# Assistant conversation W9NXQQ

- Canonical URL: <https://sheaf.less.rest/W9NXQQ>
- Resource IRI: <https://sheaf.less.rest/W9NXQQ>
- Type: assistant conversation
- Mode: research

## Transcript

### 1. User

can you read the 'empirical' chapters 4 and 5 of the thesis draft (#FYG32U) with an eye towards connecting to the theoretical concepts and the literature, both in terms of concrete citations but also thinking about the flow of the chapters and their outlines like maybe some sections or paragraphs could be reordered or rearranged to make the chapters more cohesive etc

### 2. Assistant tool calls

#### Tool call: `get_document`

```json
{
  "id": "FYG32U"
}
```

### 3. Tool result: get_document

THESIS #FYG32U
Title: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia

Outline:
  - 1 #SVS6HK Introduction
    - 1.1 #QXGS6P Policies
    - 1.2 #L2U838 Latvian context and background
    - 1.3 #PESH7N Research questions
    - 1.4 #AKBRP4 A note on terms
    - 1.5 #CHZ8HG The structure of the thesis
  - 2 #W8HHQV Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework
    - 2.1 #L2J4AM Theories of Practice
    - 2.2 #3DTHL8 Theories of Practice to Study Alternative Practices?
    - 2.3 #UF33B6 Consumption practices
    - 2.4 #LMKLTZ Consumption Work
    - 2.5 #Q3A3ZZ Conclusion
  - 3 #YNEV47 Research methodology: In The Field To Freecycle
    - 3.1 #V98SCK The site
    - 3.2 #L5LL6E Setting the scene: A day in Brīvbode
    - 3.3 #54NUTA Ethnography of Practice
    - 3.4 #LEHJ6B Participant observation
    - 3.5 #KVQFHZ Interviews
    - 3.6 #PNY46U Data analysis
    - 3.7 #9RFZZ6 Research ethics
  - 4 #3X7JKL The circulation of things and things that sustain it
    - 4.1 #M45HLW Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home
    - 4.2 #WY6KPH Managing the flow on site
      - 4.2.1 #C2AQ4D Material elements in Brīvbode: the physical site and infrastructure
      - 4.2.2 #FUQJQ5 Circulation norms and competencies
      - 4.2.3 #QLVPVE Meanings: the moral economy of exchange
    - 4.3 #V753D5 Non-monetary exchange and attachment: competencies of letting go
    - 4.4 #Z7Y86N Plural meanings of acquisition that sustain participation in Brīvbode
    - 4.5 #6535KC Quiet or reflected sustainability?
    - 4.6 #QS26PQ Conclusion
  - 5 #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption
    - 5.1 #KWZ8DM Volunteer labour and sufficiency lifestyle
    - 5.2 #L5PE5X Valuation work without the context of price
    - 5.3 #A43655 Modal labour across socioeconomic modes
    - 5.4 #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work
      - 5.4.1 #GGGPNV Conclusion
  - 6 #P4YU8Y CONCLUSION
  - 7 #W4BGDH SUMMARY
  - 8 #BA7Z5L LIST OF SOURCES
  - 9 #XR3UUN KOKKUVÕTE

### 4. Assistant tool calls

#### Tool call: `read`

```json
{
  "blocks": [
    "WG8SNC"
  ],
  "expand": true
}
```

### 5. Assistant

I’ll read Chapters 4 and 5 first, then dip back into the theory chapter and literature corpus for citation anchors.

#### Tool call: `read`

```json
{
  "blocks": [
    "3X7JKL"
  ],
  "expand": true
}
```

#### Tool call: `read`

```json
{
  "blocks": [
    "F2943E"
  ],
  "expand": true
}
```

#### Tool call: `read`

```json
{
  "blocks": [
    "W8HHQV"
  ],
  "expand": true
}
```

#### Tool call: `list_documents`

```json
{}
```

### 6. Tool result: read

THESIS #FYG32U
Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia

SECTION #3X7JKL The circulation of things and things that sustain it

PARAGRAPH #E3QN63
  This chapter examines freecycling practice and how it is constituted by its physical venue and the materials flowing through it, the meanings that recruit and retain participants and the competencies that order the exchange processes in Brīvbode. Throughout the chapter I move between analysis of freecycling as practice-entity and the level of individual performances of freecycling as performed, especially attending to moments of friction and tension where the two pull against each other.

PARAGRAPH #QZ8Q4K
  The chapter follows the trajectory of things moving through Brīvbode. It begins with the incoming flow: how and in what cases people divest from their households, how meanings shape what arrives, and how Brīvbode is positioned among other possible divestment routes. It turns to the site itself and the material and infrastructural elements that sustain the practice, and how overflow is managed, including competencies of handling norms on the site. From there it turns to the plurality of meanings sustaining acquisition: how participants experience Brīvbode as useful for acquisition and how the non-monetary context shapes the giving and taking. The chapter closes with a consideration of participant orientation towards freecycling as a sustainability practice.

SECTION #M45HLW Incoming Flow: Divestment From Home

PARAGRAPH #GXDTQG
  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.

PARAGRAPH #S5FWGM
  Noting how meanings migrate across practices, Shove et al. (2012) mention how thrift, for example, is no longer expressed through darning socks at home – now a rather rare practice – but has moved, as Gregson (2007) shows, into methods and styles of disposal and divestment. Divesting responsibly has become one of the ways people sustain and recreate identity in relation to their things.

PARAGRAPH #BGYXVM
  The ideal encouraged by the organisers in Brīvbode is for participants to both give and take, yet the two roles do not always recruit the same carriers or sustain participation through the same meanings. Giving in Brīvbode is typically more structured by the motives of givers rather than by the needs of the receivers. Giving contributes to a stock of the swapshop and is shaped by the givers’ assessments of their sense of responsibility toward still-usable objects (too good to throw away), hopes for things finding new trajectories with other carriers, and their capacity to manage the work of getting rid of things well. The practice is donor-driven, and things arriving reflect more the rhythms and pressures of household life, and coordination with receivers’ needs is only indirect.

PARAGRAPH #FN9Y53
  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.

PARAGRAPH #FPHE4J
  Moving home, renovation, seasonal clearing, and sorting through a deceased relative’s belongings generate larger pulses of divestment. Participants described sorting through an entire previous owner’s life when buying a flat, routing things to Brīvbode and to friends when downsizing, helping relatives to divest after moving home.

PARAGRAPH #AZ2L4J
  The size of the home is a very constitutive material element for divestment as smaller living spaces generate a more immediate need to move things out in order to fulfill, for example, the ideal of an uncluttered home – this requires both strong competency for managing household material streams and established divestment routes for what must leave. Brīvbode functions as one such route.

PARAGRAPH #LGE48Z
  The ideal of a decluttered home functions both as cultural script and as embodied relief. Gundega puts on tidying consultant TV shows when she sorts at home, though the volume of advice tends to produce anxiety rather than clarity – no one person can remember it all. Viesturs is more pragmatic about decluttering methods: "I sense there are all sorts of methods and things, but it all seems like a luxury problem to me. Although maybe we should promote something like that – users of those methods would definitely supply us with better quality content."

PARAGRAPH #9XUQEC
  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.

PARAGRAPH #WWSZA8
  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.

PARAGRAPH #QPZXSP
  In absence of a specific receiver,

PARAGRAPH #LHMEDR
  while trying to negotiate the appropriate value and quality standards for the items circulated, givers construct a figure of a receiver, a meaning which shapes the practice from the giving side. Aiga describes her hope that a homeless person from the neighbourhoods of Ķengarags or Purvciems, someone in genuine need would use what she brings. This imagery expands what counts as worth passing on: objects that might be marginal by taste standards become appropriate if genuine need is the criterion, and the threshold for what counts as good enough shifts accordingly.

PARAGRAPH #R6NNGM
  The threshold of acceptability in Brīvbode is negotiated situationally, and this uncertainty can become a source of tension. Aiga described how she continues wearing clothing that is slightly pilled and normally uses dry food items past their expiry date – her own standards of what remains usable are linked to the meaning of genuine need but she cannot know in advance whether the items she brings to Brīvbode will be acknowledged as suitable. After receiving comments once about the quality of something she brought to Brīvbode, she prefers to not linger and leave her things quickly. The imagined receiver who accepts everything gives way to the real social encounter where standards are negotiated by someone else.

PARAGRAPH #R7549E
  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.

PARAGRAPH #PUVY95
  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.

PARAGRAPH #GGRHDF
  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.

PARAGRAPH #QDFKGX
  Yet unpredictability of supply works both ways – e.g. the same giver who took extra effort to send Brīvbode a parcel with stained old plates that raised volunteer questions about the balance of invested energy for handling it, divested a bag full of colourful folk-style knitted mittens another time – laid out on the table, those attracted many visitors’ attention with shared beauty. This uncertainty of supply is itself part of what sustains participant engagement with the practice through meanings of “serendipity” and magic moments of unexpected “good catch”.

PARAGRAPH #YEPTVU
  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.

PARAGRAPH #QT3B9B
  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.

SECTION #WY6KPH Managing the flow on site

PARAGRAPH #ALYNWW
  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."

PARAGRAPH #2YWFSM
  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.

PARAGRAPH #TVPES3
  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.

SECTION #C2AQ4D Material elements in Brīvbode: the physical site and infrastructure

PARAGRAPH #Z48STM
  Physical instead of virtual co-presence shapes the quality of encounters between people and objects. As Tan and Yeoh  (2024), writing about freecycling markets in Singapore, observe, “relational-material exchanges play out better as an embodied co-presence with others/things” – objects can be handled, tried on and assessed, and an item of decent quality will eventually find a taker.

PARAGRAPH #YLHWNT
  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.

PARAGRAPH #T7BS4V
  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.

PARAGRAPH #PU3CKA
  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.

PARAGRAPH #HZZ52R
  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.

PARAGRAPH #EP6U2C
  The physical experience of overflow is a constant of volunteering, and bags often arrive faster than they can be processed. Often my task during shifts was to sort and put out children’s items. The boxes were already full, with piles forming, when I asked Rasa: 'Don't you feel like the things are just pouring down on you?' 'Yes, that's why I no longer have any tolerance for things. I realise I feel relief that these clothes are dirty, because there simply isn't any more space."

PARAGRAPH #AUZKM4
  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.

PARAGRAPH #DZ72UL
  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.

PARAGRAPH #BW6UMW
  The things are made visible by being put in the shop. It makes the material overflow more visible – there is no “away” to throw your things.

SECTION #FUQJQ5 Circulation norms and competencies

PARAGRAPH #C6YRCL
  The material composition of Brīvbode reflects the gendered organisation of (clothing) consumption more broadly. The majority of items circulating through the freeshop are women’s and children’s clothing – a pattern that mirrors the more feminised character of household consumption management. As noted in the methodology chapter, men do participate in Brīvbode, but on a lesser scale and with different practice career tendencies – while men’s clothing is sought after, they also look for books to circulate in second hand markets, CD’s, electronics.

PARAGRAPH #WVZQRH
  The gendered asymmetry extends to the competencies required to manage the space. Viesturs described his initial challenge of developing a workable system for sorting women’s clothing after he started volunteering: "Well, f*ck, look, where do I put it. Trying to systematize women’s clothing, it’s like a tree with many branches." The competence of sorting – especially women’s clothing as in this case – is not self-evident as the proliferation of categories resists simple organisation and has to be worked out through practice.

PARAGRAPH #LXRLTL
  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.

PARAGRAPH #QY9B8B
  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.

PARAGRAPH #9X74TE
  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.

PARAGRAPH #WUN97C
  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.

PARAGRAPH #US7AXR
  A stronger boundary emerges in relation to certain categories of items, such as medicine. In one instance, a regular visitor brought various medications, explaining their uses to the day manager. While the items were initially placed on the table for taking, a while later another worker quietly removed them, remarking to me, “I don’t think I support this.” The removal was not communicated directly to the donor, suggesting a reluctance to enforce the norm explicitly. Instead of a formal refusal, workers might suggest that perhaps the giver has not noticed the defects, but items could be washed and brought back or simply delay decisions until the giver is no longer present.

PARAGRAPH #ZC2Z2F
  "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." 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 vēlme, ka viss ir bez maksas, tagad ņemam, ņemam, ņemam. Man tas nospēlē kaut kā tieši otrādāk." "Es to uztveru kā apmaiņu. To vārdu 'brīvu' kaut kā izslēdzu... Sākumā tas tā bišķiņ mulsināja, ka esmu kā apzagusies." This is competency acquisition: Madara is learning how to understand and inhabit the value regime of Brīvbode, and she narrates the process explicitly.

PARAGRAPH #JXSMQW
  Competencies of Circulation

PARAGRAPH #YNMVCK
  The competencies associated with freecycling are not skills in the most traditional sense – freecycling does not require years of training. They are largely social and evaluatiove: knowing how to read quality, when to come –

PARAGRAPH #D33QL7
  No studentes lauka darba: “Rasa ir visuztrenētākā acs uz mantu kvalitāti; arī izvēloties mantas – visbiežāk apģērbu – ir konkrēti kritēriji, kam sekot, piemēram materiāla biezums vai veids (vilna, kašmirs u.c.). Īsāk sakot – kas ir dabai draudzīgāks, ekoloģiskāks un ilgmūžīgāks.”

PARAGRAPH #B66BK3
  On the acquisition side, competency is equally real: knowing when to come, how to navigate the space, how to read what is new. Agate has mapped the visitor typology and times her arrivals strategically. Finding things in Brīvbode rewards the person who comes regularly, builds familiarity with the stock, and returns when something new has arrived. Repeated visiting. Marta describes starting from the first room and returning when there is already something new.

PARAGRAPH #VG295X
  Cleaning and preparing: things brought to Brīvbode are expected to be clean and in reasonable condition. This means washing, checking for stains, sometimes minor repair. Sometimes people don’t wash – e.g. Marija expects the recipient to do it. Anna mentions she never divests anything that has been repaired.

PARAGRAPH #9LRKLZ
  Sorting and evaluating: deciding what to bring requires going through possessions, assessing condition, quality, suitability.

PARAGRAPH #GWTLZ7
  Material literacy – knowing what wool or silk feels like (often with composition labels missing), recognizing a well-made garment, spotting a hidden stain.

PARAGRAPH #JH9JK9
  Skill evaluation things – Laura describes herself as a talented secondhand user who checks everything carefully – but she also has taken things in Brīvbode that have turned out broken later.

PARAGRAPH #UBWP9G
  Knowing what you need and what you already have. Zane's phone list of things she is looking for, her stylist consultations as an investment in knowing her own preferences – this is the work of self-knowledge in service of not acquiring wrongly. Without it, acquisition becomes impulsive and the divestment work follows.

PARAGRAPH #Q2A66G
  Matching to existing possessions. Agate explicitly asks herself whether she could combine this with her other clothes, whether she will actually wear it. This is cognitive work – holding a mental model of your wardrobe and household while browsing.

PARAGRAPH #7AQN26
  “on material literacy, meaning the skills and knowledge about different materials, how durable they are and with what treatment they last longest. This includes knowledge about appropriate washing, storing (Figures 2 and 3) and other care techniques like using a lint shaver or an iron.”

SECTION #QLVPVE Meanings: the moral economy of exchange

PARAGRAPH #VJU6JZ
  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.

PARAGRAPH #ETSGMU
  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.””

PARAGRAPH #B3A7P8
  Widlok’s (2017) analysis of give boxes – small scale unattended exchange infrastructure in a German town – offers a frame for what the non-monetary arrangement achieves socially. Give boxes, he argues, separate the acts of giving and receiving – donors and recipients do not need to interact directly, and the intermediary space absorbs the social awkwardness of charity. Items move quickly, suggesting ongoing demand, while participants tend to frame their involvement in terms of giving even when they primarily take.

