbode. In this thesis, I use the term “freecycling” to refer to the what is done in Brīvbode, as it emphasises the circularity aspect of the practice. While freecycling has its own specific origin, associated with the Freecycle Network, an online platform for giving things away locally, I use the term nonetheless because it captures the non-monetary circulation of goods without implying directness of swapping or the one-directionality of donation. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PZH45P Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange Score: 0.544 Related paragraph #QKY57B: This reveals a hierarchy of meanings operating within Brīvbode’s moral economy. The object’s arrival to a sequential user is weighed as more important than the forbidden monetary transaction that may or may not occur along the way. The ethos of non-monetary exchange can be subordinated to the deeper logic of circulation. Besides, if visitors come with something in return, further trajectory is difficult to control. 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #MUKRGA A note on terms Score: 0.539 Related paragraph #JLS4NG: The name “Brīvbode” is a more or less localization of the term “freeshop”: “brīv-” means “free”, while “bode” alludes to the cosy scale and affectionate oldschool character of a small shop, associated with a persona of bodnieks or bodniece – the person who attends to it and mediates the relations with visitors. Some regulars of Brīvbode use the diminutive “bodīte”, a form of endearment very common in Latvian. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PZH45P Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange Score: 0.538 Related paragraph #UFJ4GC: Brīvbode operates on a similar logic: the physical space mediates between participants, making it possible to take without performing need. At the same time, Widlok notes that give boxes are not straightforwardly sharing practices – they tend to be understood within a moral register of charity or almsgiving rather than open-ended reciprocity, and tensions arise when participants extract items for resale rather than use. ### 11. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "ZF9EYF", "A3X9XX", "75D5UH", "M9WQLY" ], "expand": true } ``` #### Tool call: `get_document` ```json { "id": "8ZKAT7" } ``` #### Tool call: `get_document` ```json { "id": "UMYA27" } ``` #### Tool call: `get_document` ```json { "id": "NUEUVY" } ``` #### Tool call: `get_document` ```json { "id": "R69WZQ" } ``` #### Tool call: `get_document` ```json { "id": "XATD2A" } ``` ### 12. Tool result: read THESIS #4V8VH7 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia SECTION #ZF9EYF Introduction PARAGRAPH #J4M2WK 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). PARAGRAPH #ADQD9U This thesis is an ethnographic study of freecycling – the circulation of things within a non-monetary context – in Brīvbode, a volunteer-run swapshop1 in Riga. It examines how freecycling is organised and sustained as a social practice and what work it requires from its participants. Freecycling is viewed as a socially embedded, materially organized practice, and in this thesis it is situated within broader debates on sustainable consumption practices. PARAGRAPH #XKELL5 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). PARAGRAPH #SNLDAM 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. PARAGRAPH #BTDD45 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. PARAGRAPH #UBJLE3 The study is based on participant observation in Brīvbode combined with fifteen semi-structured interviews with visitors, regular participants, and volunteers. My own participation as a volunteer shaped the fieldwork and is reflected in the analysis. PARAGRAPH #PYHGNL The thesis is guided by two research questions: PARAGRAPH #NSNSQ3 How is freecycling organised and sustained in Brīvbode as a non-monetary, non-domestic site – what materials, meanings and competencies constitute it and how do they interact? PARAGRAPH #3TTCZA What work does freecycling in Brīvbode require from participants, and how is that work currently distributed? PARAGRAPH #577FMZ The bulk of things circulating in Brīvbode are textiles – mostly clothing, but also home textile. Textiles have been identified as a priority sector in the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission, 2020), and EU Textile Strategy (2022-ongoing) states that textiles should be durable, repairable, reusable, and reuse should be part of the desired system outcome. [..] [Statistics on Baltics as the destination in the circular economies of other countries…] SECTION #LAR465 Latvian context and research PARAGRAPH #Y38N9B Historically, second-hand in Latvia has been more commonly associated with acquisition rather than divestment. The colloquial term humpalas – derived from humānā palīdzība (humanitarian aid) – reflects the history of donated clothing arriving from abroad, particularly in the post-socialist period. In this context, second-hand goods were framed as assistance in times when access to consumer goods was limited rather than as part of a reciprocal or circular system, and organised opportunities for individuals to pass on their own items in organised ways were typically confined to informal exchanges or charitable donations. PARAGRAPH #SRVVZ4 A shift began with the emergence of more structured divestment infrastructures, such as the opening of the first Otrā Elpa charity shop in Riga in 2009. These initiatives introduced new channels for divestment, and gradually moved second-hand consumption from a one-directional flow of aid toward a more participatory system of reuse. Data indicates that second-hand acquisition remains a significant part of the textile market in the Baltic States: a 2023 representative survey found that 55% of Latvian participants currently buy second-hand clothing (Akule et al., 2023), and in 2018 second-hand accounted for around 40% of textile consumption in Latvia (Watson et al., 2020). PARAGRAPH #BHE8T3 In recent years the landscape has diversified further, with online groups, neighbourhood swapping events, book and plant exchange shelves, digital resale platforms, and informal stall-based initiatives all forming part of a dispersed network of everyday circulation practices. PARAGRAPH #4FP5K7 Various exchange, divestment and second hand alternatives are currently available and are routinely used by people in Riga – online groups, charity shops and textile collection containers – but what sets Brīvbode apart is the operation on a physical site, the exchange without regulated monetary transaction, and a sustained volunteer infrastructure that makes repeated visits possible and socially meaningful. It is open every week, year-round, and this regularity is central to what it offers – a route for acquisition and divestment, but also a predictable rhythm that participants can build into their everyday routines. PARAGRAPH #7LMSFU In recent years, a range of initiatives for circulation and reuse of everyday goods have emerged in Latvia, indicating a growing and also increasingly institutionalised diversification of non-market and low-cost access practices. [Different modes – institutional, informal initiatives – that are also based on different types of work?] [Andele Mandele and Vinted – growing second hand sector.] Access to infrastructure not distributed evenly (Akule et al. 2013). PARAGRAPH #2CU6EC Similar practices have long operated in digital environments, with specified online groups facilitating the redistribution of goods between users, e.g. “Atbrīvojies no lietām” (“Rid yourself of things”) – the names of these groups also indicate them as stemming from divestment, initiated by the giver as an opportunity to gain freedom from the burden of unwanted ownership. PARAGRAPH #YNKV5D In recent years more informal small scale infrastructures have become visible in urban space, such as book and plant exchange shelves located in libraries, clinics, educational institutions and cafés. Organised events, such as neighbourhood-based swapping, contribute to this landscape. Also smaller scale informal initiatives exist, for example, a participant told me about a trader who has set up a swapshop-like space in an unused stall in Matīsa market in Riga, maintaining it alongside her own activities. According to my interlocutors, such spaces attract regular users and form part of a dispersed network of everyday circulation practices. PARAGRAPH #NQNRFE At the same time, practices of leaving items in semi-public spaces – such as stairwells or next to waste containers – continue to operate as low-threshold forms of divestment, blurring the boundary between disposal and reuse. Second-hand retail chains remain a strong presence and provide access to low-cost goods that at times (e.g. special clearance days) approach free consumption. Other hybrid models combine elements of exchange and redistribution, such as the waste management company’s CleanR exchange point “Nomales” or the national reuse platform platform lietovelreiz.lv. PARAGRAPH #JNSARN [Although, for participants this aspect is not always significant, Brīvbode sustains domestic reuse, without sending things to other countries (although leftovers are absorbed by the textile collection system.] PARAGRAPH #C9N497 The first “library of things” in Riga was opened at the library of Goethe Institute in 2021, and this spring another two were established – in Sarkandaugava neighbourhood (currently announced as working until February 2027 within a project framework) and another in the nearby coastal town of Carnikava (running alongside a swapshop, opened by in collaboration with a waste management company). PARAGRAPH #TT4B8P Data indicates that second-hand acquisition remains a significant part of the textile market in the Baltic States, particularly in Latvia, where it accounts for a substantial share of total consumption. In 2018 around 40% of textile consumption in Latvia was second-hand (Watson et. al., 2020). The collection system in Latvia has undergone rapid expansion and formalization through new legislation. Latvia introduced mandatory separate textile collection in 2023, reflecting the broader EU regulatory direction established by the Circular Economy Action Plan and the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. PARAGRAPH #T5G2TS A 2023 representative survey found that 55% of Latvian participants currently buy second-hand clothing, a rate similar to Estonia (61%) and Finland (56%). PARAGRAPH #HZ8D53 [Brīvbode focusing on domestic flows] PARAGRAPH #N6UNLT References to other research in Latvia. Sufficiency lifestyles research. Circular textiles in Latvia… Andris Saulītis on barter shop. SECTION #MUKRGA A note on terms PARAGRAPH #5P28WG Choosing the right terms to refer to Brīvbode is not straightforward. For one, no word currently exists in Latvian to describe the practice, and the available English terms each carry connotations that fit only partially. PARAGRAPH #JLS4NG The name “Brīvbode” is a more or less localization of the term “freeshop”: “brīv-” means “free”, while “bode” alludes to the cosy scale and affectionate oldschool character of a small shop, associated with a persona of bodnieks or bodniece – the person who attends to it and mediates the relations with visitors. Some regulars of Brīvbode use the diminutive “bodīte”, a form of endearment very common in Latvian. PARAGRAPH #8S9QR2 However, the organizers have a complicated relationship with the term “freeshop”. As Brīvbode manager Rasa shared in an interview, the name already existed when she joined the initiative and they were trying to come up with alternative names in the beginning but did not manage to replace it. Their preferred term is “swapshop” which I also use in this thesis. “Swapshop”, as I discuss in Chapter 4, positions Brīvbode as a site of exchange rather than charity. However, as a descriptive term for “what actually happens there” I consider swapping not suitable enough, as it overstates the symmetry and implies an exchange with one to one logic, which is not the case in Brīvbode. In this thesis, I use the term “freecycling” to refer to the what is done in Brīvbode, as it emphasises the circularity aspect of the practice. While freecycling has its own specific origin, associated with the Freecycle Network, an online platform for giving things away locally, I use the term nonetheless because it captures the non-monetary circulation of goods without implying directness of swapping or the one-directionality of donation. SECTION #FVXBEK The structure of the thesis PARAGRAPH #ALLPXH The thesis is organised as follows: Chapter Two reviews the relevant literature, situating the study within debates on practice theory and sustainable consumption and consumption work. Chapter Three describes the methodology, including the fieldwork context, interview approach, and analytical framework. Chapter Four, the first empirical chapter, examines Brīvbode as a site of freecycling practice: the materials flowing through it, the plural meanings and competencies that sustain giving and taking, and the non-monetary context that shapes the flows. Chapter Five turns more closely to the labour that sustains the flows described in Chapter Four, applying Wheeler and Glucksmann's consumption work framework to analyse the work performed by volunteers, participants, and the extended divestment networks that connect Brīvbode to surrounding households. The thesis concludes by drawing together the empirical findings and reflecting on what Brīvbode reveals about the conditions under which circular consumption practices can be sustained in everyday life. THESIS #4V8VH7 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia SECTION #A3X9XX Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations PARAGRAPH #M3VCHH 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. PARAGRAPH #4V448P Sustainability can be an outcome without it being a requirement and a conscious orientation for practitioners. The practice recruits and retains carriers through meanings that also have little to do with environmental concern and yet the circulation it enables has sustainable dimensions that persist regardless of how participants frame their involvement. PARAGRAPH #MHM9Q5 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. THESIS #4V8VH7 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia SECTION #75D5UH Conclusion PARAGRAPH #5YXGE6 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. PARAGRAPH #HM56MD 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. PARAGRAPH #RX9JDU 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. THESIS #4V8VH7 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia SECTION #M9WQLY CONCLUSION PARAGRAPH #JE7FK2 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. PARAGRAPH #U2PZ9C 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. PARAGRAPH #FE5BCM 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. PARAGRAPH #GUXEZX 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. PARAGRAPH #JM9L6Y improvised solution that does not presuppose a lot of resources… except sufficiency lifestyle? PARAGRAPH #NNZ5SG THE TENSION BETWEEN HABIT (practice) AND INTENTION (trying to change?) Is practice unreflexive? Also work can be unreflexive… People are reflecting all the time, but what keeps them in the practice? The stickiness of it… PARAGRAPH #PEFVAC Results, relevance, contribution PARAGRAPH #HMDEDU 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. PARAGRAPH #9DTFUU Further research might –– move into constitution of need… (Shove and Rinkinen) In line with Warde (2005). Circular consumption is one thing, but does it matter how you get things if it’s still an overflow? ### 13. Tool result: get_document DOCUMENT #8ZKAT7 Title: Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy Outline: - 1 #ECVDXM Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy - 1.1 #BWE4XA Abstract - 1.2 #7JJN4G Keywords - 1.3 #YYPBP6 1 Introduction - 1.3.1 #DJ6AEM Corresponding author: - 1.4 #S7EQE3 II What is the circular economy and how do we get there? - 1.5 #R4GEYE III Governing the circular economy: The case of WEEE and the modernist myth - 1.6 #75DDTN IV Distributing politics and markets in the CE - 1.7 #MWMXE8 V Being a circular economy citizen: Pathways to radical product service systems? - 1.8 #ACNZ3L VI Concluding comments - 1.9 #RNUQ2A Funding and Acknowledgements - 1.10 #QKAYNE References - 1.11 #T8RC4F Author biography ### 14. Tool result: get_document DOCUMENT #UMYA27 Title: The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy Outline: - 1 #6DJ9DS The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy - 2 #WE2KWR The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy - 2.1 #4S872F ABSTRACT - 2.2 #8N33DB Introduction: Circular Economy as ‘weak’ sustainability rebooted? - 2.3 #VACME2 The Circular Economy: from disparate sub-disciplines to holistic framework? - 2.4 #XK6L5Q The user-consumer in Circular Economy: beyond competitive prices and increased efficiencies - 2.5 #Z2MRHK Concluding comments: setting the agenda for an environmental politics of CE - 2.6 #TB7D85 Disclosure statement - 2.7 #G8THKN ORCID - 2.8 #TFBWD5 References ### 15. Tool result: get_document DOCUMENT #NUEUVY Title: Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. Outline: - 1 #N9U32S Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. - 1.1 #46SCUP ARTICLE INFO - 1.1.1 #NKGBV8 Keywords: - 1.2 #VCKC56 ABSTRACT - 1.3 #A5NUHL 1. Introduction: circular economy and Consumption Work - 1.4 #8BJQQ9 2. Consumers and consumption in CE: from acceptance to engagement - 1.5 #3D3TKM 3. Consumption Work in the circular economy - 1.5.1 #WXP5SH 3.1. The concept of consumption work and its relevance to the circular economy - 1.5.2 #8G4TEL 3.2. The consumption work of the sharing economy - 1.6 #9LCL7B 4. The circular economy and Consumption Work: a research agenda - 1.7 #VNRSC7 5. Concluding comments - 1.7.1 #TYSNJH assertion that is far from proven to date. - 1.8 #2Y58MZ CRediT authorship contribution statement - 1.9 #ZK4JBT Declaration of competing interest - 1.10 #Z2J293 Acknowledgements - 1.11 #TP4LY2 References ### 16. Tool result: get_document DOCUMENT #R69WZQ Title: Material culture and the circular economy Outline: - 1 #SUGN84 OPEN ACCESS - 2 #FKGYUE EDITED BY - 3 #RRN6P5 REVIEWED BY - 4 #4UBNYW *CORRESPONDENCE - 4.1 #LCPYDW CITATION - 4.2 #WYBS6P COPYRIGHT - 5 #J8TDC3 Material culture and the circular economy - 5.1 #7H9E6C KEYWORDS - 5.2 #CNF67G 1. Introduction - 5.3 #9XPEAM 2. Practices and object relations - 5.4 #CM9YM4 3. Constitution of demand - 5.5 #FAPRPA 4. Discussion - 5.6 #NHZD3M Data availability statement - 5.7 #S3MPWH Author contributions - 5.8 #RTZ57Z Funding - 5.9 #53YKG2 Conflict of interest - 5.10 #ECMZUP Publisher's note - 5.11 #EATTT9 References ### 17. Tool result: get_document DOCUMENT #XATD2A Title: New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning Outline: - 1 #AHCZ2X New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning - 1.1 #U9QZVV ARTICLE INFO - 1.1.1 #Q9ZEL9 Keywords: - 1.2 #94A9P5 ABSTRACT - 1.3 #NMW2HP 1. Introduction - 1.4 #4F5EEN 2. Situating provisioning - 1.4.1 #PFRB5B 2.1. Diverse economies, morality and gifting - 1.4.2 #38LM6C 2.2. Circular economy and sharing economy - 1.5 #8CA92A 3. Methods and data - 1.6 #B786P5 4. The case studies - 1.6.1 #ZGCPZT 4.1. Case study 1: Coffee Club - 1.6.2 #8QGCD4 4.2. Case Study 2: Clothes swap - 1.7 #XUJTDR 5. Troublesome materialities - 1.8 #PTGSRA 6. Conclusion - 1.9 #735CTQ Acknowledgments - 1.10 #NVVBZ7 References ### 18. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4V8VH7", "limit": 20, "query": "purgatory" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4V8VH7", "limit": 20, "query": "wire offcuts wires offcuts used" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4V8VH7", "limit": 20, "query": "witness circulation see where things go" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4V8VH7", "limit": 20, "query": "not the bin waste sorting curation Brīvbode" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4V8VH7", "limit": 20, "query": "social rhythm regular visits everyday routines Brīvbode" } ``` ### 19. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #W2WRDC What People Find Here: Plural Meanings of Acquisition Matching paragraph #Z4WUR2: A related strong negative meaning for second hand acquisition holds that these items carry the energy of previous – often deceased – owners. Several participants mentioned this trope but adjusted it to their practice. Viesturs, half-laughing, keeps the spiritual language but reframes it institutionally: "Others say that things have some kind of energy, or the aura of previous owners... We're able to transform that. In a way, Brīvbode is also like a kind of purgatory for things." With this adjusted meaning Brīvbode can function as a threshold space in the object biographies where the weight of previous owners can be released. Approximate matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #W2WRDC What People Find Here: Plural Meanings of Acquisition Score: 0.282 Related paragraph #Z4WUR2: A related strong negative meaning for second hand acquisition holds that these items carry the energy of previous – often deceased – owners. Several participants mentioned this trope but adjusted it to their practice. Viesturs, half-laughing, keeps the spiritual language but reframes it institutionally: "Others say that things have some kind of energy, or the aura of previous owners... We're able to transform that. In a way, Brīvbode is also like a kind of purgatory for things." With this adjusted meaning Brīvbode can function as a threshold space in the object biographies where the weight of previous owners can be released. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Score: 0.222 Related paragraph #73DSQT: On the divesting side, the practice expects items to arrive clean and in reasonable condition, requiring washing, stain-checking, and sometimes minor repair, though norms vary: Marija leaves the washing to the recipient, while Anna says she never divests anything that has been repaired. The boundary between "ready to circulate" and "needs more work first" is itself negotiated through the practice. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #7Z8WUY Letting Go: Attachment Without Price Score: 0.221 Related paragraph #PYSU33: (moral economies of access and restraint) 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #7Z8WUY Letting Go: Attachment Without Price Score: 0.209 Related paragraph #35KR5F: the practice of divestment requires competencies that include emotional regulation and the capacity to detach from objects. Māra is developing these competencies deliberately. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Score: 0.209 Related paragraph #3USBHB: During another shift, Rasa offered me a handmade black ceramic plate someone had brought that day. I was glad to take it, but before my departure confusion arose about where it had gone. It turned out, more stuff had piled up on top of it on the sorting table as visitors kept coming with their divestment. Rasa laughed: “This is how it is here.” As a material site, Brīvbode is an active flow that requires tending and occasionally swallows its own offerings. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Score: 0.207 Related paragraph #V83RLN: 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. ### 20. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Matching paragraph #HN8W7V: Fieldwork observations reveal different versions and scales of what counts as usable and worthy: I recall a collection of single-use sugar packages; a bundle of expired covid tests (I spent time unpacking the alcohol wipes and watched a woman take them); carefully washed plastic containers that were taken to the recycling bin after all (although the sour cream containers are useful in spring for growing plantings). A regular visitor brought coloured wire offcuts generated by her husband’s wireworking practice – she imagined someone who makes art or does craft work with children could be taking them, as they were never on the shelf anymore the next time she visited. Her husband generates surplus, she routes it to Brīvbode through her domestic management, an unknown hypothetical third person absorbs it into their own. The trajectory is sustained by an imagined right-owner who may not exist, and the volunteers did not have the heart to tell her the bags of small plastic pieces were not used that way. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #L759F3 Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #Q2WXHP Theories of Practice Matching paragraph #RG72B3: This threefold structure of elements of practice has been used widely across disciplines as it offers a clear conceptual approach for empirical research. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9GJAHS LIST OF SOURCES Matching paragraph #CPTV8C: Appelgren, S. and Bohlin, A. (2015) ‘Growing in motion: the circulation of used things on second-hand markets’, Culture Unbound, 7, pp. 143–168. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #U3GSXB Ethnography of Practice Matching paragraph #A4BLKP: focus on everydayness – attention to sites and situatedness of practice, attention to the aspects of social reality taken for granted by the practitioners, problematising the accounts used by the practitioners to make sense of the situation; 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Matching paragraph #VYZNQX: I hereby confirm that I am the sole author of the thesis submitted. All the works and conceptual viewpoints by other authors that I have used, as well as data deriving from sources have been appropriately attributed. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #GU86TB Interviews Matching paragraph #MB4SXE: Most interviews were conducted in Latvian (one partly in Russian); they were recorded and transcribed verbatim and quotes have been lightly edited for readability where needed. Quotes used in the thesis have been translated to English by me. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #GTJY22 Quiet or Reflected Sustainability? Matching paragraph #8B2Y8N: Several participants in this study trace their orientations toward thrift and reuse to generational experience of the scarcity of the early post-Soviet period, or to upbringings in which resources were used carefully as a matter of practical necessity rather than environmental commitment. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #VMQSHJ Participant observation Matching paragraph #KNK29P: Consequently, I also paid more attention to public discussions e.g. among friends, family and on social media when people shared their habits, practices, as well as uncertainties and frustrations regarding divestment and secondhand acquisition, and I have occasionally used them as secondary sources. 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #L759F3 Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #ULSUAX Conclusion Matching paragraph #3JUPW7: Shove conceptualizes material entities as one of the core elements of practice, alongside meanings and competencies (Shove et al., 2012; Shove et al., 2007). Acknowledging the different roles that material entities can play, three categories of materiality are proposed: resources (consumables used up in practices), devices (objects directly mobilized during practices), and infrastructure (supporting systems not directly engaged) (Shove, 2016). 