Brīvbode as illegible generative space — argument scaffold for conclusion
Core thesis-level argument to land in #M9WQLY Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / CONCLUSION #M9WQLY #M9WQLY CONCLUSION (and signposted in introduction near #BTDD45 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Introduction #ZF9EYF #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. , #577FMZ Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Introduction #ZF9EYF #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…] ): Brīvbode is a textbook CE initiative on paper (volunteer-run reuse, diverts textiles, even routes ~30% to formal collection #WW8YUW Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow #PBFQ5E #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. ), but ethnographically what makes it work is illegible to CE accounting. The illegibility is not a metrics gap to close; it is what generative spaces of circulation look like once ethnography rather than throughput accounting is describing them.
Five faces of illegibility, each with literature anchor and empirical hook in the draft:
Plural moral economy that bends — #HMDEDU Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / CONCLUSION #M9WQLY #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. , #M3VCHH Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations #A3X9XX #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. ; Wheeler & Glucksmann on Polanyi/Thompson #WJJY3D Household Recycling and Consumption Work #4LST57 / Moral economy revisited #DDQXJ2 #WJJY3D Polanyi's (1944, 1957) groundbreaking thesis refutes the separatist position between market and society and in so doing provides the building blocks of a coherent moral economy approach (Bolton and Laaser, 2013). Polanyi challenged the idea of the self-regulating market and instead argued that all economies are underpinned by social, political and moral values which enable them to function. Whilst the market tends towards the disembedding of the economy from social relations, there is a countermovement by the state which seeks to constrain the market and embed social and moral obligations within market relations. Polanyi's ideas inspired the 'new economic sociology' which sought to overcome the neglect of social, ethical and cultural factors in economic theory (Fourcade and Healy, 2007; Granovetter, 1985). Polanyi's argument that 'the human economy... is embedded and enmeshed in institutions, economic and noneconomic' led scholars to explore the shifting place of the economy in society and discover how economic processes are 'instituted at different times and places' (Polanyi, 1957: 7). #DRCXXB Household Recycling and Consumption Work #4LST57 / Moral economy revisited #DDQXJ2 #DRCXXB However, looking at state and institutional relationships only takes us so far and does not explore how communities and collective movements can resist marketisation of waste and together oppose unfair or destructive economic practices. E. P. Thompson's (1991) conception of moral economy is instructive in this respect. His examination of food riots in the eighteenth century revealed how communities opposed unfair prices of grain in defence of their 'traditional rights', using principles of the older 'paternalist model' to justify their objections to the encroaching free-market economy. Whilst Thompson was cautious about his conception of 'moral economy' being applied to different cases, his idea that people are the 'bearers of historical customs and moral evaluations of their community' adds a different layer to the analytical scaffold of moral economy (Bolton and Laaser, 2013: 513). At this layer, we seek to uncover where ideas about recycling emerge and the role that community and interest groups may play in promoting ideas about responsible waste management (e.g. environmental justice campaigners who oppose waste disposal/treatment facilities in their communities), as well as how communal legitimacy for particular policies is established. Taken together with the institutional understandings, we are able to uncover both how the organisation of the systems of recycling and the customs of those acting within them shape distinctive moral economies. ; Viesturs vs Rasa on charity #T6FW9N Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Quiet or Reflected Sustainability? #GTJY22 #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. .