PARAGRAPH #AC8LX9
  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.

PARAGRAPH #8Q8FJL
  The imperative to keep things flowing to avoid overflow creates a certain tolerance in case of suspicion for such practices that formally fall outside Brīvbode’s rules. Reselling is not allowed, yet resellers are a suspected presence in Brīvbode. Volunteers mentioned situations when other visitors in Brīvbode have told them they have recognized their divested items at the Āgenskalns flea market the following weekend, which Rasa acknowledges as straightforwardly unpleasant. Yet because it is not always possible to prove, there is also a working accommodation, and Rasa’s position is one of pragmatic acceptance: “At the same time it seems – if he'll find the next user for the thing anyway, the function is fulfilled. Better they make a little money and the thing finds its person, than some hoarder takes it and the things end up in a container." She laughs: "Well, what choice do I have but to believe… We support small businesses."

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.

PARAGRAPH #VZMVZA
  Viesturs frames this ecologically: "Well, I could see them now as forest sanitarians." Without moral approval, the resellers, the hoarders and heavy-takers are reframed as functional elements as they clear out the accumulation of materials that would otherwise clog the space. Viesturs response to this is tactical curatorial competency: if a person he suspects is present at the shop, he often doesn’t put new items out on the shelves until they leave. This is his practical judgement and competency to “read the room” enacted situationally.

SECTION #V753D5 Non-monetary exchange and attachment: competencies of letting go

PARAGRAPH #G5UMDM
  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.

PARAGRAPH #4ALAE2
  The anchor of monetary investment is absent from acquisition in Brīvbode, and some participants articulate the shift in their own relationship to objects directly. Rasa describes how price normally operates as a binding force which Brīvbode alleviates: “You no longer have that heaviness around a thing – I bought it for €40, how can I now throw it out or give it away, not wear it. Now it's simply: if it doesn't suit, bring it back. Try it – it works, or it doesn't. It's much more free." She is pragmatic about this beyond Brīvbode too: “No matter where the garment comes from, there is that percentage of things I take or buy or acquire for myself that I always know won't get worn regardless of whether I've paid money for them or not. So the safest thing to do is to invest as little as possible, so that afterwards there are fewer regrets." This is a recalibration of what kinds of commitment acquisition is.

PARAGRAPH #HXZYR8
  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.

PARAGRAPH #UZH6RE
  Another aspect to the quality of attachment is the possibility of a return after trial and seeing whether attachment will form. It can be difficult to assess in the moment of acquisition whether an item will settle in person’s life. Bringing something back if it does not further loosens the relationship between taking and keeping, allowing a lower stakes and a more experimental participation. This trial opportunity was appreciated by participants whose physical attributes and body shapes are not always catered to in retail: "Because for a small person it's quite hard to find trousers... But here there's the opportunity to try them for some time and see."

PARAGRAPH #5YYBKM
  However, if acquisition carries less commitment, the same conditions that make divestment easier may make acquisition more frequent and less deliberate. My own divestment to Brīvbode often consists of things bought secondhand online as a preferred route of acquisition, but choosing not to invest effort in reselling when they don’t work out. The non-monetary regime does not automatically produce more careful consumption; its relationship to sufficiency depends on the meanings participants bring to it.

PARAGRAPH #H28B2Q
  Elīna describes feeling a sense of responsibility toward everything she acquires – whether bought secondhand, taken from a swap event, or found in Brīvbode. Once something has come to her, she feels obligated to find it a good next home rather than simply discard it: "If this has come to me, then this material... energy and work and transport went into producing it, and I can't just throw it away. I feel I have a duty to figure out how to pass it on to hands where it will be useful." She adds, however, that this sense of responsibility sometimes feels like too heavy a burden to carry.

PARAGRAPH #UM6BJY
  (Sometimes the relation to the shop is a source for jokes: “We have special mega discounts, 100 % – only today and tomorrow!”)

PARAGRAPH #MPQ4JQ
  The self-management work

PARAGRAPH #FJ79YF
  Managing the impulse to take because it is free. Marta describes this explicitly – learning to replace "free" with "exchange" in her mental vocabulary, developing the decision rule that if she is not sure she does not need it. This is deliberate self-regulation work, and it is not trivial. The non-monetary arrangement removes one natural brake on acquisition – financial cost – and participants who want to avoid accumulating must supply that brake themselves through conscious effort.

PARAGRAPH #8ZPRYC
  (moral economies of access and restraint)

PARAGRAPH #UYL6TZ
  "Man bija ļoti daudz dažādu veidu... pēdējos pāris gadus es kaut kā esmu no tā atkāvusies, ka es tā vairs nedaru. Es tiešām ļoti izvērtēju, vai man tā lieta tiešām ir nepieciešama." Madara describes a conscious shift away from impulse acquiring in secondhand contexts – she recognizes her own past behavior as a problem and has worked to change it. This is deliberate practice modification. Madara: “Es tiešām cenšos nebūt tā tante ar trīs maisiem, kas staigā katru dienu tur no vienas točkas uz otru. To es cenšos nepieļaut un cenšos arī sadraudzēties maksimāli ar tām lietām, kas man ir.” Making peace with what you have – sufficiency as an active practice of relationship with objects rather than deprivation. This is a positive formulation of sufficiency that does not rely on environmental discourse.

PARAGRAPH #VBVVXQ
  Elīna R. “S1: Bet kā tu nonāci pie tās sajūtas, pie tās atziņas – man jau pietiek? S2: Man vienkārši skapī vairs nav vietas. (smejas) Nu, arī, teiksim, tagad ir ziema, un ir džemperu laiks, un es saprotu, ka es tāpat neuzvelku visus savus džemperus. Nu, tātad man viņu ir acīmredzami par daudz. Un man arī patīk novalkāt lietas. Tur ir kaut kāds tāds, nu, man vismaz, īpašs tā kā kaifs, ka es ar šo lietu esmu tik daudz lietas darījusi kopā, ka viņa ir tik novalkāta, ka viņu, iespējams, pat vairs nevar salabot.”

PARAGRAPH #5JJ4KK
  "Es esmu krājēja. Jā, es esmu krājēja." Aiga recognised hoarding tendencies in herself. She links it to scarcity experience – not having had much as a student, learning to keep things because things were hard to come by. The accumulation habit is understood as a survival response to past material insecurity, but she is actively working to change. The turning point was a month-long solo trip through Europe after her employment ended: "Es aizbraucu, un tad ar to arī sākās, ka tagad, nu, tagad tas ir izdarīts, tagad ir jādomā kaut kas par lietām, kas ir par daudz." Travel – where you carry only what fits in a bag – reframed her relationship to possessions and worked as a biographical rupture that catalyzed practice change.

PARAGRAPH #KWQ7AQ
  "Es labāk šobrīd lēnā garā atbrīvojos... man nav vienkārši žēl paņemt somu un aizbraukt." The war anxiety dimension: she is releasing things partly because she wants to be able to leave quickly if necessary. The geopolitical context of Latvia – proximity to Russia, uncertainty since 2022 – appears explicitly in her divestment motivation.

PARAGRAPH #U575JS
  "Pieķeršanās jautājums tiek risināts. Viņš ir procesā." "Brīvbode palīdz, tā teikt, šim procesam attīstīties." "Šobrīd jau ir uz robežas, tāpēc es saku, ka ir jāatvadās jau no tā, kas jau ir atrasts." 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.

PARAGRAPH #Z22MHT
  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.

PARAGRAPH #JV33M5
  the practice of divestment requires competencies that include emotional regulation and the capacity to detach from objects. Māra is developing these competencies deliberately.

SECTION #Z7Y86N Plural meanings of acquisition that sustain participation in Brīvbode

PARAGRAPH #X6VKPZ
  Taking things in Brīvbode is sustained by a variety of meanings that do not need to be shared or mutually coherent across practitioners. The heterogeneity of meanings allows the practice to recruit across a wide and socially diverse public. The following section examines the main meaning clusters and what each reveals about how the practice recruits and retains its carriers – what do people experience as useful and rewarding when they opt to take things in Brīvbode.

PARAGRAPH #QCTGLZ
  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.

PARAGRAPH #PAYAS2
  Anna frames her participation with a desire for aesthetic autonomy: “I've always really disliked it when I'm wearing something and someone else is wearing exactly the same." Instead of sustainability or thrift, this meaning is based on distinctiveness. Anna also has a sewing competency that works as an extension of the same desire – making her own clothing is the ultimate guarantee of uniqueness: the competency of sewing is sustained by the meaning. Additionally Brīvbode also enables Anna's daily performance of festivity: wearing a glitter dress as everyday wear is possible because Brīvbode provides a low-stakes supply resource.

PARAGRAPH #EJM4WU
  Elīna describes a similar dynamic at a lower threshold of commitment: “You can try out different styles for free. I took a bomber jacket I would never have bought myself." The jacket became one of her most-worn items. Brīvbode enabled a style experiment that she would not have risked financially. Similarly, a practitioner who was exploring cross-dressing also described: "What gives me joy is that I can create different characters from those clothes. For example, yesterday I went to my first cross-dresser date with this beautiful purple wig. I also got these court shoes... And that somehow challenged me to put them to use."

PARAGRAPH #8N5CQ8
  Madara’s participation is organised around her craftsperson's gaze – a competency that allows her to notice objects as made of particular components and materials. "When I see an item, I see it not just as a finished garment, but also, for example, as a material – fabric, beads, zippers." This competency distinguishes her participation from others and allows her to find value also in objects that other people might not find useful at all: "I found an old, cut mosquito net, which I use as a base for embroidery." Something that appeared to be waste turned out to be a useful resource to her. This is a heightened version of the right-owner logic – the object finds not just a user but a user who recognizes a value in it that is largely invisible to others. Also Madara’s rugmaking practice originated in having accumulated too many secondhand clothes – material surplus became the origin of a new practice.

PARAGRAPH #MXY2NM
  The craftsperson's gaze has a negative counterpart, however, when it is decoupled from valuing items as a shared resource: some visitors treat the shop as a source of free raw materials, cutting off buttons or zippers from garments, and leaving the damaged items behind – extracting the value themselves while diminishing it for everyone else.

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  While alternative, these meanings simultaneously overlap with some of the meanings present in capitalist consumption –

PARAGRAPH #GN8UUK
  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.

PARAGRAPH #KBYYFJ
  For some potential practitioners this association with lower class status is a barrier to entry, while others manage it strategically. Several participants mentioned withholding information about the origin of items, especially when passing things acquired in Brīvbode to other people as gifts. As volunteer Anna noted, grandmothers say: “I don't tell my daughter where I got that jacket, because she wouldn't take it.”

PARAGRAPH #A99SUN
  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.

PARAGRAPH #86CMYM
  This stigma of second hand acquisition is, however, also generationally uneven and appears to be dissolving, similar to patterns reported elsewhere (Gurova, 2024). Changing meanings are shifting the practice’s recruitability. Madara notes how a broader normalization of secondhand acquisition in recent years has produced a shift within her own family, who previously held strong norms against it. Luīze, a highschooler preparing for graduation, uses the English word "thrift shops" to talk about her consumption practices, frames her participation in explicit environmental terms, and reports that her classmates are actively seeking secondhand options for graduation dresses. She attributes the negative meaning her parents hold towards second hand acquisition to “Soviet mentality”.

SECTION #6535KC Quiet or reflected sustainability?

PARAGRAPH #FNDALQ
  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.

PARAGRAPH #NDV326
  When I ask Viesturs if he sees working in Brīvbode as helping visitors or helping a cause, the question turns out to be beside the point: "To me it's so natural now, I don't evaluate it anymore. Others should evaluate it. It's simply a thing I do, without going into philosophical meanings." Sorting, switching clothing, chatting with visitors and attending to the shop so that it continues operating well – have become sufficiently routinised for him that they no longer require justification or meaning-work. The practice has stabilized to the point where the question of what it means has receded behind the doing.

PARAGRAPH #VQARCF
  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.

PARAGRAPH #XHSHXZ
  Sustainability as a meaning is present for practitioners, and e.g. Luīze is at the other end of the spectrum for whom it is expressed as primary rather than peripheral. She explicitly framed her participation in terms of ecological responsibility and the wider politics of avoiding fast fashion and microtrends.

PARAGRAPH #XNL7TE
  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.

PARAGRAPH #NVL4HP
  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. [..]

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

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

PARAGRAPH #T9XJDZ
  Quiet sustainability – sustainable practices without added sustainability meaning.

PARAGRAPH #B3S7DW
  what matters in sustainability? e.g. people gather egg cartons because it is easy, but issues that are more impactful and require more resources are more difficult to enact.

PARAGRAPH #EWC4HE
  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.

PARAGRAPH #B4P2SJ
  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.

PARAGRAPH #X9XV4X
  This framing does not require flattening the diversity of participant orientations. Some visitors do articulate explicit sustainability motivations – concerns about fast fashion, about waste, about the environmental costs of overconsumption. The thesis holds both the quiet and the articulated dimensions without forcing them into a single category, and treats the tension between them as empirically interesting rather than theoretically problematic. One question that remains open is whether explicit articulation makes sustainable practices more effective at retaining practitioners – more resistant to disruption when material or social conditions change. This is beyond the scope of the present study but worth noting as a direction for future research.

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

SECTION #QS26PQ Conclusion

PARAGRAPH #54DUKD
  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 #7VVSEQ
  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 #GJ3YQT
  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.

### 7. Tool result: read

THESIS #FYG32U
Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia

SECTION #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption

PARAGRAPH #AFFP4F
  In one conversation Brīvbode manager Rasa compared the operation of the swapshop to the flight of a bumblebee as it is often said to defy conventional laws of aerodynamics, yet somehow manages to fly in practice. The comparison foregrounds the felt fragility of the initiative, even though it has operated consistently for years now. The swaphsop is sustained collectively, by volunteer labour and curation work, by the participation of visitors and their acquisition and divestment work and the informal networks through which things move between households and the swapshop. The operation of Brīvbode depends on substantial labour that is unpaid, unevenly distributed and absorbed into existing practices of household management.

PARAGRAPH #DKNKM6
  In this chapter I examine what this work consists of and how it is performed. The analytical framework for this is Wheeler and Glucksmann’s (2015) concept of consumption work – the activities, skills and labour that consumers engage in to acquire, use, manage and dispose of goods. Wheeler and Glucksmann’s framework distinguishes three dimensions: technical labour – the division of tasks and skills across different people; modal labour – the interdependencies of work across different socio-economic arrangements (paid and unpaid, formal and informal); and processual labour – the connections across the full span of production and consumption process (Wheeler & Gluckmann, 2015: 35-36). In circular economy contexts, becoming a circular consumer requires varied and unevenly distributed forms of consumption work whose nature and scope have been underplayed in circular economy debates, but which has significant implications for whether such initiatives can succeed (Hobson et al., 2021). As Mesiranta et al. (2025: 25) observe, even frontrunner consumers who have integrated circular practices into their lives perceive them as laborious and at times troublesome.

PARAGRAPH #VFVNL8
  Work and care are close and overlapping concepts in this account. As Bankovska (2020: 13) observes, drawing on Graeber (2018: 156), care is not always a joyful or pleasant act – it involves unanticipated effort, obligation, hesitation, and sometimes disgust. In this sense care resembles work: activities performed because they need to be done rather than because they are intrinsically rewarding. The chapter uses consumption work as its organising framework while recognising that the boundaries between consumption work, volunteer labour, and care work are difficult to maintain in practice, and that this difficulty is itself analytically significant.