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #GU86TB Interviews Matching paragraph #X3TLEX: Men do visit Brīvbode, and there are known regular visitors, however my attempts to recruit for interviews were not always successful. What I observed, though, was that often men and women have different practice careers in Brīvbode and men appear as sellers of used books, electronics, collectors of CD’s, DVD’s and vinyls. So it must be acknowledged as a limitation. 11. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #GU86TB Interviews Matching paragraph #RBWPQ8: Attempts to interview regular male visitors – one was not used in the corpus because the interview was not usable due to… –, another because the initially recruited participant pulled out his participation. Two of the interviewees were men – one volunteer, and one a partner of a regular visitor who himself is not a direct swapshop user – he was chosen to draw on the theme of domestic consumption work and the division of this labour within households. 12. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #ZXRYYU The site Matching paragraph #DF8KCF: In spring 2024, Brīvbode expanded into two additional rooms, almost doubling its size. The new spaces include a room for books, textiles and women’s clothing, centred around a large round table used for gatherings occasionally, and another room with clothing and footwear for both men and women, along with a fitting room and a newly installed DIY heating system. This allowed for more visitors, more events, and, consequently, a greater volume and diversity of items in circulation. 13. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Matching paragraph #4FP5K7: Various exchange, divestment and second hand alternatives are currently available and are routinely used by people in Riga – online groups, charity shops and textile collection containers – but what sets Brīvbode apart is the operation on a physical site, the exchange without regulated monetary transaction, and a sustained volunteer infrastructure that makes repeated visits possible and socially meaningful. It is open every week, year-round, and this regularity is central to what it offers – a route for acquisition and divestment, but also a predictable rhythm that participants can build into their everyday routines. 14. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #7Z8WUY Letting Go: Attachment Without Price Matching paragraph #GL6QPX: The intensity of circulation of items in Brīvbode and its non-monetary context raise a question about the relationship between price and attachment. Evans’s (2020) framework suggests that attachment is produced through the acquisition-side moments of consumption – appropriation and appreciation, processes that are normally anchored by monetary investment. Assima et al. (2023) describe "financial myopia" – the difficulty of detaching from items one has spent significant money on, even when they are no longer used. This results in "neglected possessions" accumulating in wardrobes as disposal is deferred to avoid the feeling of wasting a significant investment. 15. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #VMQSHJ Participant observation Matching paragraph #ZYK94K: 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. 16. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #GU86TB Interviews Matching paragraph #NA4Y5J: Some of the interviews in summer 2024 were conducted on site, in the yard of the swapshop. On several occasions, when the weather allowed it, I set up a table outdoors and invited visitors to sit for a conversation right after their visits. Following the principle that things are constitutive of practices, I used it as an opportunity to ask about their acquisitions and divestments during the visit, as well as their favourite and memorable objects acquired in Brīvbode as prompts to uncover material-practice relations (e.g. Mesiranta et al. 2025). This also corresponds to how Appadurai (1986) speaks of “methodological fetishism” with regards to returning our attention to the things themselves. 17. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Matching paragraph #2U6CTU: The standards applied to men’s clothing also operate differently. There is simply less of it, and the threshold for what is acceptable is lower – men’s clothing is assumed to be used for physical work and is assessed accordingly. One day two young women looking through the clothing boxes for film costumes picked up an undershirt and commented on how disgusting it was, while a man right next to them took it. Rasa later confirmed the shirt was not in a good condition, but she had put it out because, as she noted, everything gets taken from the men’s section. The norms of assessment reflect whose consumption practices the swapshop is organised around. 18. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #GTJY22 Quiet or Reflected Sustainability? Matching paragraph #78HBEQ: Līva discussed how the environmental meaning is present for her, but in tension with her actual acquisition practices. She identifies textile consumption as probably one of her most environmentally problematic behaviors, yet was open that knowing it does not resolve it. She estimates she buys an item of clothing every month and frames this as more than she used to in adolescence. The meanings she uses to evaluate her consumption patterns are in tension with the meanings that sustain the acquisition, and neither cancels the other one out. Researching household textile disposal, Sigaard (2026) concludes that even while sustainable consumption is ideally endorsed, disposal is very normalized because it is strongly embedded in identity work, relational considerations and in facilitating other practices. 19. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Matching paragraph #796PVP: In reality, Brīvbode also functions as a divestment route for items that more regulated reuse channels would not accommodate: unfinished repair projects and textile fragments can sometimes be found, photographs and used magazines, not entirely complete jigsaw puzzles. Sometimes volunteers would remark that they already look for signs of wear and tear in suspicion about reasons an item has been brought to Brīvbode. They are aware that the swapshop can become a route of last resort for objects that are genuinely difficult to route elsewhere. What counts as acceptable and what counts as waste is decided through social judgment rather than formal criteria. I sometimes brought things in my backpack but ended up not taking them out as on second thought they seemed too worn or not suited. 20. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #L759F3 Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #Q2WXHP Theories of Practice Matching paragraph #KSLB7G: 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. Approximate matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Score: 0.401 Related paragraph #HN8W7V: Fieldwork observations reveal different versions and scales of what counts as usable and worthy: I recall a collection of single-use sugar packages; a bundle of expired covid tests (I spent time unpacking the alcohol wipes and watched a woman take them); carefully washed plastic containers that were taken to the recycling bin after all (although the sour cream containers are useful in spring for growing plantings). A regular visitor brought coloured wire offcuts generated by her husband’s wireworking practice – she imagined someone who makes art or does craft work with children could be taking them, as they were never on the shelf anymore the next time she visited. Her husband generates surplus, she routes it to Brīvbode through her domestic management, an unknown hypothetical third person absorbs it into their own. The trajectory is sustained by an imagined right-owner who may not exist, and the volunteers did not have the heart to tell her the bags of small plastic pieces were not used that way. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Score: 0.338 Related paragraph #796PVP: In reality, Brīvbode also functions as a divestment route for items that more regulated reuse channels would not accommodate: unfinished repair projects and textile fragments can sometimes be found, photographs and used magazines, not entirely complete jigsaw puzzles. Sometimes volunteers would remark that they already look for signs of wear and tear in suspicion about reasons an item has been brought to Brīvbode. They are aware that the swapshop can become a route of last resort for objects that are genuinely difficult to route elsewhere. What counts as acceptable and what counts as waste is decided through social judgment rather than formal criteria. I sometimes brought things in my backpack but ended up not taking them out as on second thought they seemed too worn or not suited. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.329 Related paragraph #NQNRFE: At the same time, practices of leaving items in semi-public spaces – such as stairwells or next to waste containers – continue to operate as low-threshold forms of divestment, blurring the boundary between disposal and reuse. Second-hand retail chains remain a strong presence and provide access to low-cost goods that at times (e.g. special clearance days) approach free consumption. Other hybrid models combine elements of exchange and redistribution, such as the waste management company’s CleanR exchange point “Nomales” or the national reuse platform platform lietovelreiz.lv. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #EBTHSE Not the Bin: Modal Labour and the Informal Route Score: 0.315 Related paragraph #QQ9MKA: Brīvbode is indirectly embedded in wider textile collection infrastructure, but the chain of work usually connects one household to another. Objects leaving one home pass through the swapshop and arrive in someone else’s home where a new set of consumption work tasks begin – storing, integrating, eventually deciding what to do when the object might no longer be wanted. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Score: 0.306 Related paragraph #6X2J6G: Freecycling practice in a swapshop in Riga, Latvia 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Score: 0.302 Related paragraph #4G43HR: The same logic that makes divestment easy also can make Brīvbode available as a pressure valve. Fast fashion sometimes arrives with tags still attached; one participant brought clothing she had purchased online – after it did not fit she arranged a return, and was told by the company to donate it rather than send it back – the retailer in this case is routing their surplus to volunteers to manage. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Score: 0.301 Related paragraph #76T3WR: The competencies that sustain freecycling in Brīvbode are largely social and evaluative rather than technical, and none of them require formal training — but each is acquired through repeated participation and is unevenly distributed across practitioners. Material literacy — recognising wool from synthetic fibres, identifying well-made construction, spotting a hidden stain — is foundational, and volunteers develop it most acutely through handling what arrives. Rasa, in the recollection of one student researcher who spent time in the shop, has "the most trained eye for the quality of things" [visuztrenētākā acs uz mantu kvalitāti]; her own acquisition criteria turn on fibre type and durability, preferring what is "more nature-friendly, ecological, and long-lasting." Visitors develop a more limited version of the same competency. Laura describes herself as a careful second-hand user who checks everything thoroughly, though she admits she has still occasionally taken home items that turned out to be broken on closer inspection. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9GJAHS LIST OF SOURCES Score: 0.298 Related paragraph #6SDD7L: 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 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Score: 0.293 Related paragraph #WW8YUW: 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. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9GJAHS LIST OF SOURCES Score: 0.292 Related paragraph #S3YTB3: 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. 11. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #ZXRYYU The site Score: 0.291 Related paragraph #8VT667: The range of goods available at the swapshop is wide, including cosmetics, jewellery, craft supplies and household items such as dishes, cutlery, pots, pans, and lamps, as well as occasional electronics, and magazines, the majority, however, is clothing. Many items move quickly, with turnover often visible in real time as objects are brought in, sorted, and taken by other visitors. ### 21. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #GU86TB Interviews Matching paragraph #D2HJZP: The interview guide was organized around themes: participants' practices of acquisition and divestment, their relationship to the objects they brought and took, and the social and material dimensions of their participation in Brīvbode. While the guide included some questions on attitudes and motivations, most were designed to elicit accounts of what people actually do – how they choose what to bring, what routes objects take through their households, who does the work of sorting and transporting, and what the process of letting go feels like. Following the principles of practice-theoretical methods, the questions sought to access the practical, embodied, and often taken-for-granted dimensions of household goods circulation: the routines, competencies, and emotional labor involved in managing the flow of things. Where questions touched on values and motivations, these were treated not as explanations for behavior but as part of the meanings participants attach to their practices – an element among materials, competencies, and social arrangements in shaping how circulation is organized and reproduced. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Matching paragraph #U2PZ9C: 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. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation Matching paragraph #EKYQ3W: 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. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #U3GSXB Ethnography of Practice Matching paragraph #AL93KK: 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." 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Matching paragraph #Y7K4KZ: This is observable even in the circulation of food items, which, although not central, are also present in Brīvbode. As opposed to many community-based exchange initiatives where the circulation of food is governed strictly, e.g. accepting only unopened items and carefully monitoring expiration dates, in Brīvbode the circulation is shaped less by formal regulation and more by trust and familiarity among participants. Open packages may be accepted when brought by known visitors, suggesting that assessments of safety and acceptability are negotiated socially. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Matching paragraph #HMDEDU: 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. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #W2WRDC What People Find Here: Plural Meanings of Acquisition Matching paragraph #86WW2X: Alongside the meanings of novelty, originality and access is the meaning of class related stigma, and its presence significantly affects the practice’s recruitability. Some participants hinted at it subtly in conversation, but denied it when asked about it directly. Marija is the only one who explicitly named the shame associated with freecycling, and this cuts against any simple narrative of freecycling as normalized exchange practice for people of all walks of life. While actively and regularly using Brīvbode and also praising the things she has managed to acquire as high quality and aesthetically pleasing, nevertheless, she also compares taking from Brīvbode to going through someone else’s trash. Especially when a TV crew came to Brīvbode and a journalist approached her for a couple of words, she flatly refused “I will not let them see that I've fallen so low as to come to Brīvbode." Yet in the same conversation she also reclaims the class label: "I'm common, simply common (prasta – common, plain, I.L.). I will go and get what I need." The value is privately experienced, but restricted in representation. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9GJAHS LIST OF SOURCES Matching paragraph #CPTV8C: Appelgren, S. and Bohlin, A. (2015) ‘Growing in motion: the circulation of used things on second-hand markets’, Culture Unbound, 7, pp. 143–168. 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #L759F3 Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #ULSUAX Conclusion Matching paragraph #7RYKMT: This thesis brings together practice-theoretical perspectives on sustainable consumption and consumption work for a study of non-domestic site of goods circulation within a context of non-monetary exchange. Brīvbode is a site where the ordinarily private and dispersed practices of domestic material life become visible. The continued existence of the swapshop – sustained through regular volunteer labour, participant labour, and a relatively stable social and material infrastructure – can be read as evidence of the demand that household goods circulation generates: a demand for routes of divestment that, while taking some degree of effort, are socially acknowledged. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #L759F3 Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #23NMLX Consumption Work Matching paragraph #WCS3TZ: If practice theory explains how the circulation of goods is socially organised, consumption work names what that circulation costs. Practice theory’s focus on competencies – the skills and know-how through which practices are enacted – tends to emphasize how things are done rather than the effort and resources required to do them. Labor-centric views (e.g. through the concepts of consumption work or care work) instead highlight the laborious aspects of these practices, including the work of acquiring, managing, and disposing of goods and can address this gap directly. This is important in order to examine how circular consumption creates responsibilities and in what ways new forms of consumption work are distributed through populations. 11. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #7Z8WUY Letting Go: Attachment Without Price Matching paragraph #WABKA8: Brīvbode as material infrastructure enabling the practice of letting go. The freeshop does not just receive things; it creates conditions that make divestment possible for people who otherwise could not do it. This is the role of material arrangement in sustaining practice. 12. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction Matching paragraph #ADQD9U: This thesis is an ethnographic study of freecycling – the circulation of things within a non-monetary context – in Brīvbode, a volunteer-run swapshop1 in Riga. It examines how freecycling is organised and sustained as a social practice and what work it requires from its participants. Freecycling is viewed as a socially embedded, materially organized practice, and in this thesis it is situated within broader debates on sustainable consumption practices. 13. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #7Z8WUY Letting Go: Attachment Without Price Matching paragraph #AB5XLD: "Es labāk šobrīd lēnā garā atbrīvojos... man nav vienkārši žēl paņemt somu un aizbraukt." [I'd rather let go of things slowly now… I just don't want it to be hard to pick up a bag and leave.] The war anxiety dimension: she is releasing things partly because she wants to be able to leave quickly if necessary. The geopolitical context of Latvia – proximity to Russia, uncertainty since 2022 – appears explicitly in her divestment motivation. 14. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Matching paragraph #V83RLN: 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. 15. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Matching paragraph #SUZYLN: However, sorting is done “on the spot” and in the same room, and things move fast. As Larsen (2023) observes, in thrift shops, practices are often characterized by a "reversal" of standard economic logic, where the goal is to move things along as quickly as possible rather than to maximize the profit per individual item. This can also be said about Brīvbode – there’s excitement about things moving quickly. 16. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode Matching paragraph #DM28T4: 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. 17. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Matching paragraph #F9CK8T: While there are explicit written rules governing exchange in Brīvbode, those are framed in general relational terms – “bring things that would bring joy to someone; bring things you would give to a friend” – and there are no formal categories of exclusion. Norms regarding acceptability are defined and enacted situationally and relationally, which can be both a strength and a source of friction about where the boundaries lie. 18. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Matching paragraph #CL5CS8: The regularity of operation that the physical on-site format allows also fosters social contact among participants. Opening hours twice per week is both a way to manage the necessary volunteer labour and a social encounter catalyst – temporal tightening means that visitors are more likely to encounter each other. The volunteer in charge of the shift anchors the social experience, and the personal relationships accumulate over repeated visits. "On Thursdays everyone asks where Nadja is. And on Fridays everyone asks where Viesturs is." While Brīvbode is not a primary site for socialisation for most participants, regular visitors, especially those living in single person households, noted the meaningfulness of the social aspect of visiting, the casual contact with known “faces”, Brīvbode being a place to go and the visits giving a structure to the week. 19. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Matching paragraph #9CFEH4: Divestment is normalised and sought after. As Brīvbode manager Rasa observed: "Often we're simply a place to dump it all and go buy new things." In this view, Brīvbode appears as evidence of the structural conditions it aspires to address rather than a solution to them. There is tension present in Brīvbode between the swapshop as an alternative caring system and as a low-threshold overflow channel, and this tension does not resolve easily. 20. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Matching paragraph #GUXEZX: 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. Approximate matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation Score: 0.4 Related paragraph #EKYQ3W: 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. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Score: 0.37 Related paragraph #MQPMT2: Competencies of Circulation 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PZH45P Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange Score: 0.366 Related paragraph #QKY57B: This reveals a hierarchy of meanings operating within Brīvbode’s moral economy. The object’s arrival to a sequential user is weighed as more important than the forbidden monetary transaction that may or may not occur along the way. The ethos of non-monetary exchange can be subordinated to the deeper logic of circulation. Besides, if visitors come with something in return, further trajectory is difficult to control. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Score: 0.365 Related paragraph #Y7K4KZ: This is observable even in the circulation of food items, which, although not central, are also present in Brīvbode. As opposed to many community-based exchange initiatives where the circulation of food is governed strictly, e.g. accepting only unopened items and carefully monitoring expiration dates, in Brīvbode the circulation is shaped less by formal regulation and more by trust and familiarity among participants. Open packages may be accepted when brought by known visitors, suggesting that assessments of safety and acceptability are negotiated socially. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #U3GSXB Ethnography of Practice Score: 0.346 Related paragraph #AL93KK: 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." 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Score: 0.333 Related paragraph #5XUPCJ: 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. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.32 Related paragraph #BHE8T3: In recent years the landscape has diversified further, with online groups, neighbourhood swapping events, book and plant exchange shelves, digital resale platforms, and informal stall-based initiatives all forming part of a dispersed network of everyday circulation practices. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #7Z8WUY Letting Go: Attachment Without Price Score: 0.317 Related paragraph #PYZ6UH: Fieldwork observations capture this in the dynamic of circulation. A woman arrives and leaves in different shoes than she came in: “I left mine here instead. Today with these trousers, the high heel doesn't suit. Hopefully no fungus..." Another laughs as she leaves her jacket in Brīvbode on a sunny day because she feels too hot: “I left home with clothes on but will be coming back in socks only. I don't need anything.” A third also swaps her jacket on the spot for one she prefers. The meaning of novelty comes across in these cases. 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9GJAHS LIST OF SOURCES Score: 0.315 Related paragraph #CPTV8C: Appelgren, S. and Bohlin, A. (2015) ‘Growing in motion: the circulation of used things on second-hand markets’, Culture Unbound, 7, pp. 143–168. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Score: 0.306 Related paragraph #PQV5PN: Participants who divest in Brīvbode mentioned the non-transparency of the textile container system in comparison to the freeshop. Both routes offer removal and a presumed social good, but participants expressed particular satisfaction for witnessing circulation in Brīvbode – moments when they saw someone taking the items they brought. Although giving and taking are decoupled and mediated by the swapshop, participants can sometimes observe the circulation during their visits, a characteristic noted by many with a kind of quiet pleasure. The divestment is completed by seeing or knowing an item was taken, and this visibility closes the divestment cycle affectively. The opportunity for other visitors to access the materials is valued, while the textile collection management system is deemed too distanced to imagine who benefits. 11. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #U3GSXB Ethnography of Practice Score: 0.302 Related paragraph #YF9GE2: focus on what people actually do (and what materials they converse with) – attention to actual doing, attention to interactions and sequences (as opposed to single actions or statements), attention to matter in these interactions; 12. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Score: 0.296 Related paragraph #HMDEDU: 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. ### 22. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #SLFJ9K Priceless Valuation: Sorting, Curation, and Care Matching paragraph #7X9BV4: 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. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #75D5UH Conclusion Matching paragraph #5YXGE6: 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. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Matching paragraph #X8RDCG: After an item is divested to Brīvbode, it does not belong to the donor anymore, it belongs to the swapshop. This transfer of ownership is actively managed: takers are discouraged from taking things from the sorting table before they are processed, as their enthusiasm has caused discomfort to other visitors in the past. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #3CQF69 Setting the scene: A day in Brīvbode Matching paragraph #M76A77: I bring what I can carry on my bike, treating the visit as an opportunity for divestment I don’t want to waste. The first hours after opening at noon are especially busy in Brīvbode. A dozen people queue outside, waiting for the doors to open. Once inside, the sorting table quickly fills with incoming items, and volunteers and visitors constantly move through the space. Many of the visitors, at least at this hour of the day, are women, most of them older. Although soon I notice my mother’s souvenir backpack on a man’s shoulders, already on its way somewhere else. Nearby, a woman methodically works her way along the shelves of household items, selecting a grater, a small glass bowl, and several beer glasses, placing them into another bag that I recently brought. It can feel unusual to see someone unknowingly take something that used to be yours. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #EBTHSE Not the Bin: Modal Labour and the Informal Route Matching paragraph #VA7PZF: Some participants choose Brīvbode precisely because they do not want to perform labour for formal waste management institutions – they prefer the more relational, informal route. This is a modal choice: the same divestment work takes a different socioeconomic form depending on the route chosen, and Brīvbode's modal distinctiveness is part of what recruits and retains its participants. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Matching paragraph #HN8W7V: Fieldwork observations reveal different versions and scales of what counts as usable and worthy: I recall a collection of single-use sugar packages; a bundle of expired covid tests (I spent time unpacking the alcohol wipes and watched a woman take them); carefully washed plastic containers that were taken to the recycling bin after all (although the sour cream containers are useful in spring for growing plantings). A regular visitor brought coloured wire offcuts generated by her husband’s wireworking practice – she imagined someone who makes art or does craft work with children could be taking them, as they were never on the shelf anymore the next time she visited. Her husband generates surplus, she routes it to Brīvbode through her domestic management, an unknown hypothetical third person absorbs it into their own. The trajectory is sustained by an imagined right-owner who may not exist, and the volunteers did not have the heart to tell her the bags of small plastic pieces were not used that way. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #3CQF69 Setting the scene: A day in Brīvbode Matching paragraph #Q7AP33: My task is to sort through a box of clothes, checking for holes and stains, separating what can be placed on the racks from what should be set aside for textile containers. The task is not difficult, but it requires attention: a missed stain becomes someone else’s disappointment, or perhaps reflects badly on Brīvbode itself. I set aside a top and a shirt for my son. A couple of women watch me sorting and use the opportunity to see what’s in the box without doing the digging work themselves. Viesturs encourages keeping only the best garments: “People can go to Humana for ugly clothes.” 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction Matching paragraph #BTDD45: 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. 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Matching paragraph #WW8YUW: 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. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #GU86TB Interviews Matching paragraph #D2HJZP: The interview guide was organized around themes: participants' practices of acquisition and divestment, their relationship to the objects they brought and took, and the social and material dimensions of their participation in Brīvbode. While the guide included some questions on attitudes and motivations, most were designed to elicit accounts of what people actually do – how they choose what to bring, what routes objects take through their households, who does the work of sorting and transporting, and what the process of letting go feels like. Following the principles of practice-theoretical methods, the questions sought to access the practical, embodied, and often taken-for-granted dimensions of household goods circulation: the routines, competencies, and emotional labor involved in managing the flow of things. Where questions touched on values and motivations, these were treated not as explanations for behavior but as part of the meanings participants attach to their practices – an element among materials, competencies, and social arrangements in shaping how circulation is organized and reproduced. 11. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Matching paragraph #796PVP: In reality, Brīvbode also functions as a divestment route for items that more regulated reuse channels would not accommodate: unfinished repair projects and textile fragments can sometimes be found, photographs and used magazines, not entirely complete jigsaw puzzles. Sometimes volunteers would remark that they already look for signs of wear and tear in suspicion about reasons an item has been brought to Brīvbode. They are aware that the swapshop can become a route of last resort for objects that are genuinely difficult to route elsewhere. What counts as acceptable and what counts as waste is decided through social judgment rather than formal criteria. I sometimes brought things in my backpack but ended up not taking them out as on second thought they seemed too worn or not suited. 12. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Matching paragraph #FE5BCM: 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. 13. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #3CQF69 Setting the scene: A day in Brīvbode Matching paragraph #K25HLD: In the morning, before arriving to Brīvbode, I go through the box of items I have set aside since my last visit and spend half hour sorting through the little storage room in my apartment – a space that has, over the years, become a repository for things I would rather not think about. Children’s clothes kept after they no longer fit, always at risk of new moth damage; a backpack brought as a souvenir by my mother that no one has ever used; a pregnancy seatbelt adapter that did not quite fit. Somehow getting rid of things also involves decisions about the future. There is the skirt I got secondhand online – it did not fit but is made of silk. Is it time to give it away or should I hold on to it for an unspecified creative project? For now, it sits together with other things acquired or given with good intentions and quietly set aside. Getting rid of them feels necessary in order to begin again and regain a sense of control over my environment. But are these trousers washed and good enough to pass on to someone? Would anyone need a strong plastic bag? Should I risk taking away some toys while the children are not looking? 14. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Matching paragraph #U2PZ9C: 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. 15. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #SLFJ9K Priceless Valuation: Sorting, Curation, and Care Matching paragraph #A2APRY: Across donating, curating, taking, and divesting, valuation in Brīvbode is at once consumption work — the labour of sorting, assessing, and redistributing — and care work, in the form of attention to what specific things will mean for specific people. Without the shorthand of price, both come into the open. 16. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle Matching paragraph #NUPTUM: Fieldwork gives access to practices as they are performed – the sorting, the finds, the exchanges and hesitations; interviews give access to how participants make sense of those performances – the meanings they find in their doing, the competencies they develop; together they allow claims about practices as entities. The chapter describes the fieldwork with participant observation carried out in Brīvbode, the interviews conducted with volunteers and visitors and the analytical process through which the empirical material was interpreted. 17. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #VMQSHJ Participant observation Matching paragraph #ZYK94K: 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. 18. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #MUKRGA A note on terms Matching paragraph #8S9QR2: However, the organizers have a complicated relationship with the term “freeshop”. As Brīvbode manager Rasa shared in an interview, the name already existed when she joined the initiative and they were trying to come up with alternative names in the beginning but did not manage to replace it. Their preferred term is “swapshop” which I also use in this thesis. “Swapshop”, as I discuss in Chapter 4, positions Brīvbode as a site of exchange rather than charity. However, as a descriptive term for “what actually happens there” I consider swapping not suitable enough, as it overstates the symmetry and implies an exchange with one to one logic, which is not the case in Brīvbode. In this thesis, I use the term “freecycling” to refer to the what is done in Brīvbode, as it emphasises the circularity aspect of the practice. While freecycling has its own specific origin, associated with the Freecycle Network, an online platform for giving things away locally, I use the term nonetheless because it captures the non-monetary circulation of goods without implying directness of swapping or the one-directionality of donation. 19. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #EBTHSE Not the Bin: Modal Labour and the Informal Route Matching paragraph #SZG4E8: 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. 20. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Matching paragraph #SUZYLN: However, sorting is done “on the spot” and in the same room, and things move fast. As Larsen (2023) observes, in thrift shops, practices are often characterized by a "reversal" of standard economic logic, where the goal is to move things along as quickly as possible rather than to maximize the profit per individual item. This can also be said about Brīvbode – there’s excitement about things moving quickly. Approximate matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.547 Related paragraph #JNSARN: [Although, for participants this aspect is not always significant, Brīvbode sustains domestic reuse, without sending things to other countries (although leftovers are absorbed by the textile collection system.] 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #EBTHSE Not the Bin: Modal Labour and the Informal Route Score: 0.531 Related paragraph #VA7PZF: Some participants choose Brīvbode precisely because they do not want to perform labour for formal waste management institutions – they prefer the more relational, informal route. This is a modal choice: the same divestment work takes a different socioeconomic form depending on the route chosen, and Brīvbode's modal distinctiveness is part of what recruits and retains its participants. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Score: 0.521 Related paragraph #BZ6FJC: Being in Brīvbode is characterized by constant sorting decisions, trying to maintain an acceptable level of presentation and quality of items. The work of maintaining quality and the work of maintaining relationships sometimes pull in different directions, and the balance between lenience and care is negotiated in every shift. At times I heard people felt uneasy about Viesturs openly commenting on things they had brought. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.51 Related paragraph #HZ8D53: [Brīvbode focusing on domestic flows] 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Score: 0.502 Related paragraph #796PVP: In reality, Brīvbode also functions as a divestment route for items that more regulated reuse channels would not accommodate: unfinished repair projects and textile fragments can sometimes be found, photographs and used magazines, not entirely complete jigsaw puzzles. Sometimes volunteers would remark that they already look for signs of wear and tear in suspicion about reasons an item has been brought to Brīvbode. They are aware that the swapshop can become a route of last resort for objects that are genuinely difficult to route elsewhere. What counts as acceptable and what counts as waste is decided through social judgment rather than formal criteria. I sometimes brought things in my backpack but ended up not taking them out as on second thought they seemed too worn or not suited. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Score: 0.489 Related paragraph #SUZYLN: However, sorting is done “on the spot” and in the same room, and things move fast. As Larsen (2023) observes, in thrift shops, practices are often characterized by a "reversal" of standard economic logic, where the goal is to move things along as quickly as possible rather than to maximize the profit per individual item. This can also be said about Brīvbode – there’s excitement about things moving quickly. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Score: 0.485 Related paragraph #X8RDCG: After an item is divested to Brīvbode, it does not belong to the donor anymore, it belongs to the swapshop. This transfer of ownership is actively managed: takers are discouraged from taking things from the sorting table before they are processed, as their enthusiasm has caused discomfort to other visitors in the past. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Score: 0.484 Related paragraph #WW8YUW: 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. 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Score: 0.484 Related paragraph #U2PZ9C: 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. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #3CQF69 Setting the scene: A day in Brīvbode Score: 0.477 Related paragraph #Q7AP33: My task is to sort through a box of clothes, checking for holes and stains, separating what can be placed on the racks from what should be set aside for textile containers. The task is not difficult, but it requires attention: a missed stain becomes someone else’s disappointment, or perhaps reflects badly on Brīvbode itself. I set aside a top and a shirt for my son. A couple of women watch me sorting and use the opportunity to see what’s in the box without doing the digging work themselves. Viesturs encourages keeping only the best garments: “People can go to Humana for ugly clothes.” 11. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction Score: 0.477 Related paragraph #NSNSQ3: How is freecycling organised and sustained in Brīvbode as a non-monetary, non-domestic site – what materials, meanings and competencies constitute it and how do they interact? 12. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9GJAHS LIST OF SOURCES Score: 0.476 Related paragraph #JTWV2Q: Akule, D., Milbreta, U. and Brizga, J. (2023) Collection and use of post-consumption textiles in Latvia. Riga: Green Liberty. 13. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #EBTHSE Not the Bin: Modal Labour and the Informal Route Score: 0.47 Related paragraph #QQ9MKA: Brīvbode is indirectly embedded in wider textile collection infrastructure, but the chain of work usually connects one household to another. Objects leaving one home pass through the swapshop and arrive in someone else’s home where a new set of consumption work tasks begin – storing, integrating, eventually deciding what to do when the object might no longer be wanted. 14. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Score: 0.468 Related paragraph #PNCAWA: The pull of Brīvbode as a divestment destination persists even when the physical site is temporarily absent. For several weeks after the Brīvbode pop-up venue in Āgenskalns closed at the end of summer 2021, people kept bringing boxes and bags of belongings, leaving them in front of the empty shop. The practice had recruited carriers so effectively that the site’s closure did not interrupt the flow. 15. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.465 Related paragraph #4FP5K7: Various exchange, divestment and second hand alternatives are currently available and are routinely used by people in Riga – online groups, charity shops and textile collection containers – but what sets Brīvbode apart is the operation on a physical site, the exchange without regulated monetary transaction, and a sustained volunteer infrastructure that makes repeated visits possible and socially meaningful. It is open every week, year-round, and this regularity is central to what it offers – a route for acquisition and divestment, but also a predictable rhythm that participants can build into their everyday routines. 16. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Score: 0.465 Related paragraph #WEBXCF: Divestment in Brīvbode is distributed across time unevenly and concentrated around rhythms of domestic material arrangements and particular life events. People typically bring things in batches – no longer wanted items are set aside and accumulate at home until, e.g. a bag is full and is then divested to Brīvbode. 17. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #L759F3 Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #WULWDF Theories of Practice to Study Alternative Practices? Score: 0.463 Related paragraph #QTER48: Freecycling at Brīvbode sits at an interesting angle in this argument – it has both conventional and unconventional elements. It is not a widely shared, fully stabilised routine practice in Shove’s sense. Yet the practices it draws on – household divestment, secondhand acquisition, sequential use of goods – are not unusual in Riga or Latvia; what is less common is their organisation within a permanent, non-monetary exchange site. It is also a practice that is becoming more prevalent, as similar spaces and infrastructures appear more in Latvia. 18. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Score: 0.459 Related paragraph #KMD7AJ: The space in Brīvbode is organised and decorated to resemble a retail environment with a DIY aesthetic – with hangers and shelves, and garments sometimes arranged by colour in the manner of the formerly operating secondhand chain Degas. The aesthetic is not fixed, however, as curatorial disagreements exist over the best presentation and each shift can leave its own curatorial mark. Rasa describes the tension between celebrating volunteer initiative and an aesthetic that, in her view, would communicate more value through similarity to a retail environment, leaving more space between things, signifying that quality items can be found in Brīvbode. "The emptier the shelves, the more people find," she notes. A different aesthetic displaying abundance of things on offer and decorating with plushies appeals to another volunteer. These mundane disagreements hold competing views about which meanings the practice of freecycling should enact. Material and meaning elements of the practice are not settled but are actively contested through performance. 19. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #GU86TB Interviews Score: 0.458 Related paragraph #4V3P2S: How things were chosen before attending Brīvbode, the methods for collecting it at home –– (temporal, infrastructure), as well as why particular things were selected over others. 20. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #SLFJ9K Priceless Valuation: Sorting, Curation, and Care Score: 0.455 Related paragraph #A2APRY: Across donating, curating, taking, and divesting, valuation in Brīvbode is at once consumption work — the labour of sorting, assessing, and redistributing — and care work, in the form of attention to what specific things will mean for specific people. Without the shorthand of price, both come into the open. ### 23. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Matching paragraph #4FP5K7: Various exchange, divestment and second hand alternatives are currently available and are routinely used by people in Riga – online groups, charity shops and textile collection containers – but what sets Brīvbode apart is the operation on a physical site, the exchange without regulated monetary transaction, and a sustained volunteer infrastructure that makes repeated visits possible and socially meaningful. It is open every week, year-round, and this regularity is central to what it offers – a route for acquisition and divestment, but also a predictable rhythm that participants can build into their everyday routines. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Matching paragraph #CL5CS8: The regularity of operation that the physical on-site format allows also fosters social contact among participants. Opening hours twice per week is both a way to manage the necessary volunteer labour and a social encounter catalyst – temporal tightening means that visitors are more likely to encounter each other. The volunteer in charge of the shift anchors the social experience, and the personal relationships accumulate over repeated visits. "On Thursdays everyone asks where Nadja is. And on Fridays everyone asks where Viesturs is." While Brīvbode is not a primary site for socialisation for most participants, regular visitors, especially those living in single person households, noted the meaningfulness of the social aspect of visiting, the casual contact with known “faces”, Brīvbode being a place to go and the visits giving a structure to the week. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Matching paragraph #LHLZ8Y: The physicality and permanence of Brīvbode as a site is one of the main attributes setting it apart from other similar initiatives that often struggle with availability of affordable rental space, especially in high density urban areas. Tan and Yeoh (2024) note how, because of this reason, organisers of Singapore markets must bin or redistribute excess items after every event. They identify availability of rental and storage space as one of the main pre-requisites for functioning freecycling initiatives – thus it is important to note how regular operation in the same physical venue constitutes the practice of freecycling, as it becomes a stable and recurring weekly infrastructure for participants. This enables visitors to sustain a regular visiting rhythm through which, for many of them, freecycling becomes genuinely embedded in everyday life. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #VMQSHJ Participant observation Matching paragraph #94JJL7: Overall, I have been and am sympathetic to the Brīvbode initiative and to the people who sustain it. This sympathy is productive – it gives me access, a certain ease of rapport, and insider understanding, while it also carries some risks. I have tried to address this by carefully attending to friction, tension, and contradiction in my data: the tensions around divestment of things from Brīvbode, the gap between Brīvbode's ideal social function and the quieter, less communal reality of many visits. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #L759F3 Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #ULSUAX Conclusion Matching paragraph #U87FBB: “Textile disposal is conceptualized as a social practice embedded within everyday routines and shaped by normative expectations, identity work, and material needs.” 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Matching paragraph #PQV5PN: Participants who divest in Brīvbode mentioned the non-transparency of the textile container system in comparison to the freeshop. Both routes offer removal and a presumed social good, but participants expressed particular satisfaction for witnessing circulation in Brīvbode – moments when they saw someone taking the items they brought. Although giving and taking are decoupled and mediated by the swapshop, participants can sometimes observe the circulation during their visits, a characteristic noted by many with a kind of quiet pleasure. The divestment is completed by seeing or knowing an item was taken, and this visibility closes the divestment cycle affectively. The opportunity for other visitors to access the materials is valued, while the textile collection management system is deemed too distanced to imagine who benefits. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #L38KUE It’s On Me: Networks, Gender, and the Transmission of Care Matching paragraph #3BY9GH: The reach of Brīvbode extends considerably beyond those who physically visit it. Several of the most embedded participants perform substantial divestment work not only for themselves but for neighbours, colleagues, and family members, functioning as logistics nodes through which others' surplus flows to the freeshop. Marija's neighbours give her things to take to Brīvbode as she is a frequent visitor and the role has naturalised into her social identity in the building. Māra coordinates pickups from at least five neighbours, takes requests for specific items, and is the only one of her immediate network who actually visits – the rest route their divestment through her. Anna's work colleagues prepare parcels for her to deliver: "They use me. They prepare the bags I need to bring to Brīvbode. And then they say: 'Can you look for something for my teenage daughter?'" What looks like consumption work performed on behalf of others is, in Tölg and Fuentes’s (2025) terms, also care for neighbours and for the imagined future users of the things — the logistical labour and the relational orientation are inseparable. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #L38KUE It’s On Me: Networks, Gender, and the Transmission of Care Matching paragraph #VCEUP7: Consumption work is both currently gendered and being transmitted along gendered lines. Kristīne takes her daughters to Brīvbode and uses the visits as occasions for explicit moral education: discussing why they are giving things away, what makes a good divestment decision, what is too worn to donate. She sometimes goes without them to avoid the tears when they want things back; other times the difficulty is the point. "It's also an opportunity to talk about things." The children are learning material quality, the ethics of giving, and the difference between good enough to donate and good enough only to discard — competencies that are simultaneously consumption-work skills and the dispositions of care that Bankovska (2020) shows being transmitted across generations in the everyday work of provisioning. 