Friction as constitutive, not residual — #RX9JDU Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Conclusion #75D5UH #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. ; Larsen reversal of economic logic #P26BPV Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store #SHZ6RT / Thrift in the thrift store #PUBDN9 #P26BPV The experience of working in the Community Thrift and being taught how to perform valuations showed how the dominant value that guides practices throughout the organisation is thrift. At every station along the trajectory, as well as in the larger structures of the organisation, being thrifty – i.e. using resources in a considered way and not being wasteful – is expressed through actions and words. From taking responsibility for the donations at the beginning of the trajectory to bundling office supplies or pricing bedding that accidentally enters the flow, the employees make the most of whatever they receive. Thrift is often at odds with pure economic rationality, since the investment of time involved in making objects valuable does not always transform into higher economic output. Being thrifty certainly means making the most of the donations, but not only in terms of economic gain. Making the best use of the donations includes bundling objects, reducing prices, looking things up, testing, cleaning and sorting. Thrift as a value in the organisation can perhaps be understood as what Graeber describes as an 'infravalue'. 26 Being thrifty is not an end in itself but a means to obtain other values. By being thrifty, the Community Thrift is able to create economic, social and emotional value. Thrift has mainly been treated as a feature of consumption and the household; 27 it is closely associated with saving and even, as Podkalicka and Potts point out, with 'conspicuous conservation'. 28 As Miller describes it, thrift is an attempt to stop resources flowing out of the household. In the context of the thrift store, however, thrift is mainly a way of moving things along. , #7EJUMJ Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store #SHZ6RT / KEYWORDS #NJEST3 #7EJUMJ This article documents the workings of a contemporary second-hand thrift store in California. It offers descriptions of the actions, considerations and circumstances of performing valuations in the context of a thrift store. The ethnographic notes were collected during six months of fieldwork and subsequent returns, and present accounts of the practices, values and people involved in turning the remainders of consumption into cultural commodities. In the process stories are used to elucidate the interwoven relations between the things, the people and the community. The primary objective of this article is to give a detailed view of the everyday activities of a thrift store. As such it offers a view of contemporary practices to supplement historical accounts. Therefore the ethnographic details are only contextualised towards the end of the article to initiate an analytical understanding of valuation practices. Taking Mary Douglas' statement on dirt as a point of departure, 3 the article shows how values are temporarily fixed in the objects in order to allow them to re-enter the second-hand economies. The process of categorisation of the objects constitutes sense-making practices that allow cultural value to be attached to the objects. The process of transforming discards creates a nexus between gift and market exchange and the valuations manifest a number of values that collectively bring second-hand objects to market. These involve economic factors and knowledge of the market as well as social value for the community and emotional value attached to the process of donating. Identifying categorisation as pivotal in bringing second-hand objects to market, the article shows how valuation practices are constantly adapted to the realities of disorder and how things, no matter how rigorous the practice, continue to fall through the gaps. ; sorting on the spot #SUZYLN Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow #PBFQ5E #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. .
Gendered, self-imposed, care-laden labour — #5YXGE6 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Conclusion #75D5UH #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. , #HM56MD Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Conclusion #75D5UH #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. ; Hobson et al. 2021, Mesiranta et al., Tölg & Fuentes ( #ZDP99W Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing #AVNZLE / Introduction #QR437R #ZDP99W In recent years, the circular economy has attracted considerable scholarly and societal attention (Merli et al, 2018; Hobson, 2020). Circularity advocates – such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2013) – and policy documents – such as the European Commission (2020) – argue for the transition to a more circular and therefore also a more materially efficient economy (Ortega Alvarado et al, 2021). The circular economy programme sets out to break with the take-make-dispose linear economy, instead establishing a circular system in which materials are kept in circulation through ‘closed’ production and consumption loops (Hobson, 2016; Mylan et al, 2016). While much of the circular economy research focuses on production and recycling processes, typically geared towards the electronics, metal and waste management industries (Ghisellini et al, 2016; Merli et al, 2018), the role of consumers in making the circular economy possible is beginning to be acknowledged (Hobson et al, 2021). ), Bankovska, Miller #2RA8WL Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Consumption Work #23NMLX #2RA8WL The thesis also attends to the gendered distribution of this work. Ethnographic research has demonstrated that consumption is often organised around care for others, and that women often function as moral agents in household consumption, regulating what goes in and out of households (Miller, 1998, Reno, 2016). Shopping and consumption practices can be seen as acts of care, where people choose items with loved ones in mind, reflecting their role in family and social networks. .