SECTION #KWZ8DM Volunteer labour and sufficiency lifestyle

PARAGRAPH #FR59SD
  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.”

PARAGRAPH #QD63FV
  The sufficiency orientation is visible in how volunteers approach the management of resources in Brīvbode as well. When a new stove was needed, Rasa and her partner welded one themselves using upcycled components: gas canisters, springs from an old sofa, a drain fitting (in return for his invested time, she promised him a week of help sanding his DIY boat). Rasa framed it matter-of-factly: “But what do you do if you don’t want to pay €1000 for a stove? You pick up the angle grinder yourself.” This is repair and upcycling competency, sufficiency orientation and collaborative volunteer labour combined in prioritising making do with what is available as both a practical skill and life orientation. Rasa described similar approach to her own consumption practices: it is more advantageous for her to work less in formal employment and rather invest time in planning meals, researching purchases and visiting secondhand shops than to earn more and consume more easily to keep her preferred level of wellbeing.

SECTION #L5PE5X Valuation work without the context of price

PARAGRAPH #ZU8ZS9
  In retail, price is a formal evaluation that functions to slows acquisition and signals value. When price is removed a moral and more relational valuation comes to the fore. Valuation work is the ongoing effort of assessing what is worth taking and bringing, and what should be left or discarded. As Beswick-Parsons et al. (2025) note, those committed to reuse develop an ability to perceive value where others do not, and this evaluative skill is a key to circulation work.

PARAGRAPH #ZJG8XW
  The gap between donor self-assessment and actual quality is a recurring burden for volunteers. Anna describes she has developed her intuition: "I really know it won't be good even before I've opened the bag. I ask them: 'Is everything really okay in there?' 'Yes, yes, only the best!' And you open it, and there are moth-eaten pillows, piss-soaked blankets." This competency has been developed over years of handling what arrives. The work of maintaining quality – assessing, sorting, deciding what goes out and what does not – is constant and largely invisible to visitors who mostly only the finished presentation.

PARAGRAPH #737NYX
  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 – relational knowledge that cannot be systematised or delegated, and that makes Brīvbode function as something more than a drop-off point.

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.

PARAGRAPH #HM3BWV
  The labour of divestment also varies by route. Selling online is preferred when an item retains monetary value, and it requires photographing, writing descriptions, communicating with buyers, arranging delivery or meetings. As one participant noted, for items that might still have some value, "you have to pull yourself together, photograph it and put it somewhere." Brīvbode lowers this work considerably: it is a known, walkable destination where divestment requires neither finding a buyer nor judging a recipient. In Wheeler and Glucksmann's terms, Brīvbode redistributes consumption work – absorbing some of it through volunteer labour while releasing participants from other forms of it.

SECTION #A43655 Modal labour across socioeconomic modes

PARAGRAPH #HGVGLS
  Wheeler and Glucksmann’s modal dimension attends to how labour is distributed across different socioeconomic arrangements – market and non-market, paid and unpaid, formal and informal. In their original context of waste recycling, household consumption work feeds into municipal waste management system: people prepare, wash, sort and transport materials, performing labour that contributes to a formal insitutional process.

PARAGRAPH #5ZQLP4
  While Brīvbode is indirectly embedded in wider textile collection infrastructure, its operation as an informal volunteer initiative is modally different. The chain of work usually connects one household to another. Objects leaving one home pass through the swaphsop and arrive in someone elses 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.

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.

PARAGRAPH #SP2V6Q
  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.

SECTION #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work

PARAGRAPH #73NW5B
  Wheeler and Glucksmann's processual dimension attends to how labour is distributed across the full span of a consumption process. In Brīvbode, this dimension is most visible in the extended divestment networks through which household surplus reaches the swapshop. The work that sustains Brīvbode is continuous with domestic consumption work  which is consistently organised through women's labour.

PARAGRAPH #8QVYKY
  Miller's (1998) research on shopping demonstrates that consumption is often organised around care for others rather than individual satisfaction, and that women frequently function as moral agents in household consumption as they are the ones acquiring, managing, and disposing of goods in relation to the needs of children, partners, and wider social networks. Wheeler and Glucksmann (2015) find the same gendered pattern in recycling: women typically take responsibility for sorting while men handle transport. The fieldwork conducted for this thesis reflects this consistently. Anna states it directly: "It's on me. I'm the one who supplies everyone with clothes and shoes." Silvija organises all divestment decisions in her household and says her husband "would just throw it in the bin." Men's role, where it appears, is typically transport and carrying the bags that women have sorted, selected, and prepared.

PARAGRAPH #JY7V8V
  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?'"

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.

PARAGRAPH #LQTPNH
  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.

SECTION #GGGPNV Conclusion

PARAGRAPH #8JXBYH
  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. Bankovska and Graeber name the motivation: 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 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 #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.

PARAGRAPH #WQCQ9A
  CONCLUSION

PARAGRAPH #ENZMT5
  Naming the forms and distribution of consumption work is the chapter's contribution. Circular consumption requires substantial labor; that labor is unevenly distributed; and the sustainability of initiatives like Brīvbode depends on a structural condition – the sufficiency-oriented, time-rich, mostly female volunteer and participant base.

PARAGRAPH #JJA5J6
  Some of this work is unreflexive and habituated, some is deliberate and effortful (Madara working on her own impulse-acquiring, Kristīne's category-by-category method). Both are labor, but they are differently visible – and the unreflexive forms are the hardest to see and the hardest for policy to reach.

PARAGRAPH #ANCRJA
  Transactions of consumption work: “Rasa saka, ka darbs Brīvbodē dažreiz ļauj viņai nejusties vainīgai par to, ka viņa nesašķiro atkritumus.”

PARAGRAPH #YNFMZ5
  An example of acquisition functioning as a concerted social practice is found in Daniel Miller’s study of flea markets and antiques. For the participants, visiting these markets is a "highly regular commitment"–often a weekly ritual–focused on the constant circulation, exchange, and re-acquisition of objects. In this context, the routine of trading and collecting is more important than the individual objects themselves. This suggests that for some, the practice is not "using" the thing, but the rhythm of the search and the acquisition itself.

PARAGRAPH #H77SJA
  Līva L.: "Tā drēbju stanga... man liekas, viņa vēl kādam varētu noderēt. Un es neesmu to vēl tā kā izrisinājusi." A clothes rail that no longer has a place in her apartment but which she cannot yet bring herself to take anywhere – the sense that something is still good, someone could use it, but the act of routing it somewhere requires a decision and work to execute it (and appropriate divestment infrastructure).

PARAGRAPH #MC4GH7
  Visitors perhaps do not witness the complete material streams, but they see –

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

PARAGRAPH #GDAK2E
  “As suggested by these researchers, joint efforts involving various types of actors, such as non-profit organisations and local communities, can help balance marketised care. Examples of this within circular consumption include repair cafés, clothes-swapping events, and community fridges for sharing leftover food in the neighbourhood. Community-based aspects of circular consumption have recently been highlighted (for a review, see Luukkonen et al., 2024), and the role of local communities in adopting and appropriating circular consumption and care should be further examined. Frontrunner consumers may have a significant role to play in establishing these communities and crafting policies that are built from the bottom-up and aligned with their everyday lives.” (Mesiranta et al. 2025: 26)

### 8. Tool result: read

THESIS #FYG32U
Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia

SECTION #W8HHQV Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework

PARAGRAPH #Z582K2
  This chapter develops a theoretical framework for the thesis, connecting several bodies of work: a practice-theoretical approach to consumption with a focus not only on acquisition and attachment, but also divestment and disposal, and consumption work as a framework for naming the labour that circulation demands and examining how it is distributed.

SECTION #L2J4AM Theories of Practice

PARAGRAPH #366FWU
  The central theoretical grounding for this thesis is practice theory – or rather theories of practice – a heterogeneous cluster of approaches in humanities and social sciences in which practice serves as the primary unit of analysis for understanding human life and sociality. Shifting away from individual motivations and attitudes, behaviours and choices (ABC) based models for change, for example, practice theory rather examines how those doings are organized socially. It enables looking at the interconnectedness of the social and material realms with an emphasis on the role of objects, infrastructures and technology in practice enactment and maintenance. Evolved in a lineage from Bourdieu (1977) and Giddens (1984) in social sciences, in the past decades theories of practice have been influential and applied across various domains in social sciences and humanities, constituting what has been called a practice turn (reference).

PARAGRAPH #J6LBYD
  While varied definitions of social practice exist, Warde (2005) suggests a minimal definition: “An organized, and recognizable, socially shared bundle of activities that involves the integration of a complex array of components: material, embodied, ideational and affective. Practices are sets of ‘doings and sayings’; they involve both practical activity and its representations" (Warde, 2005: 134).

PARAGRAPH #2G2PYK
  Different frameworks have been articulated to account for the elements constituting practices.

PARAGRAPH #48M72B
  Practice-as-performance - “doings and sayings”, embodied actions.

PARAGRAPH #N7C7EW
  Practice-as-entity - materials, meanings, and competencies.

PARAGRAPH #DRYDV3
  Practice-as-bundle (practice-as-system)

PARAGRAPH #DMYKYA
  Practices as entities can be distinguished from practices as performances: the specific, recurrent enactments through which practices are reproduced or transformed. Transformation and change comes through  recombination of the elements of practice (Shove et al. 2012) – a complex process that is constantly evolving and difficult to predict.

PARAGRAPH #VVZXM9
  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.

PARAGRAPH #S54S34
  The authors acknowledge that the model sacrifices some nuance to analytical clarity, yet argue that it is analytically productive, especially for studying how practices change and develop when their elements are reconfigured. It allows looking at practices as entities with their own histories and trajectories – recruiting or losing practitioners, appearing and disappearing.

PARAGRAPH #BYU2EP
  This threefold structure of elements of practice has been used widely across disciplines as it offers a clear conceptual approach for empirical research.

PARAGRAPH #RDZMW6
  Delineating a practice and setting it apart from adjacent practices can be one of the challenges in practice theory, as there are no fixed procedural rules for determining exactly where one practice ends and another begins. Nicolini (2017: 26-27) notes that, while for analytical purposes, practices can be conceived and examined individually, empirically they are always encountered in arrays and multiplicities. Practices “hang together” in bundles and complexes (Shove et al. 2012), distinguished by the density and “stickiness” of their patterns. Practice bundles refer to the more loose-knit relations between practices, often gathered around the same site or time – practices that are related and shape each other but not strongly. Complexes refer to more integrated combinations that can also constitute new practice entities if the relations become significantly denser. In this thesis, I analyse freecycling in Brīvbode as a practice entity and as performed, while recognising the emerging state of freecycling as a practice in Latvia.

SECTION #3DTHL8 Theories of Practice to Study Alternative Practices?

PARAGRAPH #QWNX7T
  Practice theory, as developed by Elisabeth Shove, has been applied a lot to analyze stable, dominant, and largely unreflected practices that are taken for granted in everyday domestic routines (Shove 2003), particularly the inconspicuous consumption of energy and resources in affluent Western societies that drives resource use beyond planetary boundaries. Shove has even argued that “investigations into the beliefs and actions of self-confessed environmentalists represent something of a distraction. What counts is the big, and in some cases, global swing of ordinary, routinized and taken-for-granted practice…” (Shove, 2003: 9).

PARAGRAPH #YRHJY3
  Yet as Welch and Warde (2015) note, this strategic move away from environmentalists’ motivations has come at a cost, leading to a neglect of the cultural dimensions of sustainable consumption (Spaargaren 2013). Other authors have argued for a greater attention to non-hegemonic practices that serve as alternatives to mass consumption (e.g. Speck and Hasselkuss 2015). Practice theories are useful here too, as a tool for understanding how more sustainable alternatives might become normalised or integrated into existing consumption routines.

PARAGRAPH #4Y3CYV
  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.

PARAGRAPH #6VBDKY
  Recent work in second-generation practice theory has begun to reintroduce questions of ethics, culture, and reflexivity into analyses of consumption (Askholm, 2024; Welch et al., 2020). Earlier approaches tended to focus on routine and inconspicuous practices, often sidelining the role of evaluative judgement and cultural meaning. This study engages with this emerging direction by examining how practices of freecycling involve not only routine forms of circulation, but also moments of reflection, valuation, and ethical consideration.

SECTION #UF33B6 Consumption practices

PARAGRAPH #J6ELX8
  Practice theories have been widely applied in studies of sustainability and consumption. Whereas previously widespread theories of consumption in the 1980s and 1990s often treated it as a matter of individual choice and identity-making (reference to illustrate these approaches), theories of practice enabled attending to consumption patterns that emerge from the practices in which people are engaged, rather than mainly from their preferences or intentions. This decentring of the individual marked a significant departure from both the rational-choice models of consumer behaviour research and the identity-focused approaches of consumer culture theory (reference).

PARAGRAPH #QG3MSW
  Warde’s (2005) paper “Consumption and theories of practice” is widely regarded as the first programmatic application of practice theory to consumption studies (Welch & Warde 2015). Its central contribution was to reconceptualise consumption as "not itself a practice but rather a moment in almost every practice" (Warde 2005: 137). Warde conceptualizes consumption not as a separate domain of social life organised around the acquisition of goods, but as an integral component of social practices through which people organize their daily lives. People consume in the course of doing other things: e.g. maintaining a household, raising children, managing seasonal change, responding to gifts received, keeping warm, eating, moving around. As Warde (2005: 146) puts it, from this perspective “the concept of ‘the consumer’ ... evaporates. Instead the key focal points become the organization of the practice and the moments of consumption enjoined.”

PARAGRAPH #ZYCYKG
  There is also a particular affinity between consumption and sustainability studies. Welch and Warde (2015) identify three reasons for it. Firstly, much of the environmental impact of consumption stems from routine practices – such as showering or doing laundry – that involve significant, yet often unnoticed, use of energy and resources (Shove, 2003). For such inconspicuous, resource intensive practices analysis of consumption as symbolic display and presentation of self that was more prevalent in consumption studies before is less relevant than attention to the material and social arrangements that sustain them. Secondly, because goods and services are primarily used for the accomplishment of social practices rather than for consumption per se. Thirdly, practice theory can provide a way out of discussions of the “value–action” gap – the persistent discrepancy between reportedly pro-environmental values which by contrast are not reflected in a person’s behaviour – by redirecting focus on the ways resource intensive practices capture and retain their practitioners.

PARAGRAPH #H9CGSB
  This thesis aligns with practice theoretical perspectives on sustainable consumption that attend to the full cycle of goods through domestic life – considering not only the goods and materials people acquire, but also divestment and disposal (Ehgartner and Holmes, 2022). For example, Evans (2020) responds to this by proposing an expanded definition of consumption as a process involving multiple moments beyond acquisition. Following Warde (2005), he identifies appropriation – the use, personalisation, and incorporation of goods into everyday life – and appreciation – the personal and symbolic frameworks through which goods are evaluated and enjoyed. To these he adds three further moments: devaluation, the loss of economic or symbolic value; divestment, the loss of personal meaning and the unravelling of attachments; and disposal, the physical act of getting rid of things (Evans 2020: 345). Taken together, these six moments constitute consumption as a full cycle rather than a single event. Evans notes that a case could be made for simplifying this further, though – replacing the three acquisition related moments with a single concept of attachment, and the three divestment related moments with detachment ¬ a formulation that captures the emotional and relational dimensions of both acquiring and letting go (Evans, 2020: 347).

PARAGRAPH #U8R7V6
  This expanded definition of consumption to include detachment (divestment, disposal) is at the basis of this thesis. Brīvbode can thus be understood as a consumption site in both directions: people come to divest goods that have reached the end of their household life, and they come to acquire goods that may be entering a new phase of their biography. The swapshop is a node in the ordinary circulation of goods through domestic life, distinguished by its non-monetary character and physical permanence.