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #SLFJ9K Priceless Valuation: Sorting, Curation, and Care Matching paragraph #7X9BV4: 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. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle Matching paragraph #YPRCFU: This chapter describes the methodological approach taken in this thesis and its grounding in fieldwork. It begins with the site itself, describing Brīvbode as a physical and social setting, and an account of a day in Brīvbode that sets the scene for the analysis to follow. The chapter then situates ethnography as a method, particularly within practice-theoretical framework, explaining why participant observation in a specific site is well suited to studying how practices work and are reproduced and contested through everyday performance. 11. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #L759F3 Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #ULSUAX Conclusion Matching paragraph #7RYKMT: This thesis brings together practice-theoretical perspectives on sustainable consumption and consumption work for a study of non-domestic site of goods circulation within a context of non-monetary exchange. Brīvbode is a site where the ordinarily private and dispersed practices of domestic material life become visible. The continued existence of the swapshop – sustained through regular volunteer labour, participant labour, and a relatively stable social and material infrastructure – can be read as evidence of the demand that household goods circulation generates: a demand for routes of divestment that, while taking some degree of effort, are socially acknowledged. 12. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #ZXRYYU The site Matching paragraph #KLJF7Z: Lastādija quarter has developed an uncommercial, DIY spirit that both shapes and is shaped by the character of the initiatives operating within it. Lastādija offers affordable residencies and workshop spaces to organisations, artisans, and individuals with creative and social initiatives. In exchange, residents contribute a number of volunteer hours to the quarter – collective work in the yard, various renovation tasks, event organization etc. The residents, workers, and regular visitors of the quarter also form one segment of Brīvbode's clientele, and the swapshop is open during quarter public events, however, many visitors come from a wider public who would not attend such events and are drawn instead by the practical offer of circulation of goods. 13. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #GU86TB Interviews Matching paragraph #D2HJZP: The interview guide was organized around themes: participants' practices of acquisition and divestment, their relationship to the objects they brought and took, and the social and material dimensions of their participation in Brīvbode. While the guide included some questions on attitudes and motivations, most were designed to elicit accounts of what people actually do – how they choose what to bring, what routes objects take through their households, who does the work of sorting and transporting, and what the process of letting go feels like. Following the principles of practice-theoretical methods, the questions sought to access the practical, embodied, and often taken-for-granted dimensions of household goods circulation: the routines, competencies, and emotional labor involved in managing the flow of things. Where questions touched on values and motivations, these were treated not as explanations for behavior but as part of the meanings participants attach to their practices – an element among materials, competencies, and social arrangements in shaping how circulation is organized and reproduced. 14. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #L759F3 Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #ULSUAX Conclusion Matching paragraph #FT8AED: “In their classical taxonomy for describing consumer disposition behavior, Jacoby et al. (1977) illustrated that disposal may involve keeping, donating, selling, recycling, or throwing away, and even within each category, multiple practices exist. Disposal is thus not inherently destructive or wasteful and cannot be reduced to simply ‘throwing something away’, but is an active social practice embedded in ethical, cultural, and material contexts (Hetherington, 2004). This perspective recognizes disposal as an active, meaning-making practice. As Gregson et al. (2007b) argue, divestment is not simply a negative or absent moment in consumer life, but a practice that enables other practices. To sustain certain routines and identities, other objects must be removed. In this sense, disposal is not the final step in a linear production-consumption-waste chain but a recursive moment that helps reorder consumption itself (Gregson et al., 2007a; Hetherington, 2004). Following Douglas (2002), disposal can be seen as part of the ‘ordering work’ of everyday life, where waste becomes threatening not by its material properties but by its symbolic disruptions of social and domestic order (Gregson et al., 2007a; Heidenstrøm & Hebrok, 2021).” 15. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #VMQSHJ Participant observation Matching paragraph #9U6CXK: Throughout the fieldwork period I kept a field diary for field notes during my visits to Brīvbode, as well as documenting and describing the circulation of goods in my own household – what arrived, what left, by what routes. I noted the spatial and temporal contexts for these practices, as well as the related meanings, uncertainties and frustrations. 16. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #GU86TB Interviews Matching paragraph #X3TLEX: Men do visit Brīvbode, and there are known regular visitors, however my attempts to recruit for interviews were not always successful. What I observed, though, was that often men and women have different practice careers in Brīvbode and men appear as sellers of used books, electronics, collectors of CD’s, DVD’s and vinyls. So it must be acknowledged as a limitation. 17. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction Matching paragraph #UBJLE3: The study is based on participant observation in Brīvbode combined with fifteen semi-structured interviews with visitors, regular participants, and volunteers. My own participation as a volunteer shaped the fieldwork and is reflected in the analysis. 18. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #W2WRDC What People Find Here: Plural Meanings of Acquisition Matching paragraph #54GE84: For Marija, the primary meaning is access and dignity as Brīvbode enables a form of self-presentation beyond her regular means: "I dressed like an absolute princess. You can’t even find things like that in a shop." She takes pleasure in the secret source as other people in her networks cannot tell the difference between her clothing originating from Brīvbode or retail. This also has a competence dimension: knowing where to look, when to come, having access to a source others do not use. 19. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Matching paragraph #WW8YUW: 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. 20. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #VMQSHJ Participant observation Matching paragraph #D75H6P: I started the fieldwork for this thesis in February 2024 by joining the weekly shifts in Brīvbode as a volunteer – for a couple of hours once a week in the beginning. This role was not entirely unfamiliar to me – for several months in summer 2021 I worked at a Brīvbode pop-up venue in the Āgenskalns neighbourhood during the Covid-19 pandemic. The visiting experience differed back then as visitors were required to book time slots in advance due to gathering restrictions. The experience of material flows that were part of Brīvbode stayed with me – both the intensity of accumulation and of objects getting stuck, the gradual familiarisation with the regular visitors and their habits and preferences, the physical effort of managing what came in and what needed to go out of the swapshop (e.g. using my cargo bike to take the ever growing number of unusable clothing bags to the textile collection bins). I still cherish certain clothing and items that remained in my household collection as favourites from that time. Approximate matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #ZXRYYU The site Score: 0.555 Related paragraph #3JYBMV: While formally linked to Free Riga, Brīvbode has for more than seven years operated as an autonomous informal structure. Brīvbode in Lastādija is open twice per week, every Thursday and Friday from noon to seven in the evening. Additionally, it operates on the first Sunday of the month to attract visitors who might not be able to attend on working days. On those Sundays Brīvbode also hosts Repair Cafe, an initiative where people bring broken household items – electronics, small appliances or clothing – and repair them with the help of volunteers. In recent years, Brīvbode has extended its activities beyond the primary location by participating with stands at various public events, including the Song and Dance Festival fair, Riga City Festival, Positivus, conversation festival Lampa, among others – promoting the practice of sustainable and circular consumption among wider public. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Score: 0.523 Related paragraph #CL5CS8: The regularity of operation that the physical on-site format allows also fosters social contact among participants. Opening hours twice per week is both a way to manage the necessary volunteer labour and a social encounter catalyst – temporal tightening means that visitors are more likely to encounter each other. The volunteer in charge of the shift anchors the social experience, and the personal relationships accumulate over repeated visits. "On Thursdays everyone asks where Nadja is. And on Fridays everyone asks where Viesturs is." While Brīvbode is not a primary site for socialisation for most participants, regular visitors, especially those living in single person households, noted the meaningfulness of the social aspect of visiting, the casual contact with known “faces”, Brīvbode being a place to go and the visits giving a structure to the week. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.5 Related paragraph #HZ8D53: [Brīvbode focusing on domestic flows] 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #LAR465 Latvian context and research Score: 0.49 Related paragraph #4FP5K7: Various exchange, divestment and second hand alternatives are currently available and are routinely used by people in Riga – online groups, charity shops and textile collection containers – but what sets Brīvbode apart is the operation on a physical site, the exchange without regulated monetary transaction, and a sustained volunteer infrastructure that makes repeated visits possible and socially meaningful. It is open every week, year-round, and this regularity is central to what it offers – a route for acquisition and divestment, but also a predictable rhythm that participants can build into their everyday routines. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #PBFQ5E Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow Score: 0.484 Related paragraph #2PU5ZY: On Thursdays and Fridays a queue often forms by Brīvbode before noon – sometimes more than ten people wait to be let in. The first two hours are the busiest. Rasa sometimes takes a breath before unlocking the door: "It begins." 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #ZXRYYU The site Score: 0.467 Related paragraph #WRPU8M: For most of the years of its operation, Brīvbode has been managed by Rasa, a woman in her thirties with a background in the cultural sector and a wide network of contacts in Riga's creative communities – she is the driving force of Brīvbode. A stable team of volunteers cover the shifts: every opening day has a day manager in charge of the shift and helpers who assist on a more flexible basis. Rasa manages Thursdays, and Viesturs – a resident of the quarter – covers Fridays, fulfilling his volunteer hour obligation in this way. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #ZXRYYU The site Score: 0.462 Related paragraph #SU483V: Brīvbode is located in the Lastādija creative quarter in Riga, Latvia, adjacent to the Central Market and the tower of the Academy of Sciences – the more central part of a neighbourhood formerly known as Moscow forstadt. The premises are situated on the ground floor of a two-storey wooden building facing Purvīša Street. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #2JEZWG Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home Score: 0.459 Related paragraph #MS53CN: The supply arriving in Brīvbode is shaped by these contested meanings – participant competencies of evaluating items as appropriate and the rhythms of domestic life. As such it is often unpredictable. 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #7Z8WUY Letting Go: Attachment Without Price Score: 0.45 Related paragraph #LG8X4N: "Pieķeršanās jautājums tiek risināts. Viņš ir procesā." [The question of attachment is being worked on. It's in process.] "Brīvbode palīdz, tā teikt, šim procesam attīstīties." [Brīvbode helps, so to speak, this process to develop.] "Šobrīd jau ir uz robežas, tāpēc es saku, ka ir jāatvadās jau no tā, kas jau ir atrasts." [I'm already at the edge now, that's why I say one has to start saying goodbye even to what one has already found.] Māra is explicitly working on her attachment to things – she names it as a problem and frames it as ongoing work. Brīvbode as a tool for developing the capacity to let go. This is the freeshop as infrastructure for a personal practice of detachment. It is a positive framing of the same phenomenon that Rasa describes as generating excess – from Māra's perspective, having a route makes it easier to release. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #82G2QE Holding It Together: Care and Consumption Work in Brīvbode #N8D3HT Time to Give: Volunteers and the Sufficiency Lifestyle Score: 0.441 Related paragraph #5SHEQN: Brīvbode is sustained by volunteers for many of whom participation is only possible because their lives are organized around sufficiency – a practice cluster in its own right, characterised by flexible time, low monetary consumption, and small combined income streams. As Tan and Yeoh (2024) note, while material inputs in freecycling markets are readily available, the human labour required to organise and run them is consistently short in supply. As Viesturs puts it: “I understand that the lifestyle I live is complete luxury these days, at least for this part of the world. To have free time, to decide myself what to do with my time – that is the main resource. The most important thing that a person can donate to Brīvbode is their time.” 11. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #ZF9EYF Introduction #MUKRGA A note on terms Score: 0.437 Related paragraph #JLS4NG: The name “Brīvbode” is a more or less localization of the term “freeshop”: “brīv-” means “free”, while “bode” alludes to the cosy scale and affectionate oldschool character of a small shop, associated with a persona of bodnieks or bodniece – the person who attends to it and mediates the relations with visitors. Some regulars of Brīvbode use the diminutive “bodīte”, a form of endearment very common in Latvian. 12. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #M9WQLY CONCLUSION Score: 0.437 Related paragraph #GUXEZX: 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. 13. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #ZXRYYU The site Score: 0.432 Related paragraph #NWMRXB: Brīvbode is not the only initiative of its kind in Riga or in Latvia. Several swapping initiatives operate in other Latvian towns – Alūksne, Liepāja, Preiļi – independently, in different institutional contexts, but some under the same name – contributing to “brīvbode” becoming a new, common term. In Alūksne and Preiļi brīvbode initiatives operate on an event basis rather than as permanent venues, whereas (Pār)maiņu punkts in Liepāja operates in a smaller venue and is run by NGO Radi Vidi Pats. 14. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #ZXRYYU The site Score: 0.431 Related paragraph #KLJF7Z: Lastādija quarter has developed an uncommercial, DIY spirit that both shapes and is shaped by the character of the initiatives operating within it. Lastādija offers affordable residencies and workshop spaces to organisations, artisans, and individuals with creative and social initiatives. In exchange, residents contribute a number of volunteer hours to the quarter – collective work in the yard, various renovation tasks, event organization etc. The residents, workers, and regular visitors of the quarter also form one segment of Brīvbode's clientele, and the swapshop is open during quarter public events, however, many visitors come from a wider public who would not attend such events and are drawn instead by the practical offer of circulation of goods. 15. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Score: 0.429 Related paragraph #BZ6FJC: Being in Brīvbode is characterized by constant sorting decisions, trying to maintain an acceptable level of presentation and quality of items. The work of maintaining quality and the work of maintaining relationships sometimes pull in different directions, and the balance between lenience and care is negotiated in every shift. At times I heard people felt uneasy about Viesturs openly commenting on things they had brought. 16. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #9XAKTW Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation #QP7HMF Reading the Room: Norms and Competencies of Circulation Score: 0.426 Related paragraph #Y7K4KZ: This is observable even in the circulation of food items, which, although not central, are also present in Brīvbode. As opposed to many community-based exchange initiatives where the circulation of food is governed strictly, e.g. accepting only unopened items and carefully monitoring expiration dates, in Brīvbode the circulation is shaped less by formal regulation and more by trust and familiarity among participants. Open packages may be accepted when brought by known visitors, suggesting that assessments of safety and acceptability are negotiated socially. 17. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #VMQSHJ Participant observation Score: 0.424 Related paragraph #9U6CXK: Throughout the fieldwork period I kept a field diary for field notes during my visits to Brīvbode, as well as documenting and describing the circulation of goods in my own household – what arrived, what left, by what routes. I noted the spatial and temporal contexts for these practices, as well as the related meanings, uncertainties and frustrations. 18. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #3CQF69 Setting the scene: A day in Brīvbode Score: 0.418 Related paragraph #6R53SB: The night before going to Brīvbode, I remind my children to set aside things they no longer need. It is never an easy task – they would rather keep them all. Even though I aspire to be cautious about things coming into our household, stuff keeps accumulating and more so – it is actually myself who brings the majority of these things in. While feeling an urge to get rid of things, I simultaneously keep wondering what more should I get in order to inhabit our place well. 19. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [MIKAEL] (#4V8VH7), Ieva Lange Context: #LYTS7L Research methodology: A Practice Freecycle #ZXRYYU The site Score: 0.416 Related paragraph #E5GNG5: Lastādija quarter is run by Free Riga, a platform for creative and social initiatives for temporary use of vacant properties and territories in Riga, active since 2013. The quarter consists of several wooden buildings, a yard, and a former workshop building which was first acquired for use by Free Riga in 2015, offering space to various NGOs and events. Over the following years the quarter expanded gradually; the properties were bought by Linstow Baltic, an international real estate company, which reached an agreement with Free Riga for continued temporary use of the area – an arrangement that has now lasted nearly a decade. This model of temporary use is one of the main pre-requisites for running a site like Brīvbode, as it stands outside the formal economy. Both currently active Brīvbode venues in Riga are located in buildings managed by Free Riga, and the swapshops can use the spaces and sustain themselves by covering utility costs only. ### 24. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "BWE4XA", "S7EQE3", "ACNZ3L" ], "expand": true } ``` #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "4S872F", "8N33DB", "XK6L5Q", "Z2MRHK" ], "expand": true } ``` #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "VCKC56", "A5NUHL", "3D3TKM", "9LCL7B" ], "expand": true } ``` #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "CNF67G", "9XPEAM", "FAPRPA" ], "expand": true } ``` #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "94A9P5", "38LM6C", "XUJTDR", "PTGSRA" ], "expand": true } ``` ### 25. Tool result: read DOCUMENT #8ZKAT7 Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy SECTION #BWE4XA Abstract EXCERPT #AKL7LC p. 0 Heightened concerns about long-term sustainability have of late enlivened debates around the circular economy (CE). Defined as a series of restorative and regenerative industrial systems, parallel socio-cultural transformations have arguably received less consideration to date. In response, this paper examines the contributions human geographical scholarship can make to CE debates, focusing on ‘generative spaces’ of diverse CE practices. Concepts infrequently discussed within human geography such as product service systems and ‘prosumption’ are explored, to argue that productive potential exists in bringing these ideas into conversation with ongoing human geographical research into practices, materialities, emergent political spaces and ‘everyday activism’. DOCUMENT #8ZKAT7 Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy SECTION #S7EQE3 II What is the circular economy and how do we get there? EXCERPT #67PAF4 p. 2 Fundamentally, recent debates about the CE respond to the perceived ineffectiveness of existing sustainability measures, in light of proclamations that global production-consumption systems remain, and are becoming increasingly, environmentally and socio-politically unsustainable (Rockstrom et al., 2009; Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009). In this climate, ideas of the CE can, and arguably are, becoming potent and reassuring discourses of a sustainable future. EXCERPT #RSXV9L p. 2 In this section, the concept of the CE will be unpacked further, along with a consideration of some of the political agendas behind its current rise. It is argued here and in following sections that some of the strategies currently in use to foster the CE are in danger of repeating the failures of 'weak ecological modernization' (Lane and Watson, 2012), as they sidestep pressing socio-political issues across scales and spaces. EXCERPT #EBN45J p. 2 Why, then, does the CE matter? At the global level, resource use has continued to grow rapidly in the past few decades, spurred on particularly by economic growth in Asia (Schandl and West, 2010). Thus, the essential absolute (not relative) decoupling of resource use from living standards is far from taking place (Dasgupta and Ehrlich, 2013; Jackson 2009). Not that positive inroads have been completely absent in recent years. There have been gains from energy efficiency measures (Willis and Eyre, 2011) and notable increases in recycling rates, e.g. 43 per cent of UK domestic waste is now recycled (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2014). However, the overall picture is less than positive. A great deal of recycled material ends up 'down-cycled' and non-domestic recycling rates are less healthy, e.g. 75 per cent of construction and demolition waste still goes to landfill (Vefago and Avellaneda, 2013). EXCERPT #ENHUAJ p. 2 One plausible reason for the above is the predominance of 'weak' ecological modernization policy frameworks and interventions in post-industrial countries over the past few decades (e.g. see Lane and Watson, 2012). With an emphasis on continued economic growth and neoliberal governmental/market-based interventions (Bakker, 2010; Bridge, 2011, 2013), such approaches have been roundly critiqued as ineffective at addressing the core causes of environmental unsustainability. Instead, their emphasis on 'win-win' scenarios fails to question the status quo and offers weak policy instruments and easily co-opted discourses of green capitalism and consumerism (e.g. Dauvergne EXCERPT #3DYZTL p. 3 EXCERPT #V9WPZL p. 3 EXCERPT #ZPL96Z p. 3 and LeBaron, 2012; Prudham, 2009). Yet, even if recent analyses are only partially accurate, such approaches have a fast-approaching expiry date. Semi-apocalyptic proclamations suggest we are 'sleepwalking into a prolonged era of resource-related strife' (e.g. Lee et al., 2012: xiv), where food, minerals and water resources are stretched to breaking by over-extraction, compounded by geographically and socially uneven access and rights (e.g. McMahon, 2013; Rockstrom et al., 2009). EXCERPT #2G8E4F p. 3 One facet of this bleak picture is the issue of 'critical resource security'. Here resources key to the production of goods and services are at heightened risk of becoming unattainable within a matter of years (e.g. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, 2011; US Department of Energy, 2010; European Commission, 2011). In 2010 the EC released a list of 14 crucial minerals, such as antimony, graphite, magnesium and tungsten. Although not nouns that trip off the tongue in everyday talk, these minerals are currently vital components in goods and services many of us take for granted. For example, antimony is used in medications and pharmaceutical products and indium in LCDs, with both of them predicted to become inaccessible within the next 20 years (Cohen, 2007). EXCERPT #H8ABJD p. 3 How, then, does a mineral become classified as in danger of being critically scarce? Not an uncontested classification, it rests upon evaluations of which minerals are (a) geologically rare and/or (b) financially unviable for extraction due to geological dispersion and/or (c) have a high risk supply due to political instability or centralized control in countries with the highest concentration, such as tantalum in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo (European Commission, 2010). As such, critical resource scarcity contains within it complex historical, geopolitical and socio-material relations. Geological patterns and the locations of key minerals intersect with a continued drive for primitive accumulation (Bridge, 2011), taking EXCERPT #VW5KKK p. 3 place in locations not easily rendered governable under current forms of variegated neoliberalism (Bakker, 2010). Political geographical analysis has indeed underscored the inextricable relationship between the physical properties of minerals and other resources (oil, carbon), and the forms of (often far from progressive) politics that arise around their acquisition, use and control (e.g. Le Billon, 2008; Huber, 2008; Kennedy, 2014; Mitchell, 2009). For example, Emel et al.'s work on sovereignty and mining has underscored the mechanisms by which valuable and increasingly rare minerals are rendered accessible beyond their geological locations. These mechanisms hinge upon complex interplays between global capital and states that are fundamental to 'constructing a specifically national mode of territorial sovereignty' (Emel et al., 2011: 70). As such, the issue of critical resource scarcity raises pressing questions of capital, power and their uneven spatial manifestations, which human geographers have proven adept at illuminating. EXCERPT #5QRMKE p. 3 One question that follows on from the above is how then to intercede in a socially and environmentally progressive manner. One tactic has been to lay bare the myriad injustices at the heart of some rare mineral extraction. For example, the campaign 'Raise Hope for Congo' highlights the violence perpetuated by 'mineral conflict', including naming and shaming electronics companies that fail to source 'conflict free' minerals (see http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/companyrankings ). Uncovering exploitative socio-political relations embedded within everyday 'things' has been framed as a 'radical' political strategy within and beyond human geography (e.g. Hartwick, 2000). Here, the social and environmental conditions of production are rendered partially visible through, for example, life cycle labelling and campaigning. This approach is argued as a valid tactic to open up spaces for 'a new politics of consumption' that works to illuminate the 'connections between precommodity and postcommodity phases of products' EXCERPT #5B4F9Y p. 4 EXCERPT #DKQMCS p. 4 EXCERPT #637AUW p. 4 (Hultman and Corevellec, 2012: 2414). However, such an approach assumes much. For example, that a label on a product is able to significantly alter consumption patterns, despite considerable evidence otherwise (e.g. Auld and Gulbrandsen, 2010; Cowburn and Stockley, 2005; Eden, 2011; Grankvist et al., 2004). It also averages out the contingencies of commodity chain governance, assuming a certification label, for example, is able to adequately represent the variations in practices along a product's life cycle (see McDermott, 2012). And it arguably narrows the political register through which citizens can and do engage with issues of consumption, 'ethical' or otherwise (e.g. see Barnett et al., 2005; Cook et al., 2007). EXCERPT #UTCFYK p. 4 Indeed, given the projections that numerous crucial minerals will become inaccessible, whether their sourcing takes place unjustly or not, it is their substitutability and recoverability that has become a focus for industry, research and government (e.g. Piesing, 2013). At first glance, this might suggest merely extending existing resource practices, such as more recycling of goods containing crucial minerals. While this is part of the picture, the quote that opened this paper underscored how a CE is deemed to necessitate that all aspects of production-consumption be open to scrutiny and potentially recalibrated. This includes designing goods that last longer (Cooper, 2005; Brook Lyndhurst, 2011) and from which reusable materials can be more easily recovered. Also necessary is the use of renewable energy during manufacturing processes and the reuse or 'return to the biosphere' of all materials. EXCERPT #96B3T5 p. 4 Such propositions are not new, having been debated for decades, mostly within the field of industrial ecology. This sub-discipline began synthesizing developments in ecology, systems theory and environmental science from the 1960s onwards (Deutz, 2009; Deutz and Frostick, 2009). Although a diverse field of writing, a key insight from industrial ecology is that ecosystem principles of organization and EXCERPT #BHSMLN p. 4 function could, in theory, offer a model for industrial system design. Such systems could be formed to repeatedly cycle biological (e.g. water) or technical (e.g. PET) nutrients through multiple productive lifetimes of use. Attendant notions of CE design, production and reuse/recycling have been further developed, such as McDonough and Braungart's (2010) writing on 'cradle to cradle' concepts (see also Lyle, 1994), which have contributed to a now lively field of research and practice in sustainable design (e.g. Lilley, 2009). In addition, small-scale institutions that aim to bring theory into practice now exist, such as the Centre for Sustainable Design in Surrey, UK; the Geneva-based Product-Life Institute; and the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, based in the Netherlands and San Francisco. Thus, ideas that have existed on paper since the 1960s are now coming to life, made feasible given advances in materials science, design practice, information technology and governance mechanisms (Preston, 2012). EXCERPT #EFQZLN p. 4 To date, human geographers have engaged little with questions of the CE, closed loop manufacturing and industrial ecology, although there are notable exceptions. For example, researchers have explored the planning and development of eco-industrial parks in the USA. Such parks are considered an essential component of creating CE systems, as companies can co-locate to facilitate the material interchange and 'energy cascading' necessary for closed production-consumption loops (Gibbs and Deutz, 2005; Gibbs et al., 2005). This research has found that, while viable on paper and framed as tenable regional growth strategies by policy makers, the development of such parks have taken place with little acknowledgement of, and engagement with, all-important contextual socio-political processes, creating less-than-successful outcomes (Gibbs et al., 2008). As such, this research highlights the scope and need for critical analysis of the socio-political and economic mechanisms and EXCERPT #B2FETY p. 5 EXCERPT #DCN94N p. 5 EXCERPT #TE69K8 p. 5 pathways proposed and enacted under the name of the CE. This includes the governmental interventions that aim to foster business and broader socio-economic conditions amenable to the CE, which – as argued in the next section – have to date re-embedded existing regimes of governance and failed to give credence to all that is at stake under the auspices of the CE while espousing significant and transformative societal change. DOCUMENT #8ZKAT7 Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy SECTION #ACNZ3L VI Concluding comments EXCERPT #NB8CR8 p. 11 This paper has aimed to bring recent and growing debates around ideas of the CE into conversation with some facets of human geographical research. The aim is to outline how research into a CE requires much broader analytical lenses than are currently deployed, given the profound 'transformative change' advocates speak of. The purpose here was to provisionally locate generative spaces and practices that embody a CE which goes beyond re-jigged industrial systems and business models. Rather, the case is made that any consideration of the CE must encompass forms of 'everyday activism' that foreground the 'vital materialism' (Gregson et al., 2010: 853) necessary to rethink, re-envision, recreate, reuse and 'move on' the goods and services that currently meet everyday needs. In other disciplines, researchers and practitioners talk of addressing unsustainable production and consumption through frameworks such as product service systems. This (perhaps rather dry) phrase is not found a great deal in human geographical work, but it does intersect with – and arguably has much to contribute to – research that explores practices embedded within, and enacted through, multi-scale socio-technical systems (Davies et al., 2014; Watson, 2012). EXCERPT #4G9UV6 p. 11 Advocates of the CE appear to consider the role of citizens as being the acceptance (or not) of practices that have been formulated on their behalf by designers, engineers, economists and policy-makers. One key aim of this paper has been to highlight how this presents an impoverished view of the properties and capacities that new assemblages of the CE are bringing forth, or could potentially create. That is, a seemingly narrow set of practices and spaces for citizen action (e.g. the High Street) are supplemented and/or challenged by the multifarious practices of the designer-consumer-user-repairer citizen. Indeed, as mentioned above, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation suggests that a new contract is emerging between business and the consumer. In their understanding, this relates to a direct and legally binding agreement between two or more parties. Yet this paper is essentially arguing that broader notions of a contract can be evoked here, where roles, competencies and responsibilities are redistributed and reconfigured throughout the lifetime of products and services, recalibrating the social relations and arrangements that currently favour the purchasing-ownership-disposal model of citizen-consumer practices. Such socially transformative enactments of the CE are thus implicit but under-explored within current debates, and this paper has aimed to highlight the potential for rich engagement, through both further conceptual and empirical exploration. ### 26. Tool result: read DOCUMENT #UMYA27 The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy SECTION #4S872F ABSTRACT EXCERPT #A5NZ9C p. 1 Circular Economy (CE) is now a key governance framework that aims to reconfigure how value is extracted from resources. Despite its widespread uptake, CE commentary to date tends towards descriptive and/or celebratory. In response, in this paper I outline some ways that environmental politics researchers have much to contribute to CE research, arguing that current examples of CE policies and practices potentially accelerate resource use into this century. A key weakness is how proponents frame us all as particular forms of ‘user-consumers’. Such framings fail to account for what is at stake for all of us as part of the CE project: and I conclude this paper by posing several key research questions, to encourage more critical environmental politics research on and around issues of CE. EXCERPT #XLD4N6 p. 1 KEYWORDS Circular Economy; consumption; consumer-user DOCUMENT #UMYA27 The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy SECTION #8N33DB Introduction: Circular Economy as ‘weak’ sustainability rebooted? EXCERPT #GXGZR3 p. 1 The pages of this journal have seen many ‘big picture’ environmental frameworks emerge, evolve, and/or become eclipsed since its inception three decades ago. The reverberations of many conceptual (‘sustainable development’) and institutional (e.g. UNFCC) interventions are still very much alive and regularly appear herein: while new frameworks continue to emerge alongside calls for systemic transformations (e.g. European Environment Agency 2018) in the face of accelerated resource use and climate change (International Resource Panel 2019). Here I discuss one such framework that has, in the past decade or so, received notable and increasing political and research attention: that of Circular Economy (CE). I aim to argue that – while CE debates and interventions look very much like continuations of extant environmental frameworks – they signal significant and potentially highly problematic shifts in the scale and sites of intervention in systems of resource use and re-use. Overall, I aim to make the case for greater engagement in this journal with the multiple facets of the CE, to add much-needed EXCERPT #2ZMTJS p. 1 EXCERPT #JT5JZE p. 1 EXCERPT #Z3ZEF6 p. 2 EXCERPT #VKQTL6 p. 2 critical voices to the celebratory and depoliticised reflections that have dominated this literature to date. EXCERPT #34J5F8 p. 2 For those not familiar with the term, CE frameworks aim to promote and normalise a suite of mechanisms that direct resource flows into 'loops' of continued use (repair, re-use, recycle, etc.) to purposefully minimise the 'waste and pollution' from prevailing systems (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017a). One definition argues that it stands as: EXCERPT #SF6H7V p. 2 '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) EXCERPT #C6LMQF p. 2 Although CE ideas build upon decades-long work from fields such as Industrial Ecology (e.g. Lowe and Evans 1995) and Sustainable Design, only recently has there been attempts to bring such disparate sub-disciplines together, envisaging nothing short of recalibrated economic systems. In response, there has been a notable upswing of interest in CE from governance and policy institutions along with academic researchers and non-governmental organisations. For example, the European Union as well as the governments of Canada, Wales, and Spain all now have prominent CE strategies. China was an early adopter, passing the Law for the Promotion of the Circular Economy in 2008. These strategies ambitiously aim to save resources and energy and map out the ways in which key regional development and prosperity goals can be met (European Commission 2015). In addition influential economic institutions, for example the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the World Economic Forum have taken up the language of the CE and international non-governmental organisations like Ellen MacArthur Foundation (see https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org ) and Circle Economy ( https://www.circle-economy.com ) work directly with a range of high-level institutions and sectors to bring the concepts of CE to life. As such, it seems CE is a framework whose time has come. EXCERPT #7N76K7 p. 2 However, many questions remain. While some insightful CE-focused work has appeared in Environmental Politics (see Fitch-Roy et al. 2019), to date most CE research has been published in journals whose remit is not critical-political analysis per se (e.g. 'Journal of Cleaner Production' and 'Resources Conservation and Recycling'). As a result, CE research often describes and/or compares national policies (e.g. McDowall et al. 2017); or focusses on specific supply chains and/or sustainable business models (Bocken et al. 2016, Geissdoerfer et al. 2017: see Ghisellini et al. 2016, Tukker 2015 for further analysis of CE publications). While insightful, the general tenor of this literature mirrors many comments about the CE in general, that it is lacking in 'critical analysis' (Korhonen et al. 2018, p. 38). Such comments suggest that there are many foundational questions about EXCERPT #8NYVU5 p. 3 EXCERPT #XZQRMC p. 3 the CE that remain under-explored: questions that must be addressed if the CE really is to act as 'a framework for an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design' (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017a, no page), and not just another reboot of past sustainability frameworks. While some wide-ranging critiques of the CE project already exist (see Zink and Geyer 2017, Moreau et al. 2017, Korhonen et al. 2018), here I aim to raise questions about what the CE currently is, and what it could/needs to be, if it is to deliver the scale and forms of transformation proponents claim are required. EXCERPT #CXWVEV p. 3 On the one hand, it would be relatively straightforward to argue that, in essence, CE is a framework that rebrands and repackages decades-long 'weak sustainability' agendas. Here a focus on continued economic growth has created and entrenched various forms of 'green accumulation' (see Goodman and Salleh 2013), which has done little to transform prevailing economic systems, norms, and practices. However, in the next section, I make the case that the CE is potentially something more than (green) 'business as usual'. Instead, myriad policies and interventions brought together under a CE framework contain incongruous and problematic assumptions and mechanisms that potentially signal new sites and spaces of green accumulation, which together potentially accelerate the very problems the CE looks to address. In particular – and in line with my long-standing research interests in consumption, everyday practices, and sustainability (e.g. see Hobson 2013) – I focus in the subsequent section on one particular suite of problems with current conceptualisations of the CE: the circular 'user-consumer'. I argue that the role CE proponents ascribe for us all in the project – of choosing better business models and engaging in 'win win' everyday practices (e.g. forms of the 'sharing economy') – underplays what is actually at stake for us all, if the CE is to be as transformative as it promises and indeed needs to be, given ensuing climate emergencies and escalating global resource use. DOCUMENT #UMYA27 The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy SECTION #XK6L5Q The user-consumer in Circular Economy: beyond competitive prices and increased efficiencies EXCERPT #BKS58J p. 9 Welch et al. (2017) argue that there is a curious incongruence at the heart of Figure 1. To date, the majority of CE debates and research have focussed on products, materials, markets, and value extraction from specific energy and/or resource life cycles: the materials and processes that constitute the CE. Yet it is the ‘consumer’ and ‘user’ – all of us, the creators, perpetuators, and subjects of the economy – that have central place in the EMF ‘butterfly’ diagram, as the nodes around which CE circular loops and cascades revolve and return to (Hobson et al. , forthcoming ). As such, how our roles and agency are framed and enacted is a crucial component of the successes or failings of CE interventions. Or as Korhonen et al. have put it (2018, p. 41), ‘the new consumption culture is a critical part of the circular economy in its effort to reduce the nature-society-nature linear throughput flow of materials and energy.’ EXCERPT #BHJL6S p. 9 What, then, is signalled by a ‘new consumption culture’ under the CE? How do proposed ‘alternative’ economic systems intersect with, and impact upon, us all as citizens and consumers? While these are not completely novel questions and some critical work has started to examine potential CE social impacts and how to measure them (see Pitkänen et al. 2020), my interest here is more how the ‘user-consumer’ of Figure 1 is conceptualised within CE frameworks. That is, within imagined potential CE ‘futures’ (see Bauwens et al. 2020) what are our roles, based on what assumptions about our capabilities, interests, and agency? EXCERPT #ME8MY5 p. 9 From the perspective of EMF as well as some academic literature (e.g. Camacho-Otero et al. 2017, Wurster and Schulze 2020), ‘consumer acceptance’ of, or ‘buy in’ to, new circular products and services are key (e.g. Hobson and Lynch 2016, Mylan et al. 2016). This claim makes some intuitive sense given the need for drastic reductions in aggregate energy and resource use in the face of ever-increasing global consumerism. It also makes sense given the prevailing CE tenets as outlined above. That is, how new business and market development opportunities can be realised, in part, through recalibrating supply chains (e.g. Pan et al. 2015) and creating new ‘circular’ business models (Lewandowski 2016) that keep the consumer doing exactly that: consuming. EXCERPT #47382C p. 9 What, if any, are the problems with having ‘consumer acceptance’ as our key role in the CE? I argue that problems with this framing are both material and socio-economic. For one, the idea of ‘consumer acceptance’ or ‘buy in’ evokes a predominantly passive role for us all. It assumes that the form new EXCERPT #CHFEUN p. 10 EXCERPT #ZNQGRU p. 10 market offers will take – whether a redesigned ‘eco’ product, or a mix of product and services – can and will embody the overall aims of reducing resource and energy use. Thus, little insight or input is required from the consumer other than making the correct purchase decision and possibly remembering to recycle once the product has lost its use-value. This is a framing that flies in the face of the profound socio-economic transformations that CE proponents suggest the framework will usher in. EXCERPT #APZSUS p. 10 Indeed, the tools being brought to bear on greater consumer acceptance emphasise ‘designing in’ sustainability and circularity to goods and services. The European Commission, for one, has foregrounded ‘Ecodesign’ as key in its CE agenda, creating ‘more efficient products to reduce energy and resource consumption’ ( https://ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/sustainability/ecodesign_en ). This is a logical and much-needed move: but also one that assumes that, for example, most of the work of circularity is done in the design and end-of-life stage of a product, not in its use (e.g. Suckling and Lee 2015, Bridgens et al. 2019). Excavation of the much-repeated claim that 80% of a product’s environmental damage is established during design activity shows there is little veracity in such assumptions across all products (see Hobson 2019). Therefore, in what ways, for how long, and to what ends certain goods and services are taken up, used, and disposed of become key questions, placing the user-consumer as a central and active agent in the CE, rather than just someone accepting or rejecting what is on offer. In short, the ‘user-consumer’ is more than a semi-passive node through which materials flow, as in Figure 1: but how much more, and in what ways, remain open questions. EXCERPT #7QG5FA p. 10 In addition, the logic of ‘consumer acceptance’ invariably requires that new products and services are able to compete in and through existing market mechanisms: price signals, novelty, and quality. When this is the case, research has shown that often consumer evaluations of ‘circular business models’ – such as hiring or leasing goods rather than owning them, or buying products designed to be repaired and/or have longer use-life – suggest we are a long way off from securing widespread ‘acceptance’ of new business offers. Although there is clear willingness by participants to pay more and proffer concern for the environmental impacts of one’s consumption (ING 2020), in reality, more ‘circular’ market offers are often seen as inconvenient, too costly, and/or requiring non-existent trust in services and/or providers (e.g. see Hobson et al. 2018). In addition, research into attitudes towards reuse and refurbishment show similar trends, along with a lack of take-up of product ‘take back’ schemes (e.g. Ylä-Mella et al. 2015, Hobson et al. 2018): a crucial stage in moving materials back into the CE loops (as in Figure 1). As such, it appears that in the current marketplace, CE goods and services cannot out-compete existing offers. EXCERPT #LCWDSE p. 11 EXCERPT #55RLJA p. 11 One might conclude from this that key is to keep trying to bridge the ‘engagement gap’ between consumers’ expressed willingness to pay more for circular goods, with their lack of uptake of actual practices (ING 2020). Here, some claim the task is ‘Plugging consumer awareness gaps’ alongside ‘more innovative design’ to ‘make repair easier and cheaper, and to make products easier to share and resell’ (ING 2020, p. 9). The point here is not to argue such moves will make zero difference. But rather to place such assertions in the context of decade-long debates about public ‘attitude-action’ gaps, which erroneously assume that greater knowledge is the key to increased ‘sustainable consumption’ (see Hobson 2013). As such, CE advocates are continuing to endorse an almost mythical just-out-of-reach-but-on-the-horizon future: one where designers and business innovators crack the challenge of formulating high-uptake, dematerialised, and appealing consumer-orientated circular business models, turning us all into ‘Circular Champions’ (ING 2020). And as such, relying on the market ideologies, dynamics, and mechanisms that have facilitated hyper-consumerism and its various components (e.g. ‘fast fashion’) may set the CE up for failure while making a good job of it seeming to be otherwise. This brings us back to the point made above, that the ‘economy’ part of the CE has received little critical attention to date, particularly by its public proponents: a point that some ecological economists are well-equipped to unpack further (e.g. see Korhonen et al. 2018, Figge and Thorpe 2019, Millar et al. 2019). EXCERPT #4ZRAHN p. 11 One response to the above points might be, quite reasonably, to argue the notion of ‘consumer acceptance’ over-simplifies the role as laid out for all in popular framings of CE. Here, we are also charged with taking part in forms of ‘Collaborative Consumption’ or the ‘Sharing’ Economy’ (e.g. Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2017a), which are argued to offer diverse means and spaces for us all to consume differently. Talk of the Sharing Economy (SE) for example envisages: EXCERPT #66M2DY p. 11 ‘a future of consumption that embraces not only novel business models and consumption practices, but also novel norms of consumption and emotional and motivational engagements in consumption’ (Welch et al. 2017, no page). EXCERPT #2D222Q p. 11 Examples of the SE often include car or ride-sharing services (e.g. Zipcar or BlaBlaCar); equipment borrowing or pooling services (e.g. ‘tool libraries’); or apps that locate and enable the redistribution of food that would otherwise go to waste (e.g. Olio: see also Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2013). Although there is considerable debate about what constitutes actual ‘sharing’ as opposed to garnering income from assets that mirror established rental services (as in AirBnB: see above), the point here is that SE advocates see little need for critical analysis of this suite of practices. For one, it is claimed that the sharing economy provides heightened efficiencies and ‘seamless’ connections between provider and consumer’ (Ernst & Young 2015, p. 14 EXCERPT #B5JWCU p. 12 EXCERPT #89BTVL p. 12 see also Botsman and Rogers 2011). Some research does indeed back-up the positives of the SE. There is evidence that renting rather than owning a car brings down resource use (Meijkamp 1998). And that collectives are forming, to interact differently with materials possessions, thus offering potentially positive ways of rethinking our expectations of, and interactions with, the resources around us, and indeed, each other (e.g. see Cohen and Munoz 2016). EXCERPT #8EFZWA p. 12 There are also critiques. These argue that, in sum, renting, borrowing, exchanging, and/or pooling resources takes place in contexts where access is not always seamless and impacts not always evenly felt. That is, participating in the SE can require time, money, human and social capital, assets, skills, and capabilities that are not evenly distributed amongst populations to begin with (see Hobson et al. forthcoming). All are potentially further impacted by the SE, for better or worse (e.g. Appau et al. 2015; Schor 2016, Murillo et al. 2017). Indeed, much more detailed empirical work on the redistributive impacts of forms of sharing is sorely needed, as some work to date suggest that localised and/or collective environmental actions can act as scaled-down forms of 'green accumulation' along lines of class, ethnicity, and education (e.g. see Franklin et al. 2011, Norgaard et al. 2011). In addition, research has highlighted how SE participation, rather than enabling greater convenience and cost-efficiency at the tap of an app, enacts diverse forms of ethics, relating, and belonging (e.g. Richardson 2015, Holmes 2018) in ways that do not necessarily foreground the lessening of overall environmental impacts of practices (Gregson et al. 2015). EXCERPT #AGRU2E p. 12 As such, the complexities, contingencies, and less than 'win win' realities of the SE in practice rarely feature in mainstream CE advocacy. This is understandable, given how such insights highlight problems inherent in the systems that CE proponents claims to be reconfiguring without much disturbance of the current norms regarding the economy. However, I want to end by arguing that highlighting what is at stake in the CE – in what ways and to what ends – is crucial if its stated goals are going to prove anything more than rhetoric, particularly given the large-scale societal transformations it is charged with bringing about (e.g. European Commission 2015). From the perspective of the user-consumer, this is because many CE practices require that we all go beyond the modus operandi of consumerism (price, convenience: to buy or not to buy via the tapping of an app.). They rather ask that we are willing and able to have 'emotional and motivational engagements' (European Commission 2015) that recalibrate our relations with the socio-materialities of everyday lives, and each other. EXCERPT #TSWWNM p. 12 That is, what the CE asks of our everyday lives may, at first glance, seem like a small ask: swapping out one consumption practice for another, or (re)learning how to fix your toaster. And yet social researchers have highlighted the manifold cultural, social, and historical meanings attached to consumption practices (e.g. EXCERPT #K97QUS p. 13 EXCERPT #DUTG22 p. 13 Miller 1998, Shove and Warde 2002), as well as their place as habitual, normalised, and intertwined parts of our everyday material realities (Mylan 2015). Such intertwining means that adopting a particular ‘circular’ business model has potential knock-on effects throughout our lives. For example, does time spent repairing goods – that is, the ‘consumption work’ (see Wheeler and Glucksmann 2016) required of us all by the CE – mean there is less time available for other forms of ‘circularity’ in one’s life, thus excluding one from other SE opportunities? And do forms of social and cultural capital gained from, say, participating in a ‘Repair Café’ facilitate (or not) other relationships and practices, thus ‘spilling over’ into different spheres of energy and resource use? While these might seem like micro-sociological questions of minor significance to questions of macro-scale system transformations, cumulatively they underscore how little we know of the actual impacts experienced by those endeavouring to take up some of the consumer-user practices outlined in Figure 1. EXCERPT #G9LP9W p. 13 In this sense, a call for critical research into CE user-consumer roles goes beyond restating arguments about the ‘responsibilization’ of the consumer (e.g. Soneryd and Uggla 2015), where the (environmental) buck is passed down from businesses and governments to us all, as the (alleged) sovereign consumers to whom markets are merely responding. Rather, the arguments here bring us more towards Tukker’s comment (2015, p. 88) that a key goal for ‘consumers’ is ‘to have control over things, artifacts, and life itself’. Whereas one might interpret that comment a number of ways, I argue it points towards how life histories and chances are inter-woven with material cultures and practices. Proponents of the CE focus on the best ways to exchange one set of consumption practices with others, framed as cheaper and more efficient deals. But social research points towards the CE as being nothing short of a recalibration of our socio-material lives, if the ambitions of the agenda are in any way to be matched by the systemic transformations it will indeed require. And as such, further insight into how all of our roles are being framed and played out; what is illuminated and what is hidden by such framings; and who gains what, how, and to what ends is a central but, to date, undervalued part of the CE – and indeed environmental politics – research. DOCUMENT #UMYA27 The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy SECTION #Z2MRHK Concluding comments: setting the agenda for an environmental politics of CE EXCERPT #4RBR4P p. 13 I have aimed to be deliberately provocative as befits this point in this journal’s history and the special issue this is a part of. The goal has been to highlight how the CE has emerged as a key, multi-scale agenda that stretches far beyond environmental sustainability. Instead, it is positioned as a pathway to bring about nothing short of regional (and by implications, global) prosperity and competitiveness into the 21 st century. And from a critical environmental politics research perspective, I have aimed to make the case that prevailing EXCERPT #8MYPM3 p. 14 EXCERPT #DMHBBT p. 14 governance framings of the CE are both business as usual and not. On the one hand, well-trodden critiques of 'weak sustainability' agendas can be applied to how, for example, the European Commission and EMF conceive of the CE. That is, as able to achieve systemic transformation through better regulation and more efficient business models, leaving questions of who wins and loses pretty much out of the mix. But, on the other hand – and the main thrust here – critiquing the CE as sustainability rebranded, and leaving our analysis there, underplays what is potentially at stake and what we can, as researchers, contribute to understanding such stakes. Nowhere is this point more apparent than in how the CE user-consumer is being framed and (attempted to be) brought about. While, for decades, we have all been exhorted to 'buy green' (or not) and recycle a bit more, with mixed results, there is a case to be made that being a CE user-consumer requires nothing short of the reconstitution of 'life itself' (Tukker 2015): a point rarely seen in business-friendly renderings of the CE where the user-consumer is someone who needs to be told about, and then priced-into, more circular business models. EXCERPT #96CFUL p. 14 All of the above invariably invites more questions than it answers. For example, who is influencing and deciding upon CE agendas and framings of, say, European and Chinese versions of this framework? What roles are new organisations like EMF playing in this agenda, and to what effect? What would an alternate framing, of a 'circular citizen' (perhaps), look like: and how could (if at all) this concept be brought into prevailing framings of the CE? What social and economic transformations, realised how, would follow on from this reframing? How could we keep track of the winners and losers in this version of the CE: and indeed, what constitutes a winner and loser, as such? And how does any notion of a 'circular citizen' articulate with other forms of environmental practice like activism and protest? No doubt more questions remain. The key point is that environmental politics research is indispensable to addressing such questions and, as such, seeing this topic taken up more in the pages of this journal would make a valuable contribution to a much-needed critical politics of the Circular Economy: a discourse and agenda that looks set to remain central to key governance goals and interventions for many years to come. ### 27. Tool result: read DOCUMENT #NUEUVY Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. SECTION #VCKC56 ABSTRACT EXCERPT #629UVN p. 0 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. DOCUMENT #NUEUVY Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. SECTION #A5NUHL 1. Introduction: circular economy and Consumption Work EXCERPT #2NQ5LR p. 0 'Circular Economy' (CE) is now central to debates and interventions that aim to transition systems towards greater environmental sustainability. While definitions abound, CE is commonly understood as transforming inter-linked production-consumption systems to ones 'where the value of products, materials and resources is maintained in the economy for as long as possible, and the generation of waste minimised' (European Commission, 2015: 2). Such transformations involve step-changes to industrial processes and product design, as well as reconfigured business models—for example from 'sale-and-ownership' to 'product service systems' (Mylan, 2015)—that in turn impact consumption patterns, practices and norms. Although sometimes presented as a new framework, CE has its roots in fields such as industrial ecology (e.g. Clift and Druckman, 2016); sustainable and 'cradle-to-cradle' design (McDonough and Braungart, 2002); and 'natural capitalism' (Hawken et al., 1999): fields with their own histories of debate, experimentation and implementation (Reike et al., 2018). EXCERPT #NVEHXH p. 0 As such, part of the appeal of recent iterations of CE is how they bring together disparate fields into a model of comprehensive, macro-scale EXCERPT #CYNPVN p. 0 transformations. However, as Gregson et al. (2015: 221) note, despite 'idealized visions of the circular economy' that propose a producer-led, industrial revolution, much CE policy and practice thus far is largely one of enhanced, post-consumer waste management. Nevertheless, the European Union and China are amongst those now aligning their 21st Century regional development and competitiveness agendas with the perceived advantages of CE (e.g. see European Commission, 2015; McDowall et al., 2017). According to the European Commission (2015: 2) this will help in 'protecting businesses against scarcity of resources and volatile prices' while creating improved system efficiencies, new jobs, and greater 'social integration and cohesion'. EXCERPT #YV7KHH p. 0 In response to such ambitions, a rapidly growing and cross-disciplinary research literature has emerged, exploring multiple facets of CE. This journal alone has published many CE papers including research focused on Sustainable Supply Chain Management (Sadmia et al., 2020); Circular Business Model innovation (Guldmann and Hultgaard, 2020); and country-level enactments of the CE (Ghisellini and Ulgiati, 2020). Research on the consumption and consumer-related aspects of CE has also been part of this literature but to date has constituted a smaller body of work compared to other topics EXCERPT #565LED p. 0 * Corresponding author. EXCERPT #U6XMX2 p. 0 E-mail address: hobsonk@cardiff.ac.uk (K. Hobson). EXCERPT #JHJWJN p. 0 EXCERPT #CZ8UUV p. 0 EXCERPT #HYB5FL p. 0 EXCERPT #WJBMTT p. 0 EXCERPT #FXC57S p. 1 EXCERPT #ZLARP8 p. 1 EXCERPT #BGGSYX p. 1 (Camacho-Otero et al., 2018; Ghisellini et al., 2016; Mylan et al., 2016), an issue partially reflected in the fact that less than 20% of CE definitions include 'consumption' as a key factor in interventions (Kirchherr et al., 2017). EXCERPT #8QALEF p. 1 This latter body of work at times utilises social psychology methodologies to, for example, model relationships between environmental awareness and purchasing intentions (e.g. Panda et al., 2020). Whilst insightful, critiques of such approaches outline the problems with supposing clear relationships exist between individuals' awareness, values or attitudes, and their consumption activity: the notorious 'attitude-behaviour' or 'value-action' gap (Kollmann and Agyeman, 2002). As such, consumers' knowledge and intention often illuminate little about what they actually do (Carrington et al., 2010; Davies et al., 2002; Solér et al., 2020). In response, other social researchers have foregrounded the importance of contexts of actions, e.g. the role infrastructure plays in facilitating forms of sustainable consumption (Solér et al., 2020): as well as the actual resource management practices carried out in households (e.g. Mylan et al., 2016; Pedersen and Manhice, 2020). Together, this work underscores the importance of bringing varied social theories—which focus on the relationship between life as lived, and the materials, cultures and discourses these lives are embedded in—into CE research (Holmes, 2018; Mylan, 2015; Welch and Warde, 2015). EXCERPT #5SXGVG p. 1 This paper builds upon, and contributes to, this body of theoretically informed social science CE research. The main goal is to argue for the analytical value of bringing the sociological concept of Consumption Work (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015a) into CE research, to establish an associated and comprehensive research agenda. Briefly, Consumption Work (CW) denotes forms of labour necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services' (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015a: 37). Such now-ubiquitous labour includes, for example, cleaning, sorting and removing household recyclables; scanning barcodes at a self-service check out; building flat pack furniture; or self-installing home broadband. As such, CW is now often a non-negotiable component 'to complete and complement an economic process' (Glucksmann, 2016: 879), thus highlighting how the seemingly private domain of the home and of household consumption is actually an integral part of the successful functioning of macro-economic systems. EXCERPT #WA6FLL p. 1 This paper argues that the lens of CW can thus offer vital insight into how consumer-focused forms of CE require both the reconfiguration of existing modes of CW (e.g. increased domestic recycling activities) and/or the establishment of new forms of CW (e.g. repairing or sharing material assets). In turn, the ability of individuals and households to undertake such CW depend in part upon various, vital resources (e.g. time, skills, social capital), all of which are not distributed equally among populations. This paper argues that therefore the nature, scale and distribution of CE CW will have a significant impact on the successful emergence of the 'circular consumer'. Yet, to date, this argument has not received much critical attention in the published literature or broader debates. Thus there is a need for an active and focused research agenda, proposed herein. EXCERPT #NAYKMJ p. 1 In making these arguments this paper first explores the role ascribed to the CE consumer in some mainstream policies and debates. It then outlines the theory and application of CW, arguing for its utility in gaining fresh insight into the role of consumption in CE. Then the theory of CW is applied to examples of consumer-focused CE practices including forms of sharing and repairing. This paper then concludes by outlining a research agenda for CW and CE, which is argued to offer much-needed insight into this integral part of broader CE agendas. DOCUMENT #NUEUVY Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. SECTION #3D3TKM 3. Consumption Work in the circular economy SECTION #WXP5SH 3.1. The concept of consumption work and its relevance to the circular economy EXCERPT #W6YXBD p. 2 Since early industrialization social researchers have been keenly interested in questions of divisions of labour. Initially focusing on the workplace, research explored how the specialization of jobs and skills have far-reaching ramifications for socio-economic equality, and thus broader distributions of political agency and power. Subsequent focus has included unpaid forms of labour e.g. gender divisions within households (Glucksmann, 2000) as well as how informal economies constitute networks of communal and household reciprocity (Pahl, 1984). Miriam Glucksmann (2009, 2013, 2016) has further extended these arguments (see also Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2013, 2015a, 2015b) highlighting how a key part of unpaid labour is CW. That is, the forms of labour 'necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services' (2015a: 37). This labour includes consumption enacted through varying modes of provision, whether ownership or access-based. EXCERPT #WZAUUT p. 2 CW is thus not about any form of domestic labour. Specifically, it concerns the work that householders 'regularly perform' which 'is integral to the completion of a process of production or service provision' (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015a: 3). Glucksmann (2013: 11) notes EXCERPT #R4JTGD p. 2 how many CW activities thus go unrecognised as labour but should be classified and analysed as such given how integral CW is to 'material social reproduction' (ibid.: 13). For example, studies of environmental labour within the domestic sphere (e.g. practices such as recycling and preventing food waste) have shown that women do more of this work (e.g. Organo et al., 2013), which means that 'men and women are differently affected by sustainable consumption policy' (Middlemiss, 2018: 46). And as the forms of labour required by us all to consume continue to shift—e.g. the rise of self-service supermarket check-outs and self-assembly furniture (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015a)—so do the requirements and divisions of these forms of labour. Such requirements are not just a matter of having more or less time available to spend on said tasks. They also speak to the need for consumers to have access to particular skills, knowledge and/or other resources (e.g. tools for self-assemble furniture) as well as personal attributes (confidence, willingness): all of which are not evenly distributed amongst populations. EXCERPT #HQTGMV p. 2 New forms of CW include practices that are a pivotal part of CE. The labour required for domestic recycling—cleaning, sorting, and putting items on the kerb, or taking them to a recycling station—is vital to the successful functioning of contemporary waste management industries and systems (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015a), with their incorrect execution being one of the main challenges for the modern recycling industry (Walsh, 2019). Add to that the other consumer/user practices that CE foregrounds (e.g. repairing, reusing and sharing) and it quickly becomes apparent that the consumers' roles in the CE is far beyond that of 'acceptance' of novel products and business models. And while it can be claimed that household eco-efficient technologies and products can sidestep some of these issues, doing most of the work for the household, research has shown non-trivial forms of 'green labour' are still involved in the operation and management of, for example 'smart' domestic technologies (Farbotko, 2018). Thus, it is arguable that without the widespread adoption of the forms of CW that the CE necessitates, the entire project becomes untenable, particularly given comments that current CE framings and policies fail to resonate with citizens (Repo et al., 2018). EXCERPT #FBXZMU p. 2 To be clear, the concept of the CW is not deployed here to bemoan the unpaid labour of consumers, as an exploitative facet of current systems per se. Nor does it go to the other extreme, celebrating the multiple benefits that CE practices are often charged with ushering in, for example, through forms of 'collaborative consumption' (see Botsman and Rogers, 2011) that are claimed to create other social 'goods' (see Penz et al., 2018). Rather, its work here is that of a conceptual intervention, the empirics of which are argued to shed new and important light on the reconfiguration of divisions of labour presupposed by CE visions and models, which includes the possibilities for their successful realisation, and for unintended consequences. As the next section will explore, this argument can be illustrated well through notions of the 'sharing economy': a central focus of CE debates to date. focus of CE debates to date. SECTION #8G4TEL 3.2. The consumption work of the sharing economy EXCERPT #QCSYYG p. 2 The 'Sharing Economy' is argued as playing a pivotal role in CE (e.g. Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2015) and for this reason, this paper uses it as a key probe through which to explore the implications of CW within CE. Here new practices and platforms deploy 'underutilised assets, monetised or not, in ways that improve efficiency, sustainability and community' (Rinne, 2017: no page). This can take the form of the renting out of one's spare rooms or properties (as with AirBnB), or sharing surplus food in the local community (e.g. City Harvest London, no date). Such initiatives are argued to potentially create 570 billion Euros worth of transactions by 2025 (PWC, 2017), as well as fostering novel forms of consumption and new emotional and motivational engagements (Welch et al., 2017), while creating environmental benefits through reducing resource use (Bocken et al., 2017; Homrich et al., EXCERPT #4TB48L p. 2 EXCERPT #YBWVJA p. 3 EXCERPT #35CRYY p. 3 EXCERPT #MW8FAR p. 3 2018). EXCERPT #842XMJ p. 3 However, research has shown that some sharing initiatives do little to address the social and sustainability issues they claim to overcome (Schor et al., 2016; Holmes, 2018). For example, research by Holmes (2018) has illuminated how sharing endeavours, whilst temporarily diverting some waste from landfill, can also see shared resources ultimately ending up there, with added CW for intermediaries. As such, there is a need to cast a critical eye over the actual outcomes and impacts of forms of sharing, including the role that new forms of CW play (e.g. see Schor et al., 2016). And in further understanding the dynamics of CE CW, there is arguably an important analytical distinction to be made between access-based and ownership-based forms of CE consumption practice, outlined in Table 1 below (see Wieser, 2019). EXCERPT #UUZM35 p. 3 Access-based CE consumption is where 'no transfer of ownership takes place' (Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012: 881). That is, goods can be leased, which may involve individual and unlimited access (e.g. the private leasing of a car); or limited and sequential access (e.g. joining a car-sharing club); or pooling, which necessitates simultaneous access (e.g. car-pooling with shared ownership) (Tukker, 2004). By contrast, ownership-based CE practices can involve sequential sharing, such as passing along unwanted items from one owner to the next; or co-owning assets such as housing co-ownership cooperatives. Although 'individual ownership' in Table 1 in reality falls outside the purview of SE, it does form a key component of consumer-focused CE practices e.g. the care and repair of owned goods to elongate product life spans (see Cooper, 2016). As such, Table 1 aims to capture various CE and sharing-related spheres of practice such as the peer-to-peer economy, the second-hand economy, the collaborative economy, and product-service systems, to show examples of them in terms of consumer involvement. EXCERPT #Z3G8YR p. 3 All of the above practices require both distinct and overlapping forms of CW. For practices in the Individual Ownership category of Table 1, some argue they involve less CW by eliminating inconveniences caused by the current poor quality and obsolescence of owned goods. That is: EXCERPT #G4MX3K p. 3 'For the customer, overcoming premature obsolescence will significantly bring down total ownership costs and deliver higher convenience due to avoiding hassles associated with repairs and returns'. (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2013: 76). EXCERPT #KREGEY p. 3 At face value this statement appears unproblematic. However, little is known about the CW involved in buying longer-lasting products: what one assumes is being referred to in the phrase 'overcoming premature obsolescence'. Studies that have explored this area argue that 'product lifetime optimisation' consumer behaviour—across the stages of product acquisition, use, and disposal (Evans and Cooper, 2010)—is currently characterised by a lack of consumer knowledge and skills in identifying longer-lasting products. In turn, research into specific consumer practices of product care (including repair and maintenance) show that these require time, effort and competences, which can limit the involvement of some individuals. For others however, new forms of CW encourage participation, particularly when it is framed and felt as challenge and/or fun (Ackermann et al., 2018; see also Holmes, 2019). As such, assuming longer-lasting products equate with less CW overall is unproven and requires further scrutiny if it is to be a pillar of the CE. EXCERPT #294Y7Y p. 3 Table 1 Circular Economy and Sharing Economy modes of provision (from Wieser, 2019). EXCERPT #5YEH5G p. 3 Consumption Individual Sequential Simultaneous Access individual access (e.g. product service system, leasing, pay-per use) sequential access (e.g. renting, borrowing) simultaneous access (e.g. pooling) Ownership individual ownership (e.g. product service system repair, maintenance, reduce) sequential ownership (e.g. second-hand, gift, reuse, repeat exchanges) simultaneous ownership (e.g. co-owning) EXCERPT #VJU7MM p. 3 Claims of greater convenience are also made for the access-based forms of SE. Influential multi-national consultancies such as PWC (2015) and Deloitte (2015) are amongst those who have underscored the business gains to be had from CE including comments such as: EXCERPT #5TFZD6 p. 3 'The sharing economy is convenient for both the consumer and the service provider. It EXCERPT #AQN84Z p. 3 provides consumers with convenient and cost-efficient access to resources and to access various services with a few taps on their smartphones' (Ernst and Young, 2015: 19). EXCERPT #HQD4WD p. 3 Forms of leasing, renting, borrowing or pooling that are facilitated digitally are thus argued by advocates to relieve consumers from the 'burdens of ownership' (Cherry and Pidgeon, 2018). However, some researchers have turned their attention to the 'burdens of access' (Hazée et al., 2017). Here, research has found that while not having to repair, maintain or buy new privately owned goods is looked upon favourably by some, an equal number find it time consuming to borrow or rent goods (Hirsch et al., 2003). There are also feelings of added responsibility and at times anxiety about being in possession of non-owned products, which some users feel a need to take greater (not less) care of (see Cherry and Pidgeon, 2018; Fraanje and Spaargaren, 2019). EXCERPT #XTMXAS p. 3 In terms of sequential access, research on renting and borrowing has identified various forms of CW that users need to do, along with how these are experienced. For example, while car-sharing reduces the labour (and cost) of appropriating and caring for a car (Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012) there