Biographical/relational attachments routing things — Viesturs’s “purgatory for things” #Z4WUR2 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / What People Find Here: Plural Meanings of Acquisition #W2WRDC #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. ; Kopytoff/Appadurai biographies; Bohlin “growing in motion” #Y6XUMS Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets #MBXQXR / Introduction #TY8WTD #Y6XUMS Commercial markets 2 for retro-, vintage and second-hand objects have undergone a dramatic expansion in the last decade across the globe (Franklin 2011: 157). Factors contributing to this expansion have been described in the introduction as well as in some of the contributions to this thematic issue (notably Fischer). In this article we suggest that a significant aspect of the new importance of second-hand and reuse concerns the meaningfulness of circulation in social life. Revisiting the long history within social anthropology of studying the mutual entanglement of material objects and human subjects, we explore circulation as an analytical tool. Circulation does things to people and objects, particularly within the field of second-hand, and we suggest that it can be seen as a culturally generative force that reconfigures objects into objects-in-motion, enabling particular forms of subjectivity. Indeed, circulation seems to be a defining aspect of second-hand objects, distinguishing them from other classic categories of objects in anthropological thinking about person-thing relationships, such as gifts, commodities, sacrifices or art objects. We hope to show that classic anthropological insights, drawn from ethnographic fieldwork there and then, married with recent anthropological contributions on people-thing relationships, have much to offer when making sense of the socio-economic significance of circulation here and now. We are intrigued by how recent writing on the concept of growing, as distinct from making (Ingold & Hallam 2014), can elucidate how circulation transforms things in motion within second-hand worlds. Developing the idea that objects have cultural biographies (Appadurai 1986; Kopytoff 1986), we propose a theoretical perspective that sees the circulation of used and second-hand things as involving a form of growth, akin to that of a living organism, in that it results from the interaction between qualities and forces both internal and external to the object. Doing this allows a view of the circulating objects not merely as things that events happen to, but as having agential capacities (cf. Gell 1998), actively contributing to shaping their fate. / “serial care” #AR6HQ2 ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets #ZJUEY4 / Introduction #E744H2 #AR6HQ2 Watson 2012; Norris 2012). Rather, using a Swedish case study, this article focuses on the consumer end of such practices, exploring how norms regarding the virtue of reuse intersect with how people relate to and handle things that they acquire from second-hand markets. More precisely, it focuses on attitudes and practices related to a range of second-hand activities, ranging from acquisition of pre-owned objects from flea markets, charity- and vintage shops, including online second-hand markets, to living with and keeping such objects in the home, to passing them on to others through various reuse channels. Bringing together insights from anthropological fieldwork in locations related to these different practices, this article explores the how people express and perform their relationships to objects that have avoided becoming waste, instead beginning new life cycles with new owners. It suggests that buying, using and passing on second-hand things involves a particular form of dispersed, or 'serial' care for the objects as things-in-motion (Appadurai 1986), which will be outlined below. At the same time, such practices allow possibilities for enterprising the self-as-reuser, to paraphrase waste scholar Gay Hawkins's notion of 'self as recycler', in other words they help produce a particular kind of person that enjoys the status of being responsible and ethically conscious (2006: 95; see also Alexander & Reno 2012: 2). A significant part of such reuse subjectivity seems to be the capacity to form close bonds with, and care for objects, but also to carefully and responsibly let .
Quiet sustainability as rule not exception — #P6X2DJ Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Quiet or Reflected Sustainability? #GTJY22 #P6X2DJ Also, as I argue, most participants come to Brīvbode for practical and social reasons instead of self-professed environmental conviction. This resonates with Smith and Jehlička’s (2013) concept of quiet sustainability, developed through their research on Czech urban gardeners: sustainable practices that can be widespread and effective but are not articulated in terms of sustainability by their practitioners. Smith and Jehlička contend that quiet sustainability is defined by practices “that result in beneficial environmental or social outcomes, that do not relate directly or indirectly to market transactions, and that are not represented by the practitioners as relating directly to environmental or sustainability goals. Cultures of sharing, repairing, gifting and bartering characterise quiet sustainability” (2013: 155). Latvia provides a productive context for this concept – several participants trace their orientations towards reuse and frugality to generational experience rather than sustainability aspiration. [..] , #M9983A Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Quiet or Reflected Sustainability? #GTJY22 #M9983A Rasa answers similarly when I enquire about the environmental and sustainability aspects of Brīvbode: “Everything else is so intense… It has remained somehow, in a way, a little secondary." While the sustainability framing remains present – and is foregrounded e.g. when writing project funding applications or designing info materials – it does not need to be actively held by every practitioner in every performance. For both Viesturs and Rasa philosophical meaning-making has receded. This is what Smith and Jehlička (2013) describe as quiet sustainability: practices that produce sustainable outcomes without requiring their practitioners to hold or articulate sustainability as a motivation. , #4V448P Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Conclusion: Holding Together Incompatible Orientations #A3X9XX #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. , #VFPYU2 Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Quiet or Reflected Sustainability? #GTJY22 #VFPYU2 The “activists” are part of the visitors, yet a large part do not frame their participation in Brīvbode primarily in environmental terms: they come because they have things to give away, because they sometimes find things they need. Their practices have sustainable dimensions that they do not necessarily name or claim. ; Smith & Jehlička.