SECTION #LMKLTZ Consumption Work

PARAGRAPH #6JKEPZ
  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.

PARAGRAPH #796DZS
  Wheeler and Glucksmann (2015) contend that secondhand markets involve consumption work – sorting, cleaning, repairing. “Consumption work”, for them, refers to the range of tasks required of consumers, before or after they consume, on which consumption itself is predicated – the work that must be done before or after the moment of exchange for consumption to be possible at all. Their framework encompasses technical dimensions – the allocation of tasks and skills to different people; modal dimensions – interdependencies of work across different social and economic arrangements; and processual dimensions – the connections of labour across the full span of a consumption process (Wheeler & Gluckmann, 2015: 35-36). In circular economy contexts, Hobson et al. (2021) argue, this work intensifies: responsible divestment requires more effort than simply throwing things away, and the additional demands fall disproportionately on those who are already doing most of the household management work.

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

PARAGRAPH #HDN32L
  [“Recent research at the intersection of practice theory and circular consumption has begun to foreground the labour involved in sustaining material circulation. Drawing on a practice-theoretical approach, Réka Tölg shows that circular consumption – particularly in the context of clothing – relies on the ongoing enactment of care in everyday practices. This involves not only acquiring and using garments, but also maintaining, repairing, and eventually parting with them in ways that enable their continued circulation. Such practices require the development of skills, awareness, and a sense of responsibility, and are often shaped by socio-material arrangements in both household and retail contexts. At the same time, Tölg highlights that these practices are not straightforward to accomplish, but are characterised by tensions, dilemmas, and constraints within systems still largely organised around linear consumption. In this sense, circular consumption can be understood not as a simple behavioural shift, but as an ongoing accomplishment that entails effort, coordination, and engagement – what has been conceptualised elsewhere as “consumption work” (Hobson et al., 2021).”]

PARAGRAPH #U9VL8L
  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.

PARAGRAPH #9NPNTZ
  [Second hand source that I should check] (Lindsay et al. 2024) Lindsay et al. (2024) and Organo et al. (2013) find that women consistently spend more time on sustainable household practices than men, and that “sustainability labour” tends to be more absorbed into existing patterns of gendered domestic work rather than redistributed.]

PARAGRAPH #PV4SZY
  Consumption work and practice theory in this thesis are complementary frameworks. Following the argument developed above in section 2.2., consumption work describes what practices demand from their carriers rather than what individuals choose to do. The labour is in the practice; the questions of what kind of labour and who bears it are questions about the social organisation of practice and whose bodies and time it recruits.

SECTION #Q3A3ZZ Conclusion

PARAGRAPH #TEEVBW
  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.

PARAGRAPH #86KGGB
  PIEVIENOT

PARAGRAPH #BRMHZX
  “Pinning down the actual practice and its scale, identifying overlaps with other practices or deciding which actions belong to which practice registers as a tricky task, further complicated by the fact that practices change over time.” (Sedlačko, 2017: 53)

PARAGRAPH #K4ELJX
  consumption as a middle class sustainability “issue”?

PARAGRAPH #FRNN7Z
  A central conclusion is that textile disposal has become normalized. – “Sustainability transitions in textiles therefore require systemic reconfiguration of what is considered ‘normal’ in household practices.”

PARAGRAPH #TVS3TS
  “this dissertation conceptualizes disposal as a material, cultural, and social practice central to consumption, rather than a peripheral or undesirable act.

PARAGRAPH #324S25
  Disposal is treated not simply as the act of discarding but as a meaningful practice that enables and intersects with the reproduction of broader everyday activities.

PARAGRAPH #V9AZYS
  In sociology, the study of consumption has evolved through three major phases: an early focus on economistic models prior to the 1980s; the ‘cultural turn’ of the early 1980s, which emphasized meaning-making, identity, and symbolic value; and, more recently, a ‘practice turn’ that reorients attention toward the routines, materialities, and shared norms of everyday life (Warde, 2014, 2015).

PARAGRAPH #2E5CLJ
  in clothing consumption research consumption of clothing is viewed as a habitual and socially embedded activity rather than a constant, deliberate process of choice and identity construction (Chamberlin & Callmer, 2021; Miller & Woodward, 2012; van der Laan & Velthuis, 2016).

PARAGRAPH #5M9UV4
  “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).”

PARAGRAPH #Q9FFDL
  “What we discard reflects who we are but also helps constitute who we become. In this way, waste is both expressive and constitutive of identity (Lucy, 2023).”

PARAGRAPH #Y7ZKKR
  Maldini et al. (2019), for instance, found that garments are often retained long after they stop being worn, while new items are added without replacing old ones, highlighting the entanglement with disposal and accumulation. Furthermore, as with disposal in general, textile disposal is not merely a matter of getting rid of unwanted things, nor is it a straightforward or linear process.

PARAGRAPH #QH6AFV
  “This theoretical approach shifts the analytical focus away from individual behavior to practices allowing textile waste to be understood not as the outcome of isolated decisions but as a meaningful and situated activity embedded in everyday domestic routines.”

PARAGRAPH #PURD5V
  “Social phenomena are understood as emerging from, and being embedded within, interconnected networks of practices and the materials that sustain them (Schatzki, 2019).”

PARAGRAPH #QM744E
  “Dressing is viewed as a dynamic, lifelong everyday practice comprised of three interdependent elements: materials (e.g., clothing, wardrobes, washing machines), meanings (e.g., symbolic notions such as cleanliness or fashion), and competencies (e.g., dressing, laundering, repairing skills) (Maguire & Fahy, 2022; Skjold, 2016).”

PARAGRAPH #B5MJ7V
  “Textile disposal is conceptualized as a social practice embedded within everyday routines and shaped by normative expectations, identity work, and material needs.”

PARAGRAPH #4364QB
  Schatzki’s site ontology

PARAGRAPH #XMLDYN
  “The deep interdependence between practices and material arrangements is a central theme in Schatzki’s site ontology. According to Schatzki (2002), a social site is not merely a spatial backdrop for action, but a constitutive milieu where social life unfolds across three interrelated dimensions. First, the site refers to the basic location where something happens, whether spatial, temporal, or relational. Second, it represents the broader thematic or systemic context in which specific practices are embedded. Third, the site encompasses a deeper, constitutive context that gives practices their social meaning. In social sites, actions are seldom shaped by a single practice alone but emerge from the complex interaction of multiple overlapping practices.”

PARAGRAPH #6JENT4
  ​​For example, textile disposal emerges from the intersection of multiple practices, such as cleaning, organizing, shopping, and caring, even when disposal appears as the main activity.

PARAGRAPH #MWD2WS
  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).

PARAGRAPH #PZAACH
  Practice as entity – how does the threefold model

PARAGRAPH #45S58L
  Looking at a practice as entity – materials, meanings, competencies. MESOLEVEL.

PARAGRAPH #EYXC82
  Individual level of practice – practice as performance – doings, sayings, embodied experiences, movements, everyday parts… PRACTICE AS PERFORMANCE.

PARAGRAPH #4532BE
  practice as bundle or practice as entity…

PARAGRAPH #HA2NMZ
  Acknowledge these three levels, focusing on practice as performance and practice as entity.

### 9. Tool result: list_documents

- #FYG32U Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia [draft] - 2026 | Ieva Lange

Journal articles (89)
- #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
- #MCJT5Q Connecting the multi-level-perspective and social practice approach for sustainable transitions - 2022 | Léon Francis Hirt, Margit Keller, Marlyne Sahakian | Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions | 15 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.eist.2022.05.004
- #UB9EAT Consumer engagement in the circular economy: Exploring clothes swapping in emerging economies from a social practice perspective [cited] - 2019 | Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero | Sustainable Development | 16 pp. | doi:10.1002/sd.2002
- #Q3G2WY Consumption - 2011 | David Graeber | Current Anthropology | 24 pp. | doi:10.1086/660166
- #N7FUYP Consumption and Commodities - 1995 | D. Miller | Annual Review of Anthropology | 22 pp. | doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.24.1.141
- #RZ8QTE Consumption and Theories of Practice [cited] - 2005 | Alan Warde | Journal of Consumer Culture | 23 pp. | doi:10.1177/1469540505053090
- #PSBVW7 Consumption in the Circular Economy: A Literature Review - 2018 | Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero | Sustainability | 25 pp. | doi:10.3390/su10082758
- #MNFABA Disposal and simple living: exploring the circulation of goods and the development of sacred consumption - 2009 | Hélène Cherrier | Journal of Consumer Behaviour | 14 pp. | doi:10.1002/cb.297
- #YBKS64 Everyday life after downshifting: Consumption, thrift, and inequality - 2020 | Jo Lindsay, Kim Humphery, Ruth Lane | Geographical Research | 15 pp. | doi:10.1111/1745-5871.12396
- #TBPJS6 Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice [cited] - 2023 | Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano | Social Enterprise Journal | 21 pp. | doi:10.1108/sej-02-2023-0017
- #N5VYH8 Food practices as part of daily routines: A conceptual framework for analysing networks of practices - 2021 | Aricia F.M. Castelo, Martina Schäfer, Minelle E. Silva | Appetite | 10 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.appet.2020.104978
- #FHZZ6U Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore [cited] - 2024 | Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan | Worldwide Waste: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies | 15 pp. | doi:10.3197/whpww.63857928646673
- #SJ3K7R Friends, family and the circulation of used goods: overlooked sustainability practices - 2025 | Dharma Arunachalam, Jo Lindsay, Rob Raven, Ruth Lane | Environmental Sociology | 13 pp. | doi:10.1080/23251042.2025.2510410
- #4AE86F From circular consumers to carriers of (unsustainable) practices: socio-spatial transformations in the Circular City - 2020 | Kersty Hobson | Urban Geography | 5 pp. | doi:10.1080/02723638.2020.1786329
- #4UEQN8 Gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale? - 1997 | Gretchen M. Herrmann | American Ethnologist | 21 pp. | doi:10.1525/ae.1997.24.4.910
- #B6FWAN Governing transitions in the sustainability of everyday life [cited] - 2010 | Elizabeth Shove, Gordon Walker | Research Policy | 6 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.respol.2010.01.019
- #MRANHJ Grey greening: quiet sustainability at auto salvage yards - 2022 | Pavel Mašek | Geografie | 19 pp. | doi:10.37040/geografie2022127010055
- #MBXQXR Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets [cited] - 2015 | Anna Bohlin, Staffan Appelgren | Culture Unbound | 26 pp. | doi:10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1571143
- #B3CVMW Harnessing the Unruly: Anthropological Contributions in Applied Reuse Projects - 2020 | Anna Bohlin, Staffan Appelgren | kritisk etnografi: Swedish Journal of Anthropology | 17 pp. | doi:10.33063/diva-432451
- #YW8AYL Home and the extended-self: Exploring associations between clutter and wellbeing - 2021 | Caroline J. Rogers, Dr Rona Hart | Journal of Environmental Psychology | 10 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101553
- #ZB3YSD Household consumption at the crossroads: A bibliometric decoding of global sustainability trends, research gaps, and collaborative networks (2015-2025) - 2025 | B.K. Prahani, Hendry Cahyono, Iszan Hana Kaharudin, Kukuh Arisetyawan, Ladi Wajuba Perdini Fisabilillah, M. Satriawan, M.A. Ghofur, N. Suprapto, Ruth Eviana Hutabarat, S. Andari, Wenny Restikasari, Zain Fuadi Muhammad RoziqiFath | E3S Web of Conferences | 10 pp. | doi:10.1051/e3sconf/202564001017
- #UGBANU How temporal orientations trigger, nurture and sustain deep engagement with consumption practices - 2025 | Benjamin Rosenthal | Marketing Theory | 21 pp. | doi:10.1177/14705931241264535
- #9GQP2Z In Defense of Consumer Critique: Revisiting the Consumption Debates of the Twentieth Century - 2007 | Juliet B. Schor | The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science | 15 pp. | doi:10.1177/0002716206299145
- #4Y4DVC Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany - 2023 | Petra Kuppinger | Critique of Anthropology | 20 pp. | doi:10.1177/0308275x231194259
- #XUS5YJ Learning like a Minimalist—Learning from a Minimalist. Consumers as Disseminators for Sustainable Clothes Usage - 2021 | Journal of Sustainability Research | 24 pp. | doi:10.20900/jsr20210017
- #QWH9YU Lifestyles of enough exploring sufficiency-oriented consumption behavior from a social practice theory perspective - 2023 | Maren I Kropfeld | Journal of Consumer Culture | 22 pp. | doi:10.1177/14695405221095008
- #VGCYKU Linking social practice theories to the perceptions of green consumption: An overview - 2025 | Samira Jabin, Shah Md Atiqul Haq | Social Sciences & Humanities Open | 12 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.ssaho.2025.101455
- #R69WZQ Material culture and the circular economy - 2023 | Elizabeth Shove, Jenny Rinkinen | Frontiers in Sustainability | 4 pp. | doi:10.3389/frsus.2023.1158079
- #ARE7AL Materials changing the performance of the household energy consumption practices - 2025 | Eliisa Kylkilahti, Henna Syrjälä, Liisa Kääntä, Sara-Ellen Laitinen | Journal of Consumer Culture | 19 pp. | doi:10.1177/14695405251321405
- #FYWZFY My Journey within Practice-Based Approaches Bandwagon - 2019 | Mika Pantzar | Sociologica | 8 pp. | doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/10203
- #XATD2A New spaces, ordinary practices: Circulating and sharing within diverse economies of provisioning [cited] - 2018 | Helen Holmes | Geoforum | 10 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.11.022
- #R9KEKQ Not moving things along: hoarding, clutter and other ambiguous matter - 2009 | Neil Maycroft | Journal of Consumer Behaviour | 12 pp. | doi:10.1002/cb.298
- #VJ8G58 Object Relations in Accounts of Everyday Life - 2015 | Elizabeth Shove, Jenny Rinkinen, Mikko Jalas | Sociology | 16 pp. | doi:10.1177/0038038515577910
- #CUWPC9 On Materiality and Meaning: Ethnographic Engagements with Reuse, Repair &amp; Care - 2019 | Cindy Isenhour, Joshua Reno | Worldwide Waste | 8 pp. | doi:10.5334/wwwj.27
- #D8EAVV Online Clothing Resale: A Practice Theory Approach to Evaluate Sustainable Consumption Gains - 2020 | Cosette M. Joyner Armstrong, Hyejune Park | Journal of Sustainability Research | 24 pp. | doi:10.20900/jsr20200017
- #AG36RW Paradoxes of openness and distinction in the sharing economy - 2016 | Connor Fitzmaurice, Emilie Dubois Poteat, Juliet B. Schor, Lindsey B. Carfagna, Will Attwood-Charles | Poetics | 18 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2015.11.001
- #86EHHS Practice theory approach to Gen Z’s sustainable clothing consumption in Finland [cited] - 2024 | Olga Gurova | Young Consumers | 19 pp. | doi:10.1108/yc-06-2023-1765
- #XAYNBH Practice-ing behaviour change: Applying social practice theory to pro-environmental behaviour change - 2011 | Tom Hargreaves | Journal of Consumer Culture | 21 pp. | doi:10.1177/1469540510390500
- #WVG7HV Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe’s productive gardeners [cited] - 2013 | Joe Smith, Petr Jehlicka | Journal of Rural Studies | 10 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2013.05.002
- #4YG3VP Repair for a Broken Economy: Lessons for Circular Economy from an International Interview Study of Repairers - 2021 | Duncan McLaren, Johan Niskanen, Jonas Anshelm | Sustainability | 15 pp. | doi:10.3390/su13042316
- #AY4Z4C Repair Work as Care: On Maintaining the Planet in the Capitalocene - 2025 | Julia E. Corwin, Vinay Gidwani | Antipode | 21 pp. | doi:10.1111/anti.12791
- #V9QTJP Reuse practices and household consumption work [cited] - 2026 | David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons | Social &amp; Cultural Geography | 21 pp. | doi:10.1080/14649365.2025.2549709
- #HJXUZN Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store [cited] - 2023 | Frederik Larsen | Journal of Business Anthropology | 19 pp. | doi:10.22439/jba.v12i1.6914
- #ANC583 Social bases of material consumption: The relationship between social groups and possession of household appliances in Denmark - 2019 | Mette Hove Jacobsen | Journal of Consumer Culture | 20 pp. | doi:10.1177/1469540516684190
- #NE9YL5 Sustainability as a Moral Discourse: Its Shifting Meanings, Exclusions, and Anxieties - 2022 | Al Lim, Lav Kanoi, Michael R. Dove, Shoko Yamada, Vanessa Koh | Sustainability | 17 pp. | doi:10.3390/su14053095
- #EPZXEW Sustainable Consumption and Practice Theories: Connecting Elements of Clothing Sharing - 2024 | Marcia de Freitas Duarte, Minelle E. Silva, Márcia R. Cavalcante Costa | BBR, Braz. Bus. Rev. | 25 pp. | doi:10.15728/bbr.2021.1182.en
- #5FD8BE The Advent of Practice Theories in Research on Sustainable Consumption: Past, Current and Future Directions of the Field - 2019 | Filippo Corsini, Francesco Paolo Appio, Franziska Meinherz, Luca Mora, Rafael Laurenti | Sustainability | 19 pp. | doi:10.3390/su11020341
- #GAZV32 The communities and materials of repair: collectively reflecting on repair practices of everyday artefacts - 2026 | Bilge Merve Aktaş, Hazal Gümüş Çiftçi | CoDesign | 21 pp. | doi:10.1080/15710882.2025.2452575
- #P7EWHQ The Force of Things - 2004 | Jane Bennett | Political Theory | 27 pp. | doi:10.1177/0090591703260853
- #7VNTAB The gift of waste: The diversity of gift practices among dumpster divers - 2023 | Olli Pyyhtinen, Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen | Anthropological Theory | 23 pp. | doi:10.1177/14634996221117318
- #Q24SW5 The Gift, the Indian Gift and the 'Indian Gift' - 1986 | Jonathan Parry | Man | 22 pp. | doi:10.2307/2803096
- #UMYA27 The limits of the loops: critical environmental politics and the Circular Economy - 2021 | Kersty Hobson | Environmental Politics | 20 pp. | doi:10.1080/09644016.2020.1816052
- #UTEUAD The logics of frugality: Reproducing tastes of necessity among affluent climate change activists - 2017 | Jean Léon Boucher | Energy Research & Social Science | 10 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.erss.2017.06.001
- #P88564 The Minimalist Universe of Things. Living with Less in German Speaking Households - 2023 | Heike Derwanz | Home Cultures | 18 pp. | doi:10.1080/17406315.2024.2338007
- #LB5ACW The Political Economy of Circular Economies: Lessons from Future Repair Scenario Deliberations in Sweden - 2023 | Duncan McLaren, Johan Niskanen | Circular Economy and Sustainability | 25 pp. | doi:10.1007/s43615-021-00128-8
- #7RVN6J The Simple Bare Necessities: Scales and Paradoxes of Thrift on a London Public Housing Estate - 2022 | Catherine Alexander | Comparative Studies in Society and History | 32 pp. | doi:10.1017/s0010417522000159
- #RRPNRF The Sustainability of an Anthropology of the Anthropocene - 2022 | Thomas Hylland Eriksen | Sustainability | 11 pp. | doi:10.3390/su14063674
- #NM4W8T Theories of practices: Agency, technology, and culture - 2011 | Gert Spaargaren | Global Environmental Change | 10 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.03.010
- #GKZ9HP There is no sustainable circular economy without a circular society - 2021 | Charlotte Jensen, Florian Hofmann, Jakob Zwiers, Melanie Jaeger-Erben | Resources, Conservation and Recycling | 2 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105476
- #XDUQVM Through the practice lens: Where is the bandwagon of practice-based studies heading? - 2010 | Gessica Corradi, Luca Verzelloni, Silvia Gherardi | Management Learning | 19 pp. | doi:10.1177/1350507609356938
- #MB6S7L Toward an Ecology of Materials - 2012 | Tim Ingold | Annual Review of Anthropology | 20 pp. | doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-081309-145920
- #7BM5AQ Uncontained accumulation: Hidden heterotopias of storage and spillage - 2018 | Sasha Newell | History and Anthropology | 6 pp. | doi:10.1080/02757206.2017.1397647
- #6EFDXH Unpicking contemporary thrift: Getting on and getting by in everyday life - 2019 | Helen Holmes | The Sociological Review | 17 pp. | doi:10.1177/0038026118797837
- #SHZ6RT Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store - 2019 | Frederik Larsen | Business History | 18 pp. | doi:10.1080/00076791.2017.1418330
- #N7DKM2 Vogel's Net - 1996 | Alfred Gell | Journal of Material Culture | 25 pp. | doi:10.1177/135918359600100102
- #S54TH3 Waste and the superfluous: an introduction - 2017 | Elisabeth Schober, Thomas Hylland Eriksen | Social Anthropology | 6 pp. | doi:10.1111/1469-8676.12422
- #6C82ER Waste is not the end. For an anthropology of care, maintenance and repair - 2017 | Francisco Martínez | Social Anthropology | 5 pp. | doi:10.1111/1469-8676.12436
- #UBF5U3 What does that shirt mean to you? Thrift-store consumption as cultural capital - 2020 | Shelly Steward | Journal of Consumer Culture | 21 pp. | doi:10.1177/1469540517745707
- #LB72BP What future for collaborative consumption? A practice theoretical account - 2019 | Gert Spaargaren, Walter Fraanje | Journal of Cleaner Production | 10 pp. | doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.09.197
- #9X3WKH Whose Collection Is It Anyway? An Autoethnographic Account of `Dividing the Spoils' upon Divorce - 2007 | Jackie Goode | Cultural Sociology | 19 pp. | doi:10.1177/1749975507082055
- #ZNC4FL WITH and WITHOUT THINGS. AN INTRODUCTION - 2023 | Francisco Martínez, Tomás Errázuriz | Home Cultures | 15 pp. | doi:10.1080/17406315.2024.2347703
- #ZJUEY4 ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets - 2019 | Anna Bohlin | Worldwide Waste | 11 pp. | doi:10.5334/wwwj.17
- #VWPB2S ‘It's Kind of Saving them a Job isn't it?’ The Consumption Work of Household Recycling - 2015 | Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann | The Sociological Review | 19 pp. | doi:10.1111/1467-954x.12199
- #UTUMYN ‘Nothing Comes Without Its World’: Thinking with Care - 2012 | María Puig de la Bellacasa | The Sociological Review | 20 pp. | doi:10.1111/j.1467-954x.2012.02070.x
- #EDFB5G “If I don’t do it, it feels wrong”: embodying environmental ethical reflexivity through cultivation and enactment of practices [cited] - 2024 | Anne Sofie Møller Askholm | Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy | 12 pp. | doi:10.1080/15487733.2024.2350204
- #3F4AVR “Still good life”: On the value of reuse and distributive labor in “depleted” rural Maine [cited] - 2020 | Brieanne Berry, Cindy Isenhour | Economic Anthropology | 16 pp. | doi:10.1002/sea2.12176