is notable planning and logistical work involved in participating in car-sharing. This can include scheduling use of the car, potentially re-arranging plans due to the relative inflexibility of car sharing; returning the car; reporting issues with vehicles; and dealing with dirty cars or low fuel (Fraanje and Spaargaren, 2019; Hazée et al., 2017). For other forms of peer-to-peer borrowing and renting, Philip et al. (2015: 1318) remark that: EXCERPT #S45VA9 p. 3 'renters need to browse, find and request their wanted items, contact the seller for available times and places to meet for pick-up and drop-off, arrange payment, return the item in the same condition as originally rented and also leave feedback for the provider'. EXCERPT #9F6AKT p. 3 In the above research, their participants lamented the efforts required to take part in peer-to-peer sharing, leading the authors to conclude that these forms of CW can be a major deterrent for users. Fraanje and Spaargaren (2019) also found, in a study of car-sharing co-operatives, that many members found the social aspects encouraged by the service-provider to be burdensome emotional labour, preferring instead more impersonal consumption. Taken together, all of the above research points towards much more going on under the surface of the 'convenience'/'inconvenience' labels given to CW in the CE to date. Indeed, accepting claims that the CE will ease CW burdens for consumers cannot be taken at face value and thus require much closer scrutiny, with the suggestion of a potential research agenda as such detailed in the following section. DOCUMENT #NUEUVY Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. SECTION #9LCL7B 4. The circular economy and Consumption Work: a research agenda EXCERPT #H6G94V p. 3 As the previous section outlined, research already offers some insight into the importance of considering CW in the reconfiguration of consumers' practices as part of CE. Yet, more much information is still needed, and this section sets out some key questions. For one, extant knowledge of CE CW remains fragmented, in terms of both terminology and empirical focus. Existing relevant research does explore the EXCERPT #TYRK4Q p. 3 EXCERPT #727T73 p. 4 EXCERPT #PVVPR3 p. 4 EXCERPT #RTD7YB p. 4 demands of CE CW to some extent, often under the guise of different concepts such as (in)convenience, effort, domestic labour and/or co-creation. However, these different concepts make it challenging to undertake direct comparisons between examples. As such, CW has thus far not been studied systematically in the CE context, beyond Wheeler and Glucksmann's research on domestic recycling (ibid.). This is a notable gap, as supposed benefits, like added convenience, represent an important value proposition for CE proponents. And yet the actual work consumers need to undertake, to invest in new practices compared to traditional ('linear') modes of provision, remains under-explored. While CE advocates make claims of 'hassle-free' services, studies show there is often significant effort required in doing repairs, purchasing second-hand, or participating in peer-to-peer sharing. How these all add up to helping create the 'circular consumer' (or not) remains to be seen. EXCERPT #GLJYR8 p. 4 There are several areas of research that stem from the above point. For one—while case studies of recycling, product service systems, and sharing platforms make up the bulk of the literature—it is notable that the practices of leasing, purchasing long-lasting products, co-ownership, and pooling are understudied (Wieser, 2019). This is a clear omission, as many of these practices are heavily implicated in current CE debates and policies. For example, the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy considers prolonging product lifetimes as an important component of the CE (European Commission, 2015), exemplified in the 2019 'Right to Repair' legislation, which is a part of this overall strategy (Ehgartner and Hirth, 2019; Harrabin, 2019b). Therefore, question here include what forms of CW are involved in realising this goal; how are the prerequisites for this work (e.g. access to information) currently distributed; and what is needed, to address any barriers that additional CW might create for consumers? EXCERPT #6W8FF8 p. 4 As well as particular practices that require further research, various components of CW are also under-studied. For one, some consumer engagements with the CE involve degrees of skill and creativity. While research has shown these can be lacking in some areas—e.g. identifying long-lasting products at the point of purchase—other research outlines how experience over time enables consumers to feel confident and competent in engaging with particular modes of consumption e.g. when shopping at second hand markets (Crewe and Gregson, 1998). In addition, CW can entail forms of emotional work that are only partially explored in research to date. For one, some CE modes of provision appear to make consumers feel obliged to take care of, and be responsible for, the condition of goods. One example can be found in a refillable milk bottle scheme (Vaughan et al., 2007) where consumers took extra care of, and felt some stewardship towards, the reused and returned bottles even though this was not required for them to participate in the service. However, other studies report the opposite effect i.e. consumers taking less care with sequentially accessed goods (e.g. Bardhi and Eckhardt, 2012). This suggests that more attention needs to be paid to variations across different modes of provisioning, and in what ways consumers (are made to) feel responsible for the goods that pass through their hands, plus the impacts all of the above have on the take-up of new practices. EXCERPT #B8L975 p. 4 One notable feature of the research to date has been how it often examines one consumption practice at a time e.g. repairing goods, renting goods, or participating in a new product service system. For there to be a fuller understanding of the scope and changes to CW if the CE is to become a domestic reality, there also needs to be explorations of how CW is coordinated across household activities, along with the temporal dimensions of such activities. We already know that the adoption of one form of domestic practice can have (sometimes undesirable) knock-on effects on others e.g. more domestic recycling often leads to less CW in other waste prevention behaviours in a household (e.g. Cox et al., 2010). Yet, we do not currently know how potential conflicts between competing CE solutions play out. Nor, how any conflicts are, or are not, resolved amongst householders. Is there a ceiling to consumers' participation in the CE? And if so, what combinations of CE practices are tenable for what types of households? And what forms of EXCERPT #6ZGR3W p. 4 supporting infrastructures are required to foster yet more engagement, to the point where household emissions are brought down to the levels recommended by the Committee on Climate Change (ibid.)? EXCERPT #MQNE8N p. 4 A key factor in addressing these questions are issues of divisions of labour. This is an area rarely included in discussions of the CE but one that the concept of CW is especially attuned to. Research on household CW does show that there is an unequal distribution of labour, especially in terms of the gendered division of domestic labour (e.g. see Glucksmann, 2016 on recycling). However, there exists little knowledge about if, and how, CE CW differs from established arrangements in terms of domestic division of labour. In this respect, comparative research could provide valuable insights. Such research could take account both the gendered division of labour within CE CW activities, and how other socio-demographic factors such as household make-up, class, employment type/patterns, race and ethnicity all influence the uptake and engagement of CE CW. In short, who is doing the CW; why; and; to what effect? EXCERPT #NABM28 p. 4 Finally, there are questions of where and how to do CW research. For one, there currently exists a limited range of extant and easily visible form of consumption-based CE practice, which would allow researchers to trace the requirements they make of consumers and their impacts. In particular, while the uptake of singular CE activities is reasonably well-documented (e.g. numbers joining car sharing schemes), less is known about how many households are undertaking multiple forms of CE practice, which would enable questions of coordination to be addressed. Furthermore, there is the methodological challenge of how to conduct research on CW that forms part of private, domestic realms, that is often habitual and conditioned by unarticulated norms (e.g. see Wonneck and Hobson, 2017). Methodologically, such research has precedents in 'practice theory' research (Halkier et al., 2011; Warde et al., 2017), which often deploys detailed qualitative, in situ approaches, utilising small n samples to understand in detail the rationales and outcomes of particular consumption practices (e.g. Gram-Hanssen, 2010). While much of this work is descriptive of current practices, research into CE CW would need to adopt a more action-research ethos (e.g. see Doyle and Davies, 2013), wherein research happens alongside householders experimenting in consciously changing their practices e.g. recruiting a small sample of households to live like 'circular citizens' for several months (see Davies and Doyle, 2015). EXCERPT #6SZJVB p. 4 Finally, research into CE CW needs to move beyond the domestic sphere and space of the household, to consider engagement with consumption-based practices in other spaces. This could be individuals coming together once a month to participate in a local Repair Café, or household engagements with community-based CE business models, whether they are explicitly labelled as such. This is because some consumer-based CE practices are not bound to the home, but are rather implicated in establishing new patterns of, for example, mobility practices: practices, which in turn, influence CE CW household dynamics. ### 28. Tool result: read DOCUMENT #R69WZQ Material culture and the circular economy SECTION #CNF67G 1. Introduction EXCERPT #PXJC8M p. 0 There are many definitions of the circular economy, but this quotation captures features that are widely shared. According to Stahel, a key figure in the field: EXCERPT #RHNFFH p. 0 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) EXCERPT #UH9W5G p. 0 This statement focuses on “goods”; it deals with “economic logic”, with “production” and with “industrial ecosystems”. As with other writing of this ilk, the basic idea is that “loops” can be closed, and resource use minimized through extended life cycles and related “efficiencies”. EXCERPT #ZLGRN3 p. 0 Arguments like these have been met with a range of broad-based criticisms. One is that repair, recycling, and remanufacturing all require resources, and that visions of the circular economy end up running counter the laws of thermodynamics (Skene, 2018). In addition, moves toward a circular economy do not in themselves transform patterns of consumption, but rather at worst, play a part in fostering patterns of accumulation (De Decker, 2018; Hobson, 2021). EXCERPT #NKRBD6 p. 0 Interpretations of the circular economy and its wide-reaching political mandate have an impact on the roles of resources and objects in the “consumer” society. As illustrated above, the discourse surrounding the circular economy has largely centered on the lives of objects, with a focus on repair, sharing, and re-use, with the general aim being the efficient handling of matter through systems of provision. This has implications for how the consumer’s role is understood. For example, Hobson et al. (2021) write about efforts to engage households in the circular economy, and to enhance their capacity to use, manage and preserve objects. EXCERPT #7F9SRA p. 0 EXCERPT #A9LQGZ p. 0 EXCERPT #2SUM3H p. 0 EXCERPT #KMSQMN p. 1 EXCERPT #QUYKRU p. 1 EXCERPT #EZKGUJ p. 1 Moves like these do the dual job of locating the problem in the hands of the consumer (Rinkinen et al., 2020), and of stripping consumer goods out of context. EXCERPT #KXVZVK p. 1 This narrow treatment of materiality, we argue, has resulted in debates that overlook longer-term trends in demand and the interconnections between production and consumption. Initiatives have recently been made to address both production and consumption aspects of the circular economy (IPCC, 2023) but in this Perspective article we go further, arguing for an expanded analysis of “object relations”, and for an approach that allows us to engage with fundamental questions about the constitution of needs and systems of provision. EXCERPT #TMYEAN p. 1 Such topics already straddle different areas of academic debate. As indicated above, the relation between objects and their consumers is central to dominant ideas about the circular economy. It is also important for sociologists and anthropologists dealing with issues of material culture and consumption. In bringing these traditions together we make the case for an analysis that avoids and overcomes some of the problems associated with contemporary concepts of circularity including the tendency to focus on goods in isolation, and to overlook longer term trends in demand. DOCUMENT #R69WZQ Material culture and the circular economy SECTION #9XPEAM 2. Practices and object relations EXCERPT #VCT37S p. 1 There is a long tradition of understanding systems of consumption and production from the perspective of material culture. In his book, The social lives of things , Appadurai (1988) writes about the meaning of objects within and as part of complex systems and histories of social and cultural valuation. He argues that judgements of value, and the lives of things are densely interwoven, so much so that it makes no sense to strip an object out of the broader material culture in which it exists. EXCERPT #8CYMM2 p. 1 More pragmatically, objects are rarely mobilized in isolation. In daily life and in use they depend on each other and on an array of background infrastructures and resources that make related practices possible (Shove, 2016). The result is a mesh of what Rinkinen et al. (2015) describe as “object relations”, a term that underlines the point that the histories of objects are entangled with the societies in which they develop. Understanding how objects connect calls for further understanding of extensive networks and material arrangements and of how these evolve. If these ideas are taken to heart, objects, infrastructures and systems of provision and consumption must be treated as part of, and not outside, the wider plenitude of practice (Shove et al., 2012; Schatzki, 2019). EXCERPT #GYAYXG p. 1 It is only by focusing on relations between objects and practices that we can describe and understand the extent as well as the form of material flows (linear, circular, etc.), and to show how these vary and change (Ingold, 2012). This not only implies a more fluid and unsettled understanding of objects, but also a more relational account of the material world (Haberl et al., 2021). Building on these ideas, it is important to ask: “how do materials of all types (resources, appliances, infrastructures) figure in the emergence and transformation of different, but often linked complexes of social practice” (Rinkinen et al., 2020; p. 36)? EXCERPT #2NXYDM p. 1 As already mentioned, circular economy discussions of repair, sharing and re-use tend to consider objects in isolation, focusing on items like glass bottles (Stahel, 2016), mobile phones (Wieser and EXCERPT #DPB8Z2 p. 1 Tröger, 2018) or cars without paying attention to the surrounding network of social-material relations, or to the interwoven histories of consumption and production. For example, in concluding that “cleaning a glass bottle and using it again is faster and cheaper than recycling the glass or making a new bottle from minerals” (Stahel, 2016), Stahel disregards the place of the “glass bottle” in the wider world of food and drink, and in changing systems and infrastructures of provision. Similarly, those who evaluate the relative costs and benefits of repairing, sharing, or replacing a car (Chen and Kockelman, 2016) do so without reference to what Urry (2004) describes as a system of automobility, or to changing patterns of car-dependence (Mattioli et al., 2020). EXCERPT #2JL9VM p. 1 This kind of purification is necessary if commentators are to evaluate the relative benefits of recycling and repair vs. new production. The problem is that documenting the lifecycle of a product does not reveal the broader status and role of that product in society. DOCUMENT #R69WZQ Material culture and the circular economy SECTION #FAPRPA 4. Discussion EXCERPT #3PSC8C p. 2 Ideas about the circular economy and how it works have informed policies that are designed to reduce carbon emissions by closing loops, increasing efficiency, and reducing waste. In bringing this piece to a close we highlight three tendencies in circular economy policies and conclude with a brief discussion of the policy implications of taking a broader view of material culture and practice, and of how this evolves and changes over time. EXCERPT #NF4MTB p. 2 As we have seen, accounts of the circular economy generally focus on the lives of objects, considered in isolation. This makes it possible to compare and evaluate processes of production, distribution, and appropriation, and to recognize the scattered nature of environmental impact (e.g., Tukker, 2000). Analyses of this kind take heed of the lifecycles of products and resources, but they proceed by stripping objects and resources out of context, and by “obscuring the distinctive social and historical processes of enmeshed material relations and shifting patterns of consumption” (Rinkinen et al., 2020). Policy responses inspired by mainstream discourse on the circular economy do the same. EXCERPT #FUWLKX p. 2 A second tendency, also evident in efforts to promote a circular economy, is to propose what are expected to be generic measures. For example, the potential to recycle materials is usually taken for granted, and usually seen as an evidently sensible thing to do. This skates over important differences in when and how diverse materials can or cannot be recycled. In so far as this is acknowledged, it is treated as largely technical issue, not as something that varies depending on the complexity and resource-base of the supply chain. For example, in the case of digital technology, recycling the end-product would only recover a small fraction of the input (see De Decker, 2018). This is a simple point but taking a broader view of objects is a necessary step in understanding the characteristics of specific networks and systems of provision, and how they might change. Whilst market specific knowledge is used in planning more circular business models and whilst there might be scope for learning across sectors, material realities and resource flows differ across products and supply chains. What is missing is a style of policy analysis, and a form of policy intervention that is sensitive to these differences, and to how materials “fit” in different systems of provision and practice. EXCERPT #RP8YNG p. 2 A third still more significant issue is that policies that are intended to foster a circular economy avoid or marginalize fundamental questions about the constitution of need, including the part that policy making itself plays in reproducing unsustainable practices and systems of provision. If the primary ambition is efficient flow and use of resources and goods, then changes in patterns of consumption and reduction of resource use is secondary ambition and treated as such. There is a risk that circular economy initiatives cling on to narrow growth-oriented EXCERPT #JEWYYC p. 2 notions of demand, without acknowledging the potential of more sufficiency-oriented circular economies. EXCERPT #4BP9PM p. 2 By contrast, sociological and anthropological theories of material culture, consumption and practice have very different policy implications. As outlined above, these disciplines provide a means of conceptualizing the changing status of material culture, and longer-term transitions in the resources “required” to participate effectively in society. If policy interventions were to be informed by these ways of thinking, policy makers would start by seeking out opportunities for shaping interpretations of normality and need in ways that reduce (rather than increase) resource consumption overall. At a minimum this argues for critical policy reflection and analysis and a willingness to think about how policies across all areas of government constitute taken for granted patterns of demand, in both formal and informal ways (Rinkinen et al., 2020). It also argues for broadening the scope of research to address temporal, spatial and infrastructural aspects of social practices and their connections. For policy makers this implies broader cross-sectoral cooperation. EXCERPT #27LR4T p. 2 In our view, concepts from the fields of material culture and practice provide policy makers with a means of going further and of identifying strategies that limit and reduce absolute resource use and environmental impact. To be more specific, focusing on objects as part of systems of provision and practice, and taking heed of the material bases of “ordinary practice” provides a starting point from which to combine analyses of need and normality with some of the tools and techniques associated with the circular economy (e.g., material flows, life cycle analyses). ### 29. Tool result: read DOCUMENT #XATD2A New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning SECTION #94A9P5 ABSTRACT EXCERPT #VRN7A9 p. 0 This article draws upon two distinct UK case studies to explore how alternative modes of provisioning employ ordinary practices of sharing and circularity. Speaking to debates about alterity, diverse economies (Gibson-Graham, 2008) and emerging literature on the circular and shared economy, these two small and informal based models, one food based, the other clothing, are put forward as examples of the vast array of contemporary 'alternative' forms of consumption and provisioning taking place across the UK. The article illuminates how diverse economies are 'made material' through their materials and practices. In doing so I make three key arguments: firstly, and overall, that studying materiality is one way to illuminate these new and emerging spaces of provisioning, highlighting their practices, intimacies and ambiguities. Secondly, this material focus illustrates how the practices of provisioning – in particular, sharing and circulating – are not new, but are instead organised in original and novel ways; and this has wider implications for contemporary debates on circular and shared economy. Thirdly, that the materials of provisioning can be both beneficial and troublesome to provisioning organisations' practices of circulating and sharing and the extent to which they tackle issues of social exclusion, financial hardship and sustainable resource use. DOCUMENT #XATD2A New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning SECTION #38LM6C 2.2. Circular economy and sharing economy EXCERPT #UDSMAZ p. 1 The sharing and circular economies are both new and increasingly popular concepts, which have gained significant traction within the overall economic landscape. However, they are only now really starting EXCERPT #SQSZSW p. 1 EXCERPT #9R9NKL p. 2 EXCERPT #TXKG7J p. 2 EXCERPT #R7FMZ8 p. 2 to emerge within academic literatures (Martin, 2016). Furthermore, unlike the moral and gift economy which have a firm and recognised grounding in alternative provisioning, the scholarly link between SE and CE and such diverse provisioning economies has yet to be sufficiently made. Nevertheless, those studies which have engaged with SE and CE respectively, likewise note that they have a similarly contentious status as that of the moral and gift economy. EXCERPT #ECXTXA p. 2 With regards SE, recent work, such as that of Hall and Ince (2017); Richardson (2015) and Schor et al. (2016) notes the concepts paradoxical framing, all at once having 'the capacity to be both alternative to and continuation of business-as-usual' (Richardson, 2015: 121). The incorporation of the likes of Airbnb and Uber under the rubric of SE only serves to emphasise capitalist undertones, and confuse the antinomies of alterity versus capitalism, ownership versus sharing; and monetary versus non-monetary organisations. This has led many to conclude that such endeavours should instead be known as the 'on demand economy', the 'access economy' or the 'crowdsourcing economy' (Schor et al., 2015: 17). Further complexity emerges when one considers what actually constitutes sharing within the SE. Schor et al. (2016) place an emphasis on trading; using four case studies, including a time bank, a food swap, a makerspace and an open access education site, to illustrate micro-level exchanges. Belk (2014b), however, would refer to such trading as a form of bartering or 'pseudo-sharing' because of the reciprocal nature of such exchanges and the ultimate transfer of ownership of goods. Rather, Belk (2014a:1596) stresses the need to recognise the distinction between 'non-ownership-based sharing and that which involves the transfer of ownership' and reciprocal exchange, including gift giving. EXCERPT #S3VRD9 p. 2 However, where consensus is reached is that the internet is facilitating a new era of sharing (Belk, 2014a), with a focus on 'access' as opposed to 'ownership' of goods (Botsman and Rogers, 2011) through digital platforms (Schor et al., 2015). Likewise, it is worth noting how scholars are linking the sharing economy to sustainable forms of consumption (Heinrichs, 2013; Martin, 2016; Botsman and Rogers, 2011). Such work refers to how the sharing of resources can reduce environmental impacts, such as car sharing reducing an individual's carbon footprint. However, they also reference the impacts of sharing on wider issues of waste. Heinrichs (2013: 230), for example, mentions upcycling and finding new uses for items; and indeed websites such as Freecycle and Yerdle are often deemed part of SE (Walker in Schor et al., 2015). Likewise, Product Service Systems (PSS) is a term which is beginning to creep into social science literature, referring to a business model which can foster schemes that enable the renting, upgrading and redesigning of materials (Tukker, 2015; Hobson, 2016; Piscielli et al., 2015). EXCERPT #3CMBV5 p. 2 To date, the majority of work on CE has focused on large-scale manufacturing and industrial processes, and their adoption of closed loop, cradle-to-cradle processes to maximise efficiency (Abu-Ghunmi et al., 2016; Lieder and Rashid, 2016). Circular economy is defined by WRAP (2017) as a model which keeps resources in use for as long as possible, avoiding make-use-dispose linear models. However, recent political interest in the concept has propelled a shift, not only in its popularity, but also its reach. The European's Commission now has a 'Circular Economy Package' designed to help 'European businesses