CE-critique scaffolding (why CE structurally cannot register the above):
Hobson “limits of the loops” — CE focused on products/markets, user-consumer collapsed into prices/efficiencies #BKS58J The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy #UMYA27 / The user-consumer in Circular Economy: beyond competitive prices and increased efficiencies #XK6L5Q #BKS58J 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.’ #7QG5FA The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy #UMYA27 / The user-consumer in Circular Economy: beyond competitive prices and increased efficiencies #XK6L5Q #7QG5FA 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. #55RLJA The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy #UMYA27 / The user-consumer in Circular Economy: beyond competitive prices and increased efficiencies #XK6L5Q #55RLJA 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). .
Shove & Rinkinen — CE strips socio-historical context #NF4MTB Material culture and the circular economy #R69WZQ / 4. Discussion #FAPRPA #NF4MTB 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. ; avoids constitution of need #RP8YNG Material culture and the circular economy #R69WZQ / 4. Discussion #FAPRPA #RP8YNG 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 .
McLaren & Niskanen — CE as depoliticising strategy / empty signifier #7JC49A The Political Economy of Circular Economies: Lessons from Future Repair Scenario Deliberations in Sweden #LB5ACW / Theory: Previous Research on the Political Economy of Repair and Circular Economies #2WQH2C #7JC49A Previous research has recognised this depoliticised and technocratic character of CE [5, 8, 33]. Valenzuela and Böhm [23] interpret CE as a de-politicising strategy which re-organises and legitimises the continuation of an unsustainable capitalism, however under the guise of a “political economy of sustainability”. Genovese and Pansera [5] highlight that the dominant technocratic and eco-modernist representation of CE is not entirely hegemonic, with a state-directed “industrial ecology” framing significant in China’s state capitalist economy. Other scholars highlight the potential for contestation over the political economy of CE arising in community-based expressions of circularity or discourses of sufficiency and degrowth [e.g. 30]. This implies less focus on “how we produce” and more on “why or what we produce” [5, p.13]. CE can on the one hand “obfuscate...the continuity of capitalist interests”, but on the other hand, “‘circular’ values can be harnessed by local inhabitants to support their efforts” and lead to a “more ‘embedded’ and diverse urban economy” [34, p.154]. The shapes of CE and repair depend on how they are embedded in political and economic structures. #ZRQ2XF The Political Economy of Circular Economies: Lessons from Future Repair Scenario Deliberations in Sweden #LB5ACW / Concluding Discussion #EF8QKC #ZRQ2XF The side-lining of challenging, subaltern views in these workshop discussions would also seem to confirm how the mainstream CE discourse can act as a powerful empty signifier [8, 23], convening different actors with diverse expectations of future strategies under a common umbrella. Not only does this ambiguity defer possible conflicts, it also means that CE acts as a label for business strategies and policy interventions which do more to protect the functioning of a specific form of neoliberal capitalism than they do to deliver sustainability. While the stakeholder discussions involved narratives in which increased repair is understood to be beneficial for the environment, consumers, workers, and corporations, such a win-win situation is far from certain. Such claims, made by actors such as the European Commission, that “[A] shared vision of the circular economy can only boost ongoing efforts to modernise the EU industrial base to ensure its global competitive edge and preserve and restore the EU’s natural capital” [78, p.11, emphasis added] are exposed as rhetorical efforts to avoid examining the continuing conflicts between global market capitalism and sustainability. In this analysis, the tools and market-based mechanisms of circular modernism advocated by Sweden and the EU seem unlikely to deliver the systemic change anticipated, and the depoliticising effects of Panglossian CE policy claims distract from very real tensions and conflicts that will need to be managed. .