Books (20)
- #GABXSA Acknowledging Consumption: A Review of New Studies - 1995 | Daniel Miller | 350 pp.
- #UX42KU Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing [cited] - 2016 | Thomas Widlok | 240 pp. | doi:10.4324/9781315671291
- #VC6397 Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes - 2015 | Andrew Brooks | 298 pp. | doi:10.5040/9781350219243
- #8J3FXD Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience: The Social Organization of Normality [cited] - 2003 | Elizabeth Shove | 236 pp. | doi:10.5040/9781474214605
- #2EDLQU Elusive Consumption - 2004 | Helene Brembeck, Karin M. Ekström | 254 pp. | doi:10.5040/9781474214704
- #BJ6B3C From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History: The Politics of Waste in Socialist and Postsocialist Hungary - 2007 | Zsuzsa Gille | 266 pp.
- #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work [cited] - 2015 | Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann | 249 pp. | doi:10.1057/9781137440440
- #R26U48 Materiality - 2005 | Daniel Miller | 302 pp.
- #Y3KME8 My Life with Things: The Consumer Diaries - 2016 | Elizabeth Chin | 248 pp. | doi:10.1515/9780822374268
- #B5KMLA Second-Hand Cultures and Economies of Reuse, Repair, Sharing, and Care - 2025 | Petra Kuppinger | Palgrave Macmillan | 28 pp. | doi:10.1007/978-3-031-99875-1
- #VKBZ23 Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social - 1996 | Theodore R. Schatzki | 256 pp. | doi:10.1017/CBO9780511527470
- #5AXAEJ The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and How It Changes [cited] - 2012 | Elizabeth Shove, Matt Watson, Mika Pantzar | 206 pp. | doi:10.4135/9781446250655
- #83R4U2 The Ethics of Waste: How We Relate to Rubbish - 2006 | Gay Hawkins | 80 pp.
- #R49AUC The Nexus of Practices: Connections, constellations, practitioners - 2017 | Allison Hui, Elizabeth Shove, Theodore Schatzki | 237 pp. | doi:10.4324/9781315560816
- #3LSRBZ The Perception of the Environment: Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill - 2000 | Tim Ingold | 480 pp.
- #6J5MKL The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory - 2001 | Eike von Savigny, Karin Knorr Cetina, Theodore R. Schatzki | 253 pp. | doi:10.4324/9780203977453
- #RCRP8Z The World of Goods: Towards an anthropology of consumption - 1996 | Baron Isherwood, Mary Douglas | 198 pp.
- #BX2YWY Thinking Through Things: Theorising Artefacts Ethnographically - 2007 | Amiria Henare, Martin Holbraad, Sari Wastell | 248 pp.
- #8YF7LY Thrift and its Paradoxes: From Domestic to Political Economy - 2022 | Catherine Alexander, Daniel Sosna | 232 pp. | doi:10.3167/9781800734623
- #3N7TTE Time, Consumption and Everyday Life: Practice, Materiality and Culture - 2009 | Elizabeth Shove, Frank Trentmann, Richard Wilk | 251 pp. | doi:10.5040/9781474215862

Book chapters (12)
- #TNE9JN Habits and Their Creatures - 2012 | Elizabeth Shove | The Habits of Consumption | Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies | pp. 100-112 | 13 pp.
- #EVCWDH Introduction. 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

### 10. Assistant

The chapters are rich and already doing a lot of theory-work; I’m now pulling exact literature anchors so the suggestions aren’t just “add theory here” (the academic equivalent of “have you tried being more analytical?”).

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 5,
  "query": "materials meanings competencies practice entity Shove"
}
```

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 8,
  "query": "consumption work technical modal processual labour Wheeler Glucksmann"
}
```

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 5,
  "query": "quiet sustainability sharing repairing gifting bartering not represented as sustainability goals"
}
```

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 8,
  "query": "freecycling markets embodied co-presence rental storage space excess items"
}
```

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 8,
  "query": "social circularities sequential reuse relational labour circular consumption Hobson"
}
```

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 8,
  "query": "give boxes donors recipients separate acts of giving and receiving resale almsgiving Widlok"
}
```

### 11. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: Practice theory approach to Gen Z's sustainable clothing consumption in Finland (#86EHHS), Olga Gurova, p. 3
  Context:
    #Q9Y7AV Practice theory approach to Gen Z's sustainable clothing consumption in Finland
      #2SQ58Y Theoretical approach: following sustainable fashion as an integrative practice
  Matching excerpt #XL67W8:
      Practice theory focuses on actions per se . Practice theory is another powerful theoretical framework widely applied, also in consumption studies (Schatzki, 1996; Reckwitz, 2002; Shove and Pantzar, 2005; Shove et al. , 2012; Warde, 2005). Reckwitz (2002, pp. 249) defines practices as a "routinized type of behavior"; as a block or pattern that consists of interdependencies between diverse elements including "forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, "things" and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge" (Shove et al. , 2012, pp. 6–7). Shove et al. (2012) suggest a scheme based on three main elements of practices: materials, meanings and competences. Materials encompass objects, infrastructure, tools, hardware and the body itself (Shove et al. , 2012, p. 23). For this research, among the most important part of the materials is, for instance, the availability of infrastructure for thrifting and recycling or tools for repairing and upcycling clothing. Meanings is a term that represents the social and symbolic significance of participation in practices (Shove et al. , 2012, p. 23). For this study, this means justifications that young consumers give for why and how they follow clothing consumption practices. Competences are multiple forms of understanding and practical knowledgeability (Shove et al. , 2012, p. 23). Competencies would mean knowledge and awareness about sustainable fashion. When the elements combine, the practice is born or, in terms of practice theory, the practice recruits a practitioner. Then, the practices are reproduced in everyday life. A practice can fall apart if a needed element or a link between the elements are missing.

Approximate matches

1. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 36
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #BDRQSR A practice theories approach to producing and performing circular consumption
        #Q2QTGB Consumption and theories of practice
          #HP5NWV Defining practices
  Score: 0.629
  Related excerpt #L87E64:
      Shove et al. (2012) offer an alternative framework for describing a practice. They argue that practices are constituted by three different elements, that is, materials, competences and meanings. Materials refer to the different "things, technologies, tangible physical entities, and the stuff of which objects are made", competences include "skill, know-how and technique" and lastly, meanings include "include symbolic meanings, ideas and aspirations" (Shove et al., 2012: 14). These different elements then need to be linked together by the practice carrier to perform the practice.

2. Source: Materials changing the performance of the household energy consumption practices (#ARE7AL), Eliisa Kylkilahti, Henna Syrjälä, Liisa Kääntä, Sara-Ellen Laitinen, p. 4
  Context:
    #QLT6TK Materials changing the performance of the household energy consumption practices
      #FAQAPC Materiality in social practices
  Score: 0.567
  Related excerpt #8L5RXQ:
      More specifically, Shove (2016) categorises material things into three different roles that show how co-humanist approach assigns only limited agency to materials in the practices with materials having varying impacts on practices. She claims that 'materials are defined, constituted and positioned with respect to each other through their role within specific practices' (p. 157). Things can possess an infrastructural relation to practice, which means that these things are necessary, but they are not interacted with directly. Rather, they form the background to the practice. In the context of housing, this background can be, for example, the home or kitchen, or, more broadly, the infrastructure that also enables living. Second, things can be mobilised or manipulated , or in other words they play a device-oriented role in relation to the performance of a practice. Third, things

3. Source: Food practices as part of daily routines: A conceptual framework for analysing networks of practices (#N5VYH8), Aricia F.M. Castelo, Martina Schäfer, Minelle E. Silva, p. 3
  Context:
    #PXPU7G Food practices as part of daily routines: A conceptual framework for analysing networks of practices
      #F2UNMP 3. Dimensions and perspectives of a network of practice analysis
        #NLZ4YJ 3.1. Zooming in - variations (within) practices
          #NS6W7B Step 2. Defining the elements of practice
  Score: 0.554
  Related excerpt #5CCVLX:
      three-element model proposed by Shove et al. (2012) comprising materials, competences and meanings. We particularly employed this model not only because Shove's concept is one of the most often used in social literature (easily recognisable and adaptable) but also because it was recommended by Nicolini (2012), who suggested 'zooming in' on social practices by considering the meaning practitioners attach to a specific practice, as well the material and knowledge needed to perform them. However, the step of 'zooming in' can also be carried out on the basis of a different but similar understanding of elements. Shove's model actively incorporates material elements as part of the analysis that refers to things, technologies and infrastructures. It connects what people do to technical and provisional systems as well as to the design of places, buildings and so on (Shove et al., 2012).