and consumers to make the transition to a stronger and more circular economy where resources are used in a more sustainable way' (European Commission, 2015). Likewise, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation is solely focused on promoting economic circularity that is 'restorative and regenerative by design' including business, government and academia (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2012). This wide-ranging endorsement of CE, alongside its political broadening to include consumers, has led a few academics to begin to question the scope and potential spatiality of the concept. As Hobson (2016: 99) argues, close attention needs to be paid 'to spaces where disparate forms of CE may emerge and/or be fostered in forms and ways that current analyses of the CE omits'. EXCERPT #56AZCA p. 2 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. EXCERPT #PV6Q9Y p. 2 Yet this paper pushes further at Hobson's argument into its focus on these activities being forms of ordinary practice, organised and structured in original and novel ways. The notion of the diverse economy echoes the sentiments made in Pahl's (1984) earlier seminal work 'Divisions of Labour' to reveal taken for granted, mundane, everyday economic activities. As Pahl (1984:251) concludes, such practices are 'not so much a coping mechanism of the poor, as a reflection of a particular kind of lifestyle based on the skills and reciprocities of the work of everyday life'. The work of Richard White (2009) offers an updated confirmation of Pahl's earlier conclusions, noting how 'mutual aid' in both deprived and affluent neighbourhoods plays a vital social role yet is still underestimated. Similarly, conclusions are made in the work of Hall and Ince (2017:9) and their recognition that sharing is not just a response to crisis (see also: Hall and Holmes, 2017; Smith and Stenning, 2006) but something which is 'embedded in everyday politics, ethics and relationalities'. As Belk (2014a: 1595) notes, the sharing economy is not the new economic exemplar that it is purported to be, but rather is a 'phenomenon as old as humankind'. Likewise, the work of Clarke (2001) on the circulations of children's clothing through both informal networks and organised events, alongside that of Angela McRobbie (1989) on second hand clothing, not only highlights that notions of circularity, sharing and CE/SE have always been features of everyday, what we might term 'ordinary', economic practice, but also how the structures and spaces of such practices are changing. EXCERPT #WQLA3P p. 2 This article illustrates how through a focus on materiality these new and emerging diverse economies, operating on the fringes of domestic and informal networks, can be illuminated: their practices, ambiguities and intimacies revealed. In many ways this material emphasis involves drawing upon a 'following the thing' approach; trying to understand how the objects and materials of provisioning move into, through and out of these endeavours through circulating and sharing ('follow the thing' approaches track objects from raw material to disposal, examples include: Cook, 2004 on papaya; Norris, 2005 on discarded Western clothing). Yet, vitally it is also about appreciating what these materials of provisioning afford, the practices they enable and the value they hold to the organisation and its members/users. It involves addressing how their very materiality - their fibres, textures, patterns and forms (Miller, 2005) - influences what happens to them and how they are circulated and shared. It requires examining how they form part of people's biographies and in turn have biographies of their own (Humphries and Smith, 2014; Woodward, 2007). From challenging issues of social EXCERPT #WCUQ3S p. 2 EXCERPT #GE35FP p. 3 EXCERPT #HVPS5X p. 3 EXCERPT #VQV77U p. 3 exclusion and sustainable resource use, to also inadvertently reproducing the very inequalities such endeavours seek to overcome, the materials of provisioning and the circulating and sharing they afford, bring to life such new and emerging spaces, and the very ordinary practices they encompass. DOCUMENT #XATD2A New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning SECTION #XUJTDR 5. Troublesome materialities EXCERPT #PHXJDE p. 6 Whilst the previous section examined how the ordinary practices of circulating and sharing are made material through new diverse economic spaces of provisioning, contrastingly this section examines how materialities can also unsettle them; essentially reinforcing the very inequalities such diverse spaces attempt to overcome. In both Coffee Club and clothes swap, the materials of provisioning can become troublesome, and rather than enabling the practices of circularity and sharing to take place their materialities instead unsettle them: causing barriers and ruptures within the diverse spaces of provisioning. In their work on various sharing economy endeavours, Schor et al. (2015) discuss how inequalities are reproduced at a micro level. Using examples such as inappropriate food given in a food swap creating segregation, or hierarchies occurring between people and their skills at makerspaces, they illustrate how often 'the pervasiveness of inequality in the larger macro-economy is difficult to escape in new economic spaces' (p. 78) (see also Wilson and Jackson's (2016) account of Fair EXCERPT #ZRYU8J p. 6 EXCERPT #E7BSW4 p. 7 EXCERPT #A6MQUC p. 7 EXCERPT #7G32WY p. 7 Trade food). As I argue, such inequalities are similarly produced at the micro level within Coffee Club and clothes swap. However, I extend this argument to illustrate how such inequalities are very much grounded in the troublesome materialities and practices of provisioning. EXCERPT #FUYJPE p. 7 Within Coffee Club the troublesome materiality of food becomes apparent in several ways. Firstly, there are issues over providing food suitable for members' diets, as Kate explains: EXCERPT #VWKEY9 p. 7 It's quite challenging sometimes when... there's some people that are very very strict with their diet, as far as halal food is concerned..... So people often have this misconception that vegetarian equals halal, but it doesn't. We're learning as we go, really. EXCERPT #WHKGZ2 p. 7 As Kate's quote illuminates, the practices of sharing and circulating food at Coffee Club are fraught with considerations; whereby food must be carefully micro-managed to ensure that people are receiving food suitable for their religious and cultural backgrounds. Secondly, and related to this, are issues around choice. As Kate notes, members are 'able to reject food that they don't want or can't use, or have enough of', but the choice of food available is still limited by what has been provided by the various sources. This is not a supermarket with heaving shelves of a plethora of goods. Likewise, there are issues over whether members should receive out-of-date and very close to date food, and if this is morally acceptable. This is often food which has been rejected by supermarkets maybe because it is slightly spoiling or the packaging damaged in some way. The idea of 'bad food for poor people', whilst the supermarket shopper receives 'perfect', fresh produce, does materially represent and reproduce inequalities at the micro level. Only those with adequate financial capital are able to access both unlimited choice but also food in its prime condition. More broadly, this links to critiques of charitable food models, regarding the depoliticising of food insecurity and the reproduction of neoliberal, pro-capitalist frameworks of 'Big Society' (Williams et al., 2016). From this stance, groups such as Coffee Club, and many other diverse provisioning organisations aimed at tackling social inequalities, are seen as filling the gap where the welfare state once was and should be. EXCERPT #PV6QZ6 p. 7 Connected to matters of sustainability, Coffee Club's diversion of surplus/waste food from large scale supermarkets raises similar critique. There is no denying that taking Tesco's waste off them, alongside that of the many other major supermarket players whose waste ends up on the Coffee Club table, solves a rather problematic landfill or anaerobic digestion issue for such businesses; not to mention saving them huge sums of money with regards transportation of waste, landfill tax and/or anaerobic digestion fees (see: Author et al., 2015). Thus, models such as Coffee Club can be perceived as a free solution to the waste problems of the capitalist food industry. At a smaller scale, there are also waste challenges regarding what happens to anything left over which cannot be donated elsewhere. Despite Coffee Club's best diversion and circulation efforts, leftover, surplus food, still ends up in the same large scale waste structures as it would if discarded at source. EXCERPT #9WSEPG p. 7 Within clothes swap troublesome materialities become apparent through issues of access. Firstly, most of the clothing available is only suitable for women size 8–16, as Rebecca notes: EXCERPT #UELSCW p. 7 Yes coats, shoes and accessories – also helps with the size things, so if people are large and haven't got many clothes in their size at the swap, they can also look at the accessories – scarves, gloves, bags, hats. EXCERPT #JFH2QV p. 7 Rebecca's recognises that clothes swap is in some way exclusionary, and does her best to solve this problem by ensuring that there is something there for everyone. However, this is clearly an issue of access. Linked to this, the majority of the clothing generally appeals to a younger age group, potentially excluding anyone older than say 35–40. With both case studies there is a requirement to have access to the internet to be involved, and also the means to travel to the group to take part. EXCERPT #VHJ7FY p. 7 One of the biggest access issues and inequalities is the gendering of EXCERPT #S4F9KM p. 7 clothes swap – an all-female event, aimed at women and involving women's clothing. This is also an issue for Coffee Club which, whilst open to all, is still predominantly attended by women. Again this links to debates around neo-liberal frameworks of 'Big Society', whereby volunteers, usually women, replace public services and welfare provision (Caplan, 2016). Yet, whilst the connections to broader reproductions of neoliberal models cannot be denied – both Coffee Club and clothes swap are organised by women and attended predominantly by women – at the micro-level it could be argued that again this is about ordinary forms of provision. Neither clothes swap nor Coffee Club define themselves as offering emergency or charitable forms of provision. Rather, they deploy every day, informal practices of sharing and circulating structured and organised in novel ways. As previous research has illustrated, such ordinary practices of reciprocity, exchange, and mutuality have always been part of the gendered division of labour, and can be very much embedded in women's social networks (Clarke, 2001; Pahl, 1984, Smith and Stennings, 2006). Given that recent statistics report that in 2016 UK women are still doing 60% more unpaid work than men (ONS, 2016), then it is no surprise that these ordinary practices, the spaces in which they take place, and the materials of provisioning they involve are gendered. In other words, the gendering of these diverse economies serves to reinforce their ordinary aspects, and in doing so moves beyond neo-liberal critique of the provisioning sector and into wider and longer standing debates around gender inequality, the division of labour and women's work. This essentially leads to further questions for research regarding: how diverse economies are gendered? How gender is reinforced and reproduced through the materialities and practices of such diverse spaces? And, how notions of CE/SE are likewise gendered in these spheres? DOCUMENT #XATD2A New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning SECTION #PTGSRA 6. Conclusion EXCERPT #8ESR65 p. 7 This article has focused upon the materialities of two distinct diverse provisioning economies to illuminate how ordinary practices of circularity and sharing are at work in these novel and new spaces. In doing so, it has illuminated that popular, contemporary notions of circular and shared economy are, and have always been, at play in informal and often hidden spaces of everyday work and sociality. The article has made three key contributions. Firstly, it has demonstrated how a focus on the materialities of diverse economies is a means to understand and make sense of them. Studying the 'blindingly obvious' (Miller, 2010: 51) stuff of provisioning illuminates how these diverse economies are 'made material': their practices, ambiguities and intimacies. This is in part through a follow-the-thing approach, but it also involves appreciating the agency of such materials and what they afford. EXCERPT #R88SPB p. 7 Secondly, and relatedly, this material focus highlights the ordinary practices of circulating and sharing taking place in new, novel and 'non-emergency' provisioning spaces and structures. Clothes swaps, food groups, time banks and 'pay as you feel' cafes (to name but a few) have replaced the jumble sales and 'bring and buys' of 30 years ago. Often organised through digital means and creating 'online communities', such diverse economies seemingly retain few features of age old modes of provision. Yet, whilst their structures may be different, as I have argued their practices are not. Such diverse economies involve reciprocity, exchange, barter, swapping and mutuality, all of which the previous works of Pahl (1984) and Clarke (2001), amongst others, confirm are not new, but are instead part of the ordinary work of everyday life, embedded in everyday social networks. Undoubtedly there are limitations to this article's arguments, not least that its two case studies only scratch the surface of those available. Yet these case studies raise broader questions about the scope of CE and SE. Utilising my own previous work (Gregson et al., 2015; Mylan et al., 2016) along with that of others (Hobson, 2016), this paper has brought to the fore the need to open up thinking about the spaces in which CE/SE operates, so that the realms of the domestic, the informal and the diverse are not overlooked. EXCERPT #SA2TAG p. 7 EXCERPT #554ZXN p. 8 EXCERPT #UFHH3S p. 8 EXCERPT #5XBNE9 p. 8 Indeed, such spaces have always involved these circular and shared forms of economic practice. Likewise, the extent to which CE/SE are interwoven is a further area of development. A nuanced approach to exploring CE/SE needs to consider how such concepts are not just displayed by various practices, or in particular spaces, but how they are socially and materially embedded in the choreographies of everyday life. EXCERPT #MJNYLK p. 8 This relates to the third key argument: that focusing on the materialities of provisioning reveals how they can be both beneficial and troublesome. The case studies have illustrated how the materials of provisioning are the means through which organisations tackle issues such as social exclusion, financial hardship and sustainable resource use. Their sharing and circulating ensures that users of both groups have access to food and clothing, and that waste is reduced. Moreover, I have demonstrated how such materials can become the conduits for the circulation of much more – emotions, advice, support, sociality; intangible aspects which are so often overlooked by standard definitions of CE/SE. In contrast, the article has highlighted how such materials can also be troublesome, unsettling the practices of circulating and sharing, and inadvertently reproducing inequalities such diverse economies wish to tackle. At a micro level this can be through their accessibility and suitability of provisioning materials. Yet, at a more macro level it can be through their reproduction of neoliberal, pro-capitalist frameworks of 'Big Society' and waste disposal, as well as long standing issues of gender inequality and the division of labour. These are barriers to how CE/SE operates in these diverse and generate economic spheres. This article can only offer a partial and provisional contribution to wider debates on diverse economies, alternative provisioning and the circular and shared economy. Yet, it has demonstrated the need for, and will hopefully initiate, further academic research on diverse economies and their intersections with the heterogeneous landscape of economic formations. ### 30. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "J4A6NB" ], "expand": false } ``` #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "WTJQJQ", "J46PZ3", "F6T6VP" ], "expand": false } ``` #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "EU4GY7" ], "expand": false } ``` #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "HYEWBE" ], "expand": false } ``` #### Tool call: `get_document` ```json { "id": "AVNZLE" } ``` #### Tool call: `get_document` ```json { "id": "BQ2W57" } ``` ### 31. Tool result: read PAPER EXCERPT #J4A6NB Document: #59QUM6 Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle Context: #59QUM6 Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle #5V87AY Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle #R4FPWC Implosion 3: Mainstream/alternative and the sustainability and ethics of divestment #J4A6NB excerpt However, most writing about 'the solidarity economy' is about practical projects, specifically their potential for social change and 'scaling up' their political organising into international networks (Miller, 2006), rather than theoretical analysis (Bauhardt, 2014: 62). However, some of its ideas, such as shared values, can still be applied to Freecycling consumption practices. For example, the idea of developing into a social movement was mentioned by one Freecycle group on their login webpage (see above), but it was rarely evident in online posts. The solidarity economy's principle of reciprocity across the community was also evident where people posted both 'Offered' and 'Wanted' items, thus both giving to and taking from their Freecycle group. Giving was also cast in a non-hierarchical way, as a sensible alternative to the rubbish bin, rather than a philanthropic or top-down gesture of charity to those less wealthy, again echoing ideas from the solidarity economy. However, because being active in Freecycling rarely builds 'social relationships', not least because of the relative anonymity of Internet interactions, Freecycling does not really fulfil that condition of 'the solidarity economy' ideal. ### 32. Tool result: read PAPER EXCERPT #WTJQJQ Document: #FHZZ6U Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore Context: #FHZZ6U Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore #9RHV7M 5. FREE(CYCLING) MARKETS: INTERVENTIONS IN MATERIAL(IST) CIRCULARITIES #MQYJLV 5.1 SHORTENING AND SUSTAINING MATERIAL CIRCULARITY LOOPS #WTJQJQ excerpt which is in line with sustainable materialism's privileging of a collective rather than an individualist politics (see Schlosberg and Coles 2019 ). This also resonates with Campbell-Johnston et al.'s (2020) argument that an item's sequential (re)use is not a given. Rather, (re)use is underpinned by relational labour bound up in what Hobson (2020) calls social circularities. For Teo, the 'meaningful relationships' that a non-monetary material exchange can foster among individuals are paramount, with the "free" in SRRFM denoting not just the free circulation of things but also skills and knowledge', especially those related to material resource conservation (e.g. location of repair clinics). PAPER EXCERPT #J46PZ3 Document: #FHZZ6U Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore Context: #FHZZ6U Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore #FRLSVA 1. INTRODUCTION #J46PZ3 excerpt 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). PAPER EXCERPT #F6T6VP Document: #FHZZ6U Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore Context: #FHZZ6U Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore #8BW5TM 7. CONCLUSION #F6T6VP excerpt Most market attendees partake in redirecting/reconfiguring linear material flows and subverting normative consumption patterns by driving 'new circulations' – rescuing, recirculating and ultimately reusing things, even if for a short period of time. Not unlike systems thinking that undergirds a circular logic, we have shown that 'energy' (i.e. volunteer, relational labour) as well as material inputs (i.e. things for recirculating, an available/accessible venue) are required for sustaining free(cycling) markets, and that this can only be accomplished as a community. Social relationalities, including collaborations among community groups are pivotal in lubricating alternative 'new circulations' that close material loops. ### 33. Tool result: read PAPER EXCERPT #EU4GY7 Document: #MBXQXR Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets Context: #MBXQXR Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets #3U9XEW Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets1 #DSNHBJ Unpacking Circulation #EU4GY7 excerpt In her influential article on ‘the global situation’, Anna Tsing directs our attention to the charisma of globalism, seductively engendering imaginations of ‘interconnection, travel, and sudden transformation’, but leaving much of the institutional and material foundations of a world of flows unexamined (2000: 330). An emphasis on the transience of circulation easily lends itself to ignoring infrastructure and imagining friction-free social, economic and political projects through the unleashed power of movement and flow. Tsing’s call to also scrutinize ‘hidden relations of production’ and ‘channel making’ in the context of globalization (2000: 337) is an important counterweight to this tendency, exemplified for example by attending to the material forms that allow the trafficking of things and people (Larkin 2013). Circulation is things in motion, but also the infrastructural framework facilitating, or obstructing that motion. ### 34. Tool result: read PAPER EXCERPT #HYEWBE Document: #PB2Z6X The Social Life of Things Context: #PB2Z6X The Social Life of Things #YP5HNF Introduction: commodities and the politics of value #W43P25 The spirit of the commodity #HYEWBE excerpt Gifts, and the spirit of reciprocity, sociability, and spontaneity in which they are typically exchanged, usually are starkly opposed to the profit-oriented, self-centered, and calculated spirit that fires the circulation of commodities. Further, where gifts link things to persons and embed the flow of things in the flow of social relations, commodities are held to represent the drive – largely free of moral or cultural constraints – of goods for one another, a drive mediated by ### 35. Tool result: get_document DOCUMENT #AVNZLE Title: Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing Outline: - 1 #S6NTVJ Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing - 1.1 #XWHMFG Key messages - 1.2 #QR437R Introduction - 1.3 #VB5EPZ Care-in-practice: resources, struggles and dilemmas - 1.4 #MS8ULE Method: a study of circular clothing consumption - 1.5 #TV3KCQ Results and analysis: care in performing circular clothing practices - 1.5.1 #VKQGEU Caring for clothes as a way of caring for the environment - 1.5.2 #XCGXLM Caring for clothes as a way of caring for social others - 1.5.3 #NCT78S Problems when caring for clothes and distant others - 1.5.4 #K3DUA4 Care struggles - 1.5.5 #QULU2L Care dilemmas - 1.6 #NBA5ZR Discussion and conclusion - 1.7 #NZ8767 Note - 1.8 #9AVBYM Funding - 1.9 #BZK4HJ Acknowledgements - 1.10 #23BHVY Conflict of interest - 1.11 #WMCSYX References ### 36. Tool result: get_document DOCUMENT #BQ2W57 Title: Circular Consumption Practices as Matters of Care Outline: - 1 #NLZXGJ Circular Consumption Practices as Matters of Care - 1.1 #QC3DNJ Abstract - 1.2 #88E4W4 Introduction - 1.3 #ULELYE Conceptualising Care in Circular Consumption - 1.4 #LT9CXA Reviewing the Literature on Circular Consumption - 1.5 #MVXSTF Introducing the Ethics of Care Perspective - 1.6 #DSCLGT Approaching Care in Terms of Matters of Care - 1.6.1 #MYMN4T Adopting a Thinking-with-Theory Approach - 1.7 #DLND9P Research Approach - 1.8 #Y7NGKA Empirical Materials - 1.9 #TPG39L Analysis and Interpretation - 1.10 #9VRA54 Findings - 1.10.1 #7Z2SWZ Care as Tinkering - 1.10.2 #SCP243 Care as Affective Practices - 1.10.3 #Z57K5N Care as Ethico-Political Action - 1.11 #F7FGPN Discussion and Conclusions - 1.12 #JF8LGL Declarations - 1.13 #YB7UEP References ### 37. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `write_note` ```json { "block_ids": [ "577FMZ", "TT4B8P", "4FP5K7", "M3VCHH", "HMDEDU", "4HW9DD", "7X9BV4", "A2APRY", "5YXGE6", "HM56MD", "RX9JDU", "PQV5PN", "Z4WUR2", "Y344XY", "AKL7LC", "NB8CR8", "APZSUS", "G9LP9W", "629UVN", "6SZJVB", "KXVZVK", "VCT37S", "NF4MTB", "VRN7A9", "MJNYLK" ], "text": "Synthesis for conclusion/introduction: Brīvbode is analytically valuable because it is plainly legible as circular economy infrastructure at the level of policy and material flow — textiles are a CE priority (#577FMZ), Latvia introduced mandatory textile collection in 2023 (#TT4B8P), and Brīvbode sustains reuse through a regular physical site (#4FP5K7). But the ethnography shows that what sustains the circulation is not throughput optimisation: it is plural moral economy (#M3VCHH), situational judgement about right circulation (#HMDEDU), valuation without price (#4HW9DD, #7X9BV4, #A2APRY), gendered care/consumption work (#5YXGE6, #HM56MD, #RX9JDU), relational witnessing (#PQV5PN), biographies/attachments such as Brīvbode as a 'purgatory for things' (#Z4WUR2), and extended networks like Aiga’s thirty trips and Madara routing her aunt’s objects (#Y344XY). Literature position: Hobson calls for attention to generative CE spaces beyond industrial systems (#AKL7LC, #NB8CR8); Hobson 2021 critiques CE’s passive/user-consumer and market-efficiency assumptions (#APZSUS, #G9LP9W); Welch et al. argue CE depends on uneven consumption work and must move beyond the household (#629UVN, #6SZJVB); Shove & Rinkinen argue CE strips objects out of social/material context and needs material culture/practice analysis (#KXVZVK, #VCT37S, #NF4MTB); Holmes shows circular/shared economies are embedded in ordinary practices, intimacies and troublesome materialities (#VRN7A9, #MJNYLK). Claim: Brīvbode’s illegibility to CE metrics is not a failure of measurement but the ethnographic object itself: a generative space where circulation is made possible through precisely those relations, frictions and ambiguities that throughput accounting abstracts away.", "title": "Brīvbode as an illegible/generative CE space" } ``` ### 38. Tool result: write_note NOTE SAVED #YH45SW IRI: https://sheaf.less.rest/YH45SW ### 39. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `tag_paragraphs` ```json { "blocks": [ "577FMZ", "7LMSFU", "JNSARN", "HZ8D53", "N6UNLT", "GUXEZX", "JM9L6Y", "NNZ5SG", "PEFVAC" ], "tags": [ "placeholder", "needs_revision", "fragment" ] } ``` ### 40. Tool result: tag_paragraphs PARAGRAPH TAGS ATTACHED Blocks: #577FMZ, #7LMSFU, #JNSARN, #HZ8D53, #N6UNLT, #GUXEZX, #JM9L6Y, #NNZ5SG, #PEFVAC Tags: placeholder, needs_revision, fragment Statements: 27