Welch/Wieser/Holmes/Wheeler/Hobson — consumption work underplayed in CE #629UVN Consumption Work in the circular economy: A research agenda. #NUEUVY / ABSTRACT #VCKC56 #629UVN 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. .
Ethnography-as-instrument scaffolding (why ethnography registers what CE can’t):
Isenhour & Reno — ethnographies question novelty/efficacy of CE concept #G4L34C On Materiality and Meaning: Ethnographic Engagements with Reuse, Repair & Care #CUWPC9 / Introduction: Reuse & Repair in the Age of Ecological Crises and Circular Economy #NDV2YR #G4L34C The accelerated interest in reuse, as circular economic ideologies are mainstreamed among policy makers, industry and citizens, deserves renewed attention at this moment when long-standing reuse and repair practices are increasingly being rationalized, formalized and institutionalized. The contributors to this special issue engage with those who tinker, scavenge, save, buy used and give away to examine these practices in social context, lived experience and as embedded within larger political and economic structures of capitalist accumulation and abandonment. Our ethnographic approach, based on qualitative engagement, enables a rich examination of meaning and experience, but also leads us to question how these practices are linked to and arise from the conditions of modernity. While the recent focus on circular economy certainly emerges from crises of overproduction, economic inefficiencies and growing concerns about climatic change and resource depletion—ethnographic engagements with waste, repair and reuse raise questions about the novelty and efficacy of the circular economy concept. Indeed, numerous ethnographies have already illustrated the deeply relational, situated and cultural entanglements implied in the determination of 'resource' 'value' and 'waste' among a wide variety of communities for whom the concept of circular economy is considered common sense. From ethnographies featuring innovative reuse among resource-strapped communities (Nguyen, 2016) and garbage pickers on the margins of Brazilian society (Millar, 2018) to sanitary workers in New York City (Nagle, 2014), or among connoisseurs of thrift shops and vintage goods (Appelgren and Bohlin, 2015; Isenhour, 2012), these studies have long demonstrated the not-so-novel concept of informal circular economies in action. ; reuse as object of liberal eco-governance #ZUBQUE On Materiality and Meaning: Ethnographic Engagements with Reuse, Repair & Care #CUWPC9 / Introduction: Reuse & Repair in the Age of Ecological Crises and Circular Economy #NDV2YR #ZUBQUE structures from the 'ruins of modernity' (2018: 5). In this collection, contributors illustrate that reuse involves deliberate acts of revaluation and care which recall and build upon embedded meaning, affect, social histories and the properties of materials. However, we also suggest here, that these acts do not necessarily challenge paradigms nor offer alternatives—in all cases. If reuse and repair are familiar, even quotidian practices, they have also gained currency as the object and objective of new mutations in liberal eco-governance. Characteristic in this regard is the international focus on circular economies, which endeavor to reimagine discarded goods as a resource rather than a market externality or a pollutant, thereby contributing to resource conservation, climate change mitigation and environmental protection in one fell swoop (Velis, 2015; Webster, 2015). .
Bohlin & Appelgren “Harnessing the Unruly” — anthropologist’s contribution as recontextualising/refusing typologies #RD4TYV Harnessing the Unruly- Anthropological Contributions in Applied Reuse Projects #B3CVMW / Introduction #QFKJQY #RD4TYV to ‘throw’ the problems differently. Through being ‘unruly’ – probing deeper into seemingly self-evident questions, recontextualising issues, and making associations between domains – we tried to encourage critical thinking and reflection in order to formulate alternative understandings of how the challenges could be met. #88LYAE Harnessing the Unruly- Anthropological Contributions in Applied Reuse Projects #B3CVMW / Room for unruliness #HGRNAV #88LYAE Reflecting on the different collaborations with non-academic partners that we have undertaken, both as part of Re:heritage and in the various applied projects, certain patterns emerge. Put simply, the level of success of a project seems to depend on two interrelated issues: first, whether there are good and trusting relationships between the collaborating partners; and second, whether the anthropologists are given room to be “unruly” (and of course, that partners regard this unruliness as beneficial). The two are intimately connected. As is clear from the above discussion, what is referred to here is not unruliness or disruption in a social sense as in being rude or impertinent, but rather in terms of cognitive strategies and ideas. Even so, to articulate an alternative way of conceptualising something in a meeting, or to insist on abandoning an established typology or way of classifying phenomena, might not work very well unless good relations have been established. .