4. Source: Consumer engagement in the circular economy: Exploring clothes swapping in emerging economies from a social practice perspective (#UB9EAT), Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero, p. 2
  Context:
    #7Q7UZ6 Consumer engagement in the circular economy: Exploring clothes swapping in emerging economies from a social practice perspective
      #9TPZLU 3 | SOCIAL PRACTICE PERSPECTIVE
        #W7ENK2 3.1 | Social practice as entity
  Score: 0.608
  Related excerpt #XYGNLA:
      Shove and Pantzar (2005, pp. 44–45) built on this definition and suggested that practices as entities "presume the existence of requisite elements, including images, forms of competence and in many cases objects as well". Shove, Pantzar, and Watson (2012b) defined materials as the physical entities that are used when performing a practice such as clothes in dressing. Competencies and skills , refer to the knowledge required to operate the materials, perform the practice and evaluate the outcome. In the case of dressing, competence could refer to the knowledge about the size that fits oneself, the instructions for taking care of the garment, and the appropriate dress codes in specific social settings. Finally, meanings indicate the images the practice evokes for people, that is, "the social and symbolic significance" people give the practice. In dressing , specific types of garments could be associated with power positions or social occasions. In addition to these elements, Gram-Hanssen (2010) suggested that rules and institutions are also part of social practices.

5. Source: The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach (#Y3CFPX), Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta, p. 3
  Context:
    #D6XSXA Theories of practice and the assembling of circular consumption
  Score: 0.547
  Related excerpt #NAPLNK:
      However, accomplishing this typically involves the (re)assembling of the elements of practices. As is made clear from the definition presented previously, practices involve and interconnect several heterogeneous elements. For the sake of analytical clarity, this wide arrangement of possible elements is often summarised as meanings, competencies, and materialities (Shove & Pantzar, 2005; Shove et al., 2012).

### 12. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 45
  Context:
    #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste
      #S2CJEK Socio-economic formations of labour: Divisions of labour, socio-economic modes of work, instituted economic process
  Matching excerpt #K4CB2W:
      The approach towards consumption work builds on the multidimensional conception of the division of labour (Glucksmann, 2009, 2013) formulated to initiate renewal of this foundational concept. The complexity and diversity of contemporary forms and connections between labour of different kinds cannot readily be captured by a taken-for-granted understanding of this basic concept. To meet the analytical challenge, first principles need to be revisited. Fundamentally, every new specialisation of work (a process of differentiation) entails new interdependencies and coordination (a process of integration). At a first level, three dimensions of differentiation and interdependency can be identified. The first remains the traditional one of technical specialisation, both intra-organisational and sectoral. The second concerns historically and socially varied forms of work conducted in different economic modes and their interdependencies: market and non-market, paid and unpaid, formal and informal. The third concerns the shifting differentiation and interdependencies of work across the economic processes of production, distribution, exchange and post-exchange. Any work activity can be analysed in terms of technical, modal and economic processual differentiation and integration. A simple example here might be the baking of bread which can involve different specialisations of skills; can be produced by industrial or craft actors, in the private or public sector, or unpaid in the household; and can be fully produced by manufacturers, sold by retailers and sliced by consumers, or part-prepared by retailers in store to be finally baked by consumers.

2. Source: Reuse practices and household consumption work (#V9QTJP), David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons, p. 3
  Context:
    #YDJM7S Prácticas de reutilización y trabajo de consumo doméstico
      #ZZ3Y5X Literature review
  Matching excerpt #DP97U6:
      Our analysis is informed by the concept of 'consumption work' (Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b) which builds on the 'total social organisation labour' approach developed by Glucksmann (1995, 2000, 2005). Wheeler and Glucksmann conceptualize consumption work as resting on a broader, multidimensional concept of 'socio-economic formations of labour' involving three dimensions of labour: technical – the division and allocation of labour in the form of tasks and skills to different kinds of people; modal – interdependencies of work across different socio-economic bases; and processual – connections of labour across the whole span of a process of production of goods or provision (Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b, pp. 35–36). The work consumers undertake conveys and depends on 'how goods and services are sold, how "complete" they are and on their potential uses' (Glucksmann, 2016, p. 881). It is important to note that not all work within the home constitutes consumption work, with some forms of 'domestic labour' being preoccupied with the reproduction of the home (Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b). The aim here is not to provide a categorical definition in separating the two – indeed, activities may be interpreted as both consumption work and domestic labour – but to highlight that the consumption work framework enables us to consider the division of labour and shifting boundaries of work undertaken across different socio-economic contexts. Examples of technological innovations that save labour in the retail sector, such as self-service shopping, automated checkouts, and hand-held scanners, also rely on additional labour from shoppers (Bulmer et al., 2018; Dujarier, 2016; Kjellberg et al., 2019), whilst the use of ready meals and other forms of convenience food are examples of

3. Source: Reuse practices and household consumption work (#V9QTJP), David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons, p. 11
  Context:
    #YDJM7S Prácticas de reutilización y trabajo de consumo doméstico
      #LASGFC Findings
        #Y3P2ZZ Recirculating
  Matching excerpt #BJBAM8:
      Recirculating alludes to consumption work that is coordinated as part of other, more commonly identified, domestic activities, and therefore its association to reuse may go unnoticed. Acknowledging that reuse-refill provisioning systems require customers to use their own containers that are clean and dry to successfully engage and purchase products, we note the modal and processual nature of this work (as discussed by Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b). We distinguish four key phases of work associated with recirculation : first, objects are identified as suitable for reuse; second, they are

Approximate matches

1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 45
  Context:
    #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste
      #S2CJEK Socio-economic formations of labour: Divisions of labour, socio-economic modes of work, instituted economic process
  Score: 0.676
  Related excerpt #K4CB2W:
      The approach towards consumption work builds on the multidimensional conception of the division of labour (Glucksmann, 2009, 2013) formulated to initiate renewal of this foundational concept. The complexity and diversity of contemporary forms and connections between labour of different kinds cannot readily be captured by a taken-for-granted understanding of this basic concept. To meet the analytical challenge, first principles need to be revisited. Fundamentally, every new specialisation of work (a process of differentiation) entails new interdependencies and coordination (a process of integration). At a first level, three dimensions of differentiation and interdependency can be identified. The first remains the traditional one of technical specialisation, both intra-organisational and sectoral. The second concerns historically and socially varied forms of work conducted in different economic modes and their interdependencies: market and non-market, paid and unpaid, formal and informal. The third concerns the shifting differentiation and interdependencies of work across the economic processes of production, distribution, exchange and post-exchange. Any work activity can be analysed in terms of technical, modal and economic processual differentiation and integration. A simple example here might be the baking of bread which can involve different specialisations of skills; can be produced by industrial or craft actors, in the private or public sector, or unpaid in the household; and can be fully produced by manufacturers, sold by retailers and sliced by consumers, or part-prepared by retailers in store to be finally baked by consumers.

2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 50
  Context:
    #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste
      #S2CJEK Socio-economic formations of labour: Divisions of labour, socio-economic modes of work, instituted economic process
  Score: 0.671
  Related excerpt #P2V22S:
      In short, consumption work itself is characterised by inter-modal interdependence, by technical divisions of labour and by how work is distributed between actors across economic processes. This analysis will be further elaborated with respect to recycling in the following chapters.

3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 58
  Context:
    #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste
      #2LDKSC Differentiating consumption work
        #XQA6FE Consumption
  Score: 0.657
  Related excerpt #U7BGG3:
      The work required for consumption is not singled out in Warde's definition, but may rather be subsumed within it. However, differentiating out consumption work as a specific activity distinct from use need not challenge his definition. The question hinges on the attention accorded to what occurs in-between his 'moments' of production and consumption and how the relation of consumption as a partially autonomous activity is seen as linked with economic activity.

4. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 41
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #BDRQSR A practice theories approach to producing and performing circular consumption
        #SBM22B Circular consumption and the sociology of consumption
  Score: 0.659
  Related excerpt #XRXFBJ:
      involves “all work necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services” (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015a: 37). This form of work undertaken by consumers is necessary for the completion as well as complementation of economic processes (Glucksmann, 2016). For instance, self-assembling furniture or installation of different software is necessary before some goods can be appropriated and appreciated. While consumption work is also part of linear economies, in a circular system, previous consumption work activities need to be scaled, and new practices need to be adopted (Hobson et al., 2021). For instance, even if a household already practised waste sorting and recycling according to circularity principles, they also need to enact further practices such as repairing broken belongings or sharing household tools. These increased levels of consumption work in the CE can further contribute to an unequal distribution of labour in terms of gender, class and employment forms (Hobson et al., 2021). Furthermore, it can be challenging to manage the time required for this increased work due to other personal or professional commitments, as the study of Sutcliffe (2022) demonstrates.

5. Source: Consumption and Practice (#QRRZP2), Benjamin Julien Hartmann, p. 17
  Context:
    #LSJS5V I. Introduction
      #8N3LVR 1.1 Consumption and Consumer Culture
        #VS2ZHZ 1. Introduction
  Score: 0.668
  Related excerpt #LDVVHK:
      Rather than work, it is consumption that is used to “express cultural categories and principles, cultivate ideals, create and sustain life-styles, construct notions of the self” (McCracken, 1988, xi). While Warde (1992) notes that also consumption is work, the kind of work addressed by Slater (1997) refers to notions of work in the sense of classic social theorists such as Marx (1971), who reasoned around productive human labour.

6. Source: Reuse practices and household consumption work (#V9QTJP), David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons, p. 3
  Context:
    #YDJM7S Prácticas de reutilización y trabajo de consumo doméstico
      #ZZ3Y5X Literature review
  Score: 0.719
  Related excerpt #DP97U6:
      Our analysis is informed by the concept of 'consumption work' (Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b) which builds on the 'total social organisation labour' approach developed by Glucksmann (1995, 2000, 2005). Wheeler and Glucksmann conceptualize consumption work as resting on a broader, multidimensional concept of 'socio-economic formations of labour' involving three dimensions of labour: technical – the division and allocation of labour in the form of tasks and skills to different kinds of people; modal – interdependencies of work across different socio-economic bases; and processual – connections of labour across the whole span of a process of production of goods or provision (Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b, pp. 35–36). The work consumers undertake conveys and depends on 'how goods and services are sold, how "complete" they are and on their potential uses' (Glucksmann, 2016, p. 881). It is important to note that not all work within the home constitutes consumption work, with some forms of 'domestic labour' being preoccupied with the reproduction of the home (Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b). The aim here is not to provide a categorical definition in separating the two – indeed, activities may be interpreted as both consumption work and domestic labour – but to highlight that the consumption work framework enables us to consider the division of labour and shifting boundaries of work undertaken across different socio-economic contexts. Examples of technological innovations that save labour in the retail sector, such as self-service shopping, automated checkouts, and hand-held scanners, also rely on additional labour from shoppers (Bulmer et al., 2018; Dujarier, 2016; Kjellberg et al., 2019), whilst the use of ready meals and other forms of convenience food are examples of

7. Source: Reuse practices and household consumption work (#V9QTJP), David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons, p. 3
  Context:
    #YDJM7S Prácticas de reutilización y trabajo de consumo doméstico
      #UTZZ6F Introduction
  Score: 0.69
  Related excerpt #TGNATK:
      Our analysis draws on Wheeler and Glucksmann's analysis of 'consumption work', which refers to the range of tasks required of consumers, before or after they consume, on which consumption itself is predicated (Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015a). Few goods or services are ever delivered 'complete' to individuals ready for consumption, with most requiring some form of activity on the part of consumers. For example, tasks such as building flat-pack furniture or installing software on a home computer illustrate forms of – often non-negotiable – labour required to complete and complement a variety of everyday consumption practices (Hobson et al., 2021). Our interest here is in the labour required to successfully perform practices of reuse, with respect to grocery shopping.

8. Source:  (#VWPB2S), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 2
  Context:
    #DPNN52 ‘It’s kind of saving them a job isn’t it?’ The consumption work of household recycling
      #VCLL9S 'Consumption work'
  Score: 0.659
  Related excerpt #H28U22:
      This paper develops Glucksmann's (2009, 2013) concept of 'consumption work', defined as all work necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services . The work of consumers has received minimal attention by scholars of either work or consumption as a distinctive form of labour. However, we contend that analysis of divisions of labour would be incomplete without their inclusion because the work they regularly perform is integral to the completion of a process of production or service provision. Incorporating consumers into the division of labour poses a challenge to this foundational and enduring concept, given its traditional focus on the technical division of tasks and skills within a labour process or sector of work relating to paid employment. Yet, insofar as completion of a circuit of production, distribution, exchange and consumption is predicated on consumers undertaking work in order to consume, analysis of the division of labour would be incomplete without their inclusion. If tasks are reallocated from producers or retailers to consumers, then the framework of analysis requires extension to comprehend the reconfiguration of the division of labour. Work does not simply disappear when it shifts across socio-economic boundaries. Similarly, it is important to develop concepts capable of capturing the range of tasks required of consumers before or after they consume on which consumption itself is predicated. At present this realm of activity features only marginally within the study of work and consumption.

### 13. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: Grey Greening: Quiet Sustainability (#MRANHJ), Pavel Mašek, p. 12
  Context:
    #FCTBY9 Grey greening: quiet sustainability at auto salvage yards
      #C4GGLP 4. Quiet sustainability monetised
  Matching excerpt #V674Q3:
      Although Smith and Jehlička (2013), the authors of the quiet sustainability concept, orient this concept around practices that do not relate, either directly or indirectly, to market transactions, everything else in the concept applies to auto salvage yards. Nonetheless, Jehlička explained to me that the connection to the market transaction is not a crucial condition for quiet sustainability. The informal practices of breakers represent an unforced form of sustainability – which the practitioners do not link directly to environmental or sustainability goals – that results in beneficial environmental outcomes. Although some breakers' practices at the yard can be considered environmentally unfriendly, the friendly ones prevail over them.

2. Source: Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe’s productive gardeners (#WVG7HV), Joe Smith, Petr Jehlicka, p. 7
  Context:
    #TMY23L Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe's productive gardeners
      #QMELYK 4. Quiet sustainability: quality, generosity and unintended environmental benefits
  Matching excerpt #YJA4V6:
      It is for these reasons that our empirical research has led us to develop the concept of quiet sustainability. 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. Everyday practices that have low environmental impacts, but that have not been pursued for that reason, are also features of the concept.

3. Source: Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe’s productive gardeners (#WVG7HV), Joe Smith, Petr Jehlicka, p. 7
  Context:
    #TMY23L Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe's productive gardeners
      #DR88SP 5. Conclusion: 'can you take a cutting?'
  Matching excerpt #PTWXU3:
      Quiet sustainability is practised all over the planet in a range of everyday practices that are most frequently followed in both post-socialist societies and the global South. Importantly they contribute to making societies more resilient to unsettling ecological and social changes but require no state funding and little in the way of market exchanges. Some cultures of sharing, repairing, gifting and bartering that characterise quiet sustainability may, as with practices around food self-provisioning in Poland and Czechia, prove to be robust in the face of dramatic social and economic changes. Others, however, may be more delicate and require recognition, nurturing and a degree of protection. This nurturing and protection of quiet sustainability in such key fields such as transport, food or energy use will often imply local, national or regional state action, if not spending. This will take forms such as planning controls, and the diversion of investment from one form of land use or infrastructure to another (e.g. gardening spaces protected or introduced in place of or as part of, retail, office or housing developments; walking and cycling provision in place or as part of road developments).

4. Source: Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe’s productive gardeners (#WVG7HV), Joe Smith, Petr Jehlicka, p. 0
  Context:
    #TMY23L Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe's productive gardeners
      #PYWKT3 A B S T R A C T
        #9QBUFN Keywords:
  Matching excerpt #K5TQYN:
      This paper investigates notable examples of sustainable lifestyles in relation to food systems. It explores the surprisingly neglected case of widely practised and environmentally sustainable food self-provisioning in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe. Our argument is rooted in qualitative and quantitative data gathered over a seven-year period (2005–2011). The research considers the extent of and motivations for these practices in Poland and Czechia. The very high rates compared to Western Europe and North America have generally been explained in terms of an 'urban peasantry' meeting essential needs. After reviewing and rejecting those accounts we present evidence for these as socially and environmentally beneficial practices, and explore how the motivations derive from a range of feelings about food, quality, capability and family and/or friendship. Rather than relate these practices to temporal signals of quality and sustainability in food ('slow' and 'fast'), or presenting them as 'alternative food networks' we suggest that they represent 'quiet sustainability'. This novel concept summarises widespread practices that result in beneficial environmental or social outcomes and that do not relate directly or indirectly to market transactions, but are not represented by their practitioners as relating directly to environmental or sustainability goals. These practices represent exuberant, appealing and socially inclusive, but also unforced, forms of sustainability. This case further demonstrates the severe limitations of decision makers' focus on economics and behaviour change, and their neglect of other dimensions of social life and change in developing environmental policies.

Approximate matches

1. Source: Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany (#4Y4DVC), Petra Kuppinger, p. 6
  Context:
    #AYGQVA Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany
      #9V9QRZ Incidental sustainability?
  Score: 0.567
  Related excerpt #CBXUVA:
      These practices are deeply sustainable and represent alternative economies and non-commodified exchanges. Smith and Jehlička call these practices ‘quiet sustainability’ and argue that endless similar practices across the world indicate that the ‘journey to sustainability is less difficult than is sometimes presented’ and, indeed, that ‘large sections of humanity may already be on it without feeling the need to proclaim the fact loudly’ (2013: 156).

2. Source: Grey Greening: Quiet Sustainability (#MRANHJ), Pavel Mašek, p. 2
  Context:
    #FCTBY9 Grey greening: quiet sustainability at auto salvage yards
      #CAMNAU 1. Introduction
  Score: 0.577
  Related excerpt #AAYRHY:
      Therefore, at auto salvage yards, one can detect an environmentally responsive behaviour that we might call 'quiet sustainability' (Smith, Jehlička 2013). According to the authors of this concept, this kind of environmental responsibility exists and emerges in everyday practices rather than being generated by policies or PR campaigns. At the same time, practices of quiet sustainability are non-activist (Daněk, Jehlička 2021), nor are they a replacement or an alternative to the market economy, "or a response to its environmental or social failings, but rather a vivid demonstration that that is only part of life" (Smith, Jehlička 2013, p. 155). Practices of quiet sustainability can be considered a third way; that is, they are a way of reaching sustainability 2 (as is desired in the context of current environmental events) without being framed by any legislation or constituting a bottom-up groundswell in the form of grassroots movements. Moreover, the environmentally friendly activities at auto salvage yards are often a result of informal practices, which I will discuss further below.

3. Source: Grey Greening: Quiet Sustainability (#MRANHJ), Pavel Mašek, p. 12
  Context:
    #FCTBY9 Grey greening: quiet sustainability at auto salvage yards
      #C4GGLP 4. Quiet sustainability monetised
  Score: 0.569
  Related excerpt #V674Q3:
      Although Smith and Jehlička (2013), the authors of the quiet sustainability concept, orient this concept around practices that do not relate, either directly or indirectly, to market transactions, everything else in the concept applies to auto salvage yards. Nonetheless, Jehlička explained to me that the connection to the market transaction is not a crucial condition for quiet sustainability. The informal practices of breakers represent an unforced form of sustainability – which the practitioners do not link directly to environmental or sustainability goals – that results in beneficial environmental outcomes. Although some breakers' practices at the yard can be considered environmentally unfriendly, the friendly ones prevail over them.

4. Source: Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe’s productive gardeners (#WVG7HV), Joe Smith, Petr Jehlicka, p. 7
  Context:
    #TMY23L Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe's productive gardeners
      #QMELYK 4. Quiet sustainability: quality, generosity and unintended environmental benefits
  Score: 0.655
  Related excerpt #YJA4V6:
      It is for these reasons that our empirical research has led us to develop the concept of quiet sustainability. 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. Everyday practices that have low environmental impacts, but that have not been pursued for that reason, are also features of the concept.

5. Source: Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe’s productive gardeners (#WVG7HV), Joe Smith, Petr Jehlicka, p. 7
  Context:
    #TMY23L Quiet sustainability: Fertile lessons from Europe's productive gardeners
      #DR88SP 5. Conclusion: 'can you take a cutting?'
  Score: 0.599
  Related excerpt #PTWXU3:
      Quiet sustainability is practised all over the planet in a range of everyday practices that are most frequently followed in both post-socialist societies and the global South. Importantly they contribute to making societies more resilient to unsettling ecological and social changes but require no state funding and little in the way of market exchanges. Some cultures of sharing, repairing, gifting and bartering that characterise quiet sustainability may, as with practices around food self-provisioning in Poland and Czechia, prove to be robust in the face of dramatic social and economic changes. Others, however, may be more delicate and require recognition, nurturing and a degree of protection. This nurturing and protection of quiet sustainability in such key fields such as transport, food or energy use will often imply local, national or regional state action, if not spending. This will take forms such as planning controls, and the diversion of investment from one form of land use or infrastructure to another (e.g. gardening spaces protected or introduced in place of or as part of, retail, office or housing developments; walking and cycling provision in place or as part of road developments).

### 14. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: Uncontained accumulation: Hidden heterotopias of storage and spillage (#7BM5AQ), Sasha Newell, p. 0
  Context:
    #29MY8X Uncontained accumulation: Hidden heterotopias of storage and spillage
      #23FBJ8 KEYWORDS
  Matching excerpt #VUJV45:
      In the process of moving to a smaller home, Toni, a sardonic Illinois resident in her eighties told me, ‘the first thing to know about attics is that they are filled up because they are there’. Perhaps it is the space that comes first, an architectural category that seems to be in a dangerous process of collective expansion, as walk-in closets become de rigueur and rental storage units have been the fastest growing category of real estate for decades. Could it be our increased capacity for storage that is enabling the collective amassment of useless stuff?

2. Source: Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore (#FHZZ6U), Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan, p. 8
  Context:
    #6H5X72 6. SUSTAINABLE MATERIALISMS? MATERIALITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS
      #VV6MBD 6.1 MATERIAL-SPATIAL CONSTRAINTS
  Matching excerpt #DJGUE3:
      in the form of spatial arrangements and constraints, which explains why their efforts have been piece-meal. Space is at a premium in Singapore's high-rent, high-density living. A public rent-free space is arguably one of the most pertinent factors in determining whether free markets can happen in the first place (i.e. space for market transactions, storage). Relational-material exchanges play out better as an embodied co-presence with others/things (e.g. handling objects, trying things before deciding to adopt them). Theoretically, an object of a decent quality will eventually get 'adopted' in time. But this cannot happen if free markets have to clear out of a temporary location after a few hours, rendering the clearing up/out of unwanted leftovers a major problem. This is compounded by the lack of a permanent rent-free storage space for SRRFM and TnT, which inadvertently implies that waste (i.e. unclaimed items) is ironically created after an activity that is supposed to curtail waste production.

3. Source: Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore (#FHZZ6U), Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan, p. 8
  Context:
    #6H5X72 6. SUSTAINABLE MATERIALISMS? MATERIALITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS
      #JVMBCZ 6.2 LEAKAGES IN MATERIAL LOOPS
  Matching excerpt #SP57EV:
      Unlike digital freecycling platforms, SRRFM and TnT will have to grapple with the troublesome materiality of unclaimed items when a market is over. Since SRRFM and TnT do not have a dedicated storage facility keeping leftovers, they will have to be cleared on the spot. As SRRFM operates on a larger scale than TnT, Woon reveals that 'a sizeable volume of disowned waste is generated post-market' (see Figure 3a and Figure 3b ). How these left-overs are dealt with at SRRFM sometimes depends on the available resources at hand (e.g. volunteers who can drive and deposit the remaining good quality items at thrift shops for resale). Most of the time, however, leftovers are thrown away by SRRFM's organisers and volunteers. On rare occasions, volunteers at SRRFM who are very invested in a zero-waste lifestyle may wind up rescuing selected unclaimed leftovers destined for the incinerator (See Figure 3c ). Sometimes Teo does this too by looking through the discard pile and 'saving useful things' and 'many things are useful to [her]'. Teo subscribes to the philosophy of 'save first, negotiate for [storage] space later' while recognising that 'we cannot save everything'. Alex tries his best to keep TnT's remaining stock but he only has space for two large luggage boxes which he brings home on his bicycle or by public transport. Anything more gets recycled or discarded, particularly poorer quality items.

4. 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 #KE8NXD:
      Scholars have pointed out that the recirculation of things through freecycling networks plays a vital role in promoting reuse as well as less materialistic and more sustainable consumption habits (Eden 2017; Klug 2017; Lou 2019; Liu et al. 2020; Gregson 2023). Aside from a gift economy, freecycling has also been identified as a means of collaborative consumption plugged into a sharing economy (Wiesser 2019; Liu et al. 2019). Nevertheless, the relationship between freecycling and circularity has not been well examined thus far. An exception is Eden's (2017) elaboration of how prosumption (i.e. the blurring of production and consumption) is reformulated by the circular movements of meanings and materials as things are disassembled and reassembled as well as shift from being 'unwanted' to 'wanted'. Accordingly, she has highlighted the ways in which freecycling implicates other R-behaviours such as repair and repurposing, besides reuse. In handing things down and around, their materiality gets transformed, and value gets recirculated in these open-ended freecycling networks. More recently, smart phone applications and internet technologies have connected those wanting to buy/sell, rent, lend, barter/swap, freecycle/freegan' virtually (see Norbutas and Corten 2018; Liu et al. 2020 on freecycling groups online). Nonetheless, there is still value in physical markets, as seen in Milios and Dalhammar's (2020) work exploring the novel prospects of sharing re-usable items in Swedish recycling centres to gain insight into the most viable product groups for recirculation. Taken together, the rescue and recirculation of items in good

5. Source: Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing (#UX42KU), Thomas Widlok, p. 204
  Context:
    #N5EK2K ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE ECONOMY OF SHARING
      #GRY84R THE TIME TO SHARE
        #TU63VZ Ultimate sharing: Sharing to the end – but not beyond
          #MSTHD8 BOX 16 THE SKILL TO SHARE
  Matching excerpt #NK5S2A:
      Compare, for instance, attempts to share with physical co-presence and those without (see Box 16). Without embodied support the claims for a share can much more easily be ignored. Sharing meat sitting at the fire with others reinforces social bonds – stopping to share food at a joint hearth weakens the bond. In Chapter 3 I hinted at the ways in which changes in the architecture of huts and fireplaces, the permeability of space among ≠Akhoe Hai//om, affect the chances of personal encounters which in turn affect sharing. A closed palisade fence and an inner court yard, typical features in a modern farm labourer's compound, are sufficient to prevent seeing what others consume at their fire and to prevent passers-by accessing the fireplace as easily as in bush camps. But even before these changes occurred, the ordinary life cycle implied that enjoying co-presence is finite and as a consequence sharing was finite, too. People cannot be at all places all the time. They only receive shares where they are present somehow. And those who can no longer sit around the fire with us or otherwise assure us of their co-presence are not bound to us, and we are not bound to them as strongly as they were when we did enjoy their co-presence. This also applies to people who move away but also to the very old and frail and – ultimately – to the dead. Another way of looking at presence then is disappearance and absence. The living are freed of limitations and demands that may be ascribed to the dead because the dead cannot back-up their claims through a recognized form of bodily co-presence. 12 In comparative perspective this finiteness of personal presence is in fact a social achievement that seems to be an exception rather than the rule.

Approximate matches

1. Source: Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany (#4Y4DVC), Petra Kuppinger, p. 4
  Context:
    #AYGQVA Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany
      #3THHP6 Second-hand cultures and thrift stores
  Score: 0.637
  Related excerpt #RAVRQM:
      Overwhelmed by stuff and not inclined to do their own garage sales (or having stuff left after sales), many people lug their excess belongings to Salvation Army, Goodwill, local church, and other charitable stores (Gregson et al., 2007; Le Zotte, 2017; Minter, 2019). With time, occasional church rummage sales turned into permanent stores and more thrift stores opened. Commercial consignment stores promise a small profit for those who bring their clothes to be resold. Yet much of the second-hand landscape operates outside the capitalist market and provides work for some and access to affordable goods to others; it extends the lifespan of things, enables the sharing of items, and creates cooperative communities (Bohlin, 2018; Herrmann, 2006). For many customers or participants, thrift stores, repair cafés, clothes-swapping parties, or tool-sharing cooperatives are part of a 'deliberative project of value transformation that challenges dominant paradigms and cultural constructions while building alternative social and physical structures from the "ruins of modernity"' (Crocker and Chivervalls quoted in Isenhour and Reno, 2019: 1).

2. Source: Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle (#59QUM6), Sally Eden, p. 4
  Context:
    #5V87AY Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle
      #THE66R Implosion 1: Consumption/production and the rise of prosumption
  Score: 0.649
  Related excerpt #2V6FSD:
      Analyses of digital prosumption have also shown how people buy and sell things in cybermalls like eBay or virtual worlds like Second Life (Dene gri-Knott and Molesworth, 2010a, 2010b; Reisch, 2001; Ritzer, 1999). But there has been little attention paid to how things are exchanged and transformed, such as the use of eBay for divestment instead of purchase. In Freecycling, items are exchanged and transformed as users interactively and collectively shift items across moral registers, from 'unwanted' to 'Wanted', from 'bads' to 'goods'. Hence, rather than consumers merely responding to a commercial retailer's 'offer' (which is now a common phrase for products and services more generally), Freecycle encourages consumers to design and post their own desires, even if these often seem unrealistic, and also for items to be repaired and their use reimagined, turning the consumer of the original item into a prosumer of a reused, recirculated item.

3. Source: Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle (#59QUM6), Sally Eden, p. 2
  Context:
    #5V87AY Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle
      #3HMP6S Introduction
        #ZJX25E Corresponding author:
  Score: 0.646
  Related excerpt #ZR8W73:
      What makes Freecycling particularly intriguing compared to other recycling practices, such as jumble sales, car boot sales or yard sales, is that members also request items as 'Wanted' and often also thank the donors when the items have been 'Received'. Unlike other forms of disposal to family and friends or, more anonymously, to charity shops (e.g. Gregson and Crewe, 2003), Freecycle members see their generosity legitimated through other members' expressions of desire, demonstrating the circularity of consumption (also Lepawsky and Mather, 2011) and how consumption grades gradually into production, rather than being sharply separated from it or neatly subsequent to it. And some groups also follow up all 'Offerers' automatically to ask whether items have been collected and, by extrapolating, estimate how much has been 'kept out of landfill', for example, '9433 kg reused in last month'(10 February 2014).