Berry & Isenhour — Maussian inheritance, used goods linked to social ties more than financial gain #Z8VAMH “Still good life”: On the value of reuse and distributive labor in “depleted” rural Maine #3F4AVR / Background and literature review: Meaning, motive, and value in reuse #HZNXSR #Z8VAMH Anthropologists, geographers, and sociologists have long studied exchanges of previously owned goods, even if not always referred to as reuse or secondhand. Some of the most foundational writings on the topic clearly demonstrate the highly social and productive nature of previously owned goods, which are often more closely linked to the creation of social ties—advantage, alliance, or reciprocal support—than they are to financial gain or the object of exchange itself (e.g., Appadurai 1988; Malinowski 1922; Mauss 1925). Contemporary studies of secondhand exchange clearly echo these themes (e.g., Appelgren and Bohlin 2015; Halvorsen 2012; Isenhour and Reno 2019) but are shaped by a much different context, one in which decades of mass production, floods of cheap imports, and the sheer abundance of surplus items have given rise to new epistemological markers. Though reuse was once the global norm, its redefinition in opposition to new product consumption in affluent contexts and in relation to more recent concerns about sustainability has encouraged a more recent field of study focused specifically on reuse markets (Saunders 2016). .
Holmes “New spaces, ordinary practices” — generative spaces are extraordinary because they host ordinary self-provisioning practices #56AZCA New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning #XATD2A / 2.2. Circular economy and sharing economy #38LM6C #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. #3CMBV5 New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning #XATD2A / 2.2. Circular economy and sharing economy #38LM6C #3CMBV5 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'. .
Negative-space formulation:
Not a charity (organisers refuse, cf Widlok give-boxes #UFJ4GC Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Not a Charity: The Moral Economy of Exchange #PZH45P #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. ).
Not a market (no price; valuation is care-work in the open #A2APRY Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Priceless Valuation: Sorting, Curation, and Care #SLFJ9K #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. ).
Not a bin (curates against waste; bin function outsourced to textile collection #WW8YUW Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Where It Begins: The Site as Active Flow #PBFQ5E #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. ).
Not a CE node (refuses optimisation in practice; sorting “on the spot,” 30 trips, wire offcuts). Positive content of the negative space = irreducibly anthropological: plurality, friction, attachment, gendered care, biographical witnessing.
Key rhetorical caution: do NOT close on “CE needs better indicators.” The stronger move is that making Brīvbode legible to CE in CE’s terms would destroy what is being supported. Modify #RX9JDU Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / Conclusion #75D5UH #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. ’s “not depend on its invisibility” to acknowledge this. Suggested final framing: a CE policy that wanted to support (not capture) such spaces would have to underwrite a labour and sociality whose value it cannot price.
Replace/absorb the loose fragments #JM9L6Y Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / CONCLUSION #M9WQLY #JM9L6Y improvised solution that does not presuppose a lot of resources… except sufficiency lifestyle? , #NNZ5SG Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / CONCLUSION #M9WQLY #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… , #PEFVAC Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / CONCLUSION #M9WQLY #PEFVAC Results, relevance, contribution , #9DTFUU Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / CONCLUSION #M9WQLY #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? into a single 1.5–2 page subsection in #M9WQLY Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia #4V8VH7 / CONCLUSION #M9WQLY #M9WQLY CONCLUSION titled e.g. “Brīvbode as a Generative Space: Why It Is Illegible to Circular Economy Accounting.”