4. Source: Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle (#59QUM6), Sally Eden, p. 16
  Context:
    #5V87AY Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle
      #R7UR8J Discussion
  Score: 0.639
  Related excerpt #JUAMET:
      Thus, Freecycling demonstrates that divisions between digital and material, between consumption and disposal, between mainstream and alternative consumption, between gift and commodity and between wanted and unwanted goods are in

5. Source: Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore (#FHZZ6U), Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan, p. 6
  Context:
    #9RHV7M 5. FREE(CYCLING) MARKETS: INTERVENTIONS IN MATERIAL(IST) CIRCULARITIES
      #MQYJLV 5.1 SHORTENING AND SUSTAINING MATERIAL CIRCULARITY LOOPS
  Score: 0.688
  Related excerpt #GKTRKH:
      Freeycling markets are sustainable materialist interventions in linear flows of material products from the retailer, consumer and to the incinerator. Such interventions involve shortening material circularity loops, accomplished via the rescue of things from the incinerator and the recirculation of reusable things among market attendees. Rescuers mentioned that they bring things they have salvaged but do not have a use for to SRRFM and/or TnT to 'pass them on'. In other instances, consumers may only require something temporarily. As such, things occasionally get taken only to be recirculated and returned to the mat weeks later. Overall, the material co-presence of a critical mass of givers, takers and reusable things allows for the efficient recirculation of material resources (instead of travelling to different places for different things). As a regular giver at SRRFM, Zing remarked that her 'things move slowly on Olio (freeycling application), there's a better chance that they might be taken at a free market, where everyone congregates' (see Figures 1a and b).

6. 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: 0.655
  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

7. 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
  Score: 0.646
  Related excerpt #KE8NXD:
      Scholars have pointed out that the recirculation of things through freecycling networks plays a vital role in promoting reuse as well as less materialistic and more sustainable consumption habits (Eden 2017; Klug 2017; Lou 2019; Liu et al. 2020; Gregson 2023). Aside from a gift economy, freecycling has also been identified as a means of collaborative consumption plugged into a sharing economy (Wiesser 2019; Liu et al. 2019). Nevertheless, the relationship between freecycling and circularity has not been well examined thus far. An exception is Eden's (2017) elaboration of how prosumption (i.e. the blurring of production and consumption) is reformulated by the circular movements of meanings and materials as things are disassembled and reassembled as well as shift from being 'unwanted' to 'wanted'. Accordingly, she has highlighted the ways in which freecycling implicates other R-behaviours such as repair and repurposing, besides reuse. In handing things down and around, their materiality gets transformed, and value gets recirculated in these open-ended freecycling networks. More recently, smart phone applications and internet technologies have connected those wanting to buy/sell, rent, lend, barter/swap, freecycle/freegan' virtually (see Norbutas and Corten 2018; Liu et al. 2020 on freecycling groups online). Nonetheless, there is still value in physical markets, as seen in Milios and Dalhammar's (2020) work exploring the novel prospects of sharing re-usable items in Swedish recycling centres to gain insight into the most viable product groups for recirculation. Taken together, the rescue and recirculation of items in good

8. Source: Freecycling Markets as Sustainable Materialist Movements? Closing Reuse Circularity Loops in Singapore (#FHZZ6U), Brenda S.A. Yeoh, Qian Hui Tan, p. 8
  Context:
    #6H5X72 6. SUSTAINABLE MATERIALISMS? MATERIALITY AND ITS DISCONTENTS
      #VV6MBD 6.1 MATERIAL-SPATIAL CONSTRAINTS
  Score: 0.639
  Related excerpt #DJGUE3:
      in the form of spatial arrangements and constraints, which explains why their efforts have been piece-meal. Space is at a premium in Singapore's high-rent, high-density living. A public rent-free space is arguably one of the most pertinent factors in determining whether free markets can happen in the first place (i.e. space for market transactions, storage). Relational-material exchanges play out better as an embodied co-presence with others/things (e.g. handling objects, trying things before deciding to adopt them). Theoretically, an object of a decent quality will eventually get 'adopted' in time. But this cannot happen if free markets have to clear out of a temporary location after a few hours, rendering the clearing up/out of unwanted leftovers a major problem. This is compounded by the lack of a permanent rent-free storage space for SRRFM and TnT, which inadvertently implies that waste (i.e. unclaimed items) is ironically created after an activity that is supposed to curtail waste production.

### 15. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 89
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #CJTF2K Research paper findings
        #786WQP Research paper 3
          #86QEGH Title: Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing
  Matching excerpt #VP8FU5:
      We contribute to sociological circular consumption research that previously showed the ethical and consumption work involved with circular consumption (Hobson et al., 2021; Lehtokunnas et al., 2022; Närvänen et al., 2023; Sutcliffe, 2022), as well as the challenges of performing circular consumption (Åberg and Greene, 2024; Wethal and Hoff, 2024). In our study, we add to this research stream in several ways. We first show how care practices are intertwined with circular consumption, by illustrating how the work involved with circular consumption can be perceived as more meaningful through care, and how the challenges of circular consumption can, at least partly, be understood as problems in enacting the care practices. Second, with our findings, we add to the somewhat ignored social and relational aspects of performing circular consumption (see also Meißner, 2021; Morrow and Davies, 2022), by showing how participants cared for known or unknown others through performing circular clothing consumption. Lastly, with the findings on the problems and failures of enacting care practices, we show that it is not enough for consumers to be concerned and take responsibility for others. For care enactments, and hence for the performance of circular consumption, resources must be present. These resources were often lacking in the wider market arrangements.

2. 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).

3. Source: Reuse practices and household consumption work (#V9QTJP), David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons, p. 2
  Context:
    #YDJM7S Prácticas de reutilización y trabajo de consumo doméstico
      #UTZZ6F Introduction
  Matching excerpt #6U9397:
      With a growing emphasis on the 'Circular Economy' in debates on consumption, sustainability and everyday life, systems of reuse are increasingly attracting attention (for example (EMF, 2019), (Greenpeace, 2020)) in transforming 'production-consumption systems towards enhanced material circularity' (Greene et al., 2024, p. 1). For example, the UK Plastics Pact emphasizes the need for a series of technical and design-based solutions in 'eliminating problematic plastics' and 'creating a circular economy for plastics' (WRAP, n.d.). At the same time, there is a strong emphasis on 'hard hitting campaigns' that encourage citizens to 'recycle more of the right things' (WRAP, n.d.) and a widespread sense that consumers must 'do their bit' by, for example, switching from single-use plastics to reusable packaging. 1 Within social science work, the role of 'consumer-users' and the labour involved in achieving a more sustainable circular economy has been identified as a critical, but often overlooked, component of citizen participation (Greene et al., 2024; Hobson, 2020; Hobson et al., 2021). Hobson's work suggests that any successful transition towards a circular economy requires a shift beyond prevailing individualistic perspectives on consumer behaviour that have dominated policy approaches against the backdrop of technocratic changes (cf. Shove, 2010). This paper contributes to these debates, focusing on the dynamics of existing household consumption practices to better understand how these might enable or inhibit the development of systems of reuse.

4. Source: Reuse practices and household consumption work (#V9QTJP), David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons, p. 15
  Context:
    #YDJM7S Prácticas de reutilización y trabajo de consumo doméstico
      #9KXLER Conclusion
  Matching excerpt #Q6BLWD:
      Second, whilst existing accounts of package-free shopping have focused principally on the retail-consumption interface, we have explored a range of other domestic practices associated with reuse. In doing so, we join recent geographical debates surrounding household sustainability, everyday consumption, and the material culture of the home to enhance our understanding of the household consumption practices that are involved in enacting the circular economy. These practices are often invisible both to those who carry them out and to environmental policymakers – precisely because they may not be considered as 'reuse' in the formal, narrow, sense of shopping at refill stores using 'reusable' containers. We also draw attention to the additional domestic labour ( stock management ) associated with shopping at refill stores, which reflects more commonly observed limitations in negotiating the rhythm of shopping and household consumption routines. While practices, such as refilling, are more-or-less specific to dedicated systems of reuse (e.g. refill in store), we highlight those practices of decanting , stock management , and recirculating can also be observed in relation to conventional supermarket-based consumption and related domestic labour routines. It follows that such practices, commonly observed within the private domain of the home, serve as an integral part of the successful functioning of macro-economic systems (Hobson et al., 2021). The association between reuse practices and broader domestic labour activities suggests that concerns amongst policy makers and commentators about the 'slow uptake' of reusable packaging may be overstated and premised on the potential underestimation of existing behaviours essential to advancing a circular economy. Accepting that not all informal labour is 'exploitative' (Hobson et al., 2021), we suggest that opportunities for transitioning to a more circular economy might be found within existing configurations of consumption and economy as well as in the reconfiguration of shopping practices (cf. Fuentes et al., 2019).

5. Source: Reuse practices and household consumption work (#V9QTJP), David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons, p. 16
  Context:
    #YDJM7S Prácticas de reutilización y trabajo de consumo doméstico
      #9KXLER Conclusion
  Matching excerpt #G26N4U:
      Finally, conceptualizing these activities and tasks as 'consumption work' helps to understand the work that consumers are required to engage in as part of the transition to more circular forms of consumption. For example, the requirement on consumers to bring their own containers to reuse-refill stores results in several processual forms of labour, primarily that of decanting and recirculating . Whilst these activities may be interpreted as domestic labour due to them being household-based, we argue that they play a key role in the wider circuits of the reuse economy, extending well beyond the home. Allied to this, our sensitivity to how labour is distributed along the supply chain (Hobson et al., 2021) allows us to offer a rejoinder to the dominant framing of the role of 'consumers' in the circular economy. In contrast to the prevailing idea that the onus is on consumers to take up and 'accept' new business models and products, our work suggests that more emphasis should be placed on the retail sector to adapt to consumers' existing practices. Differentiating between reuse-refill and reuse-return methods of provisioning (EMF, 2019), raises questions about the nature and amount of consumption work and domestic labour involved in these different systems (Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b). Future studies could usefully turn their attention to this complexity and nuance. Our approach also raises questions about who (state, market, or household) is required to do what work to ensure the success of reuse systems. As things stand, most of the work falls to individuals who are required to source, prepare, and maintain objects ( recirculate ) in refill systems, integrating these practices into their existing domestic routines. With a growing interest in transitioning towards a shared packaging economy (reuse-return), it is imperative to think about how best to recognize and formalize the work carried out by households whilst also questioning how responsibility and care should be reconfigured and formalized across the wider supply-chain.

Approximate matches

1. Source: Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle (#59QUM6), Sally Eden, p. 17
  Context:
    #5V87AY Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle
      #R7UR8J Discussion
  Score: 0.675
  Related excerpt #AXJJ7T:
      These diverse practices affect three implosions of key binaries: (1) consumption/production, (2) digital/material and (3) mainstream/alternative. Freecycling is, thus, prosumptive, rather than solely consumptive, and this prosumption is performed through digital and material practices of exchange and moral ordering. It is also circular, not only challenging the linearity of traditional perspectives on waste disposal but also pulling mainstream retailing and consuming vocabularies and representations into a supposedly alternative, ethically and environmentally driven space. I use 'circular consumption' to capture these non-linear, non-binary processes of revaluing and exchanging. This also resonates with practice theory because circular consumption emphasises the repeated enactment and interactions between things, skills (both virtual in the form of online postings and material in the form of repair) and people, and this collective circularity creates and re-creates value of/through things.

2. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 24
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #E4Z6F8 The interdisciplinary research field of circular consumption
        #PZ5SEK Sociological circular consumption research2
  Score: 0.691
  Related excerpt #YPW5FP:
      Through these sociological studies, one can see how performing circular consumption is embedded in everyday lives and the ability to carry out the work of adopting new circular practices, moreover, extending previous ones (Hobson et al., 2021) are shaped by the social, material and cultural factors that shape everyday lives (Hobson, 2020). Thus, performing circular consumption is not a straightforward undertaking.

3. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 92
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #CJTF2K Research paper findings
        #GMDPW3 Research paper 4
          #WC9WSW Title: Circular consumption and valuation work: enacting circularity in everyday clothing practices
  Score: 0.686
  Related excerpt #AVDHZZ:
      These insights contribute to sociological circular consumption research by showing the valuation work involved in the circular acquisition, use and disposal of clothes. Previous studies illustrate that performing circular consumption involves extended and more diverse forms of consumption work (Hobson et al., 2021). Furthermore, previous studies have also shown the need for competences, time and infrastructure to support circular practices (Åberg and Greene, 2024; Camacho-Otero et al., 2020; Rabiou and Jaeger-Erben, 2024; Sutcliffe, 2022). In this paper, we contribute with an understanding of the work involved with gathering and coordinating these required elements for circular

4. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 40
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #BDRQSR A practice theories approach to producing and performing circular consumption
        #SBM22B Circular consumption and the sociology of consumption
  Score: 0.677
  Related excerpt #6FKLDY:
      However, sociological circular consumption research has also started to address some less discussed aspects of sustainable consumption in everyday life and answer the call of situating consumption in wider societal shifts and economic processes (e.g., Evans, 2020; Warde, 2022). This is due to circular consumption being called for in relation to a wider economic reorganisation programme, i.e., the circular economy. Thus, circular consumption is closely connected to economic and market processes. The mapping of this connection has been commenced in circular consumption research, first and foremost through the notion of consumption work (Wheeler and Glücksmann, 2015a, 2015b) and its re-organisation due to this economic reorganisation programme (Hobson et al., 2021).

5. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 40
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #BDRQSR A practice theories approach to producing and performing circular consumption
        #SBM22B Circular consumption and the sociology of consumption
  Score: 0.672
  Related excerpt #ZLWV9W:
      Hobson et al. (2021) argue for understanding the increased consumption work involved in the performance of circular consumption. Consumption work

6. Source: Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing (#AVNZLE), Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg, p. 1
  Context:
    #S6NTVJ Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing
      #QR437R Introduction
  Score: 0.678
  Related excerpt #B6BCMX:
      In pursuing a practice approach to care and circular consumption, we align ourselves with the small but dynamic body of work exploring the social, cultural and economic practices and processes involved in the performance of circular consumption (Hobson et al, 2021; Rabiú and Jaeger-Erben, 2022; Greene et al, 2024). Among other things, this research has shown that circular consumption is deeply embedded in contemporary consumer culture and that the recirculation of goods is not necessarily driven by environmental values and can conversely lead to the normalisation of surplus (Gregson et al, 2013). Research in this vein has also emphasised the need to draw attention to the materialities involved in circular consumption and take into account how diverse circular consumption practices are both ‘socially and materially embedded in the choreographies of everyday life’ (Holmes, 2018: 146). Finally, sociological research has also drawn attention to the consumption work required of households to develop and maintain everyday circular consumption practices (Hobson et al, 2021;

7. 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
  Score: 0.704
  Related 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).

8. Source: ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets (#ZJUEY4), Anna Bohlin, p. 6
  Context:
    #SSAEUN 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets
      #E744H2 Introduction
        #JNNA5N Coming Full Circle
  Score: 0.682
  Related excerpt #QR9EJK:
      emerging 'circular economy', such popular notions of circularity have considerable implications for the study of second-hand consumption. If the stages of consumption (acquiring, living with, and disposing of second-hand goods) are investigated in isolation, one misses the sense in which people perceive pre-used goods as being on trajectories, and the extent to which motivation and desires at each of these stages is shaped by this consideration. In the case of second-hand consumption, then, the different phases are not just interlinked, but are typically seen as such by those involved.

### 16. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: Gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale? (#4UEQN8), Gretchen M. Herrmann, p. 13
  Context:
    #QF9LBR gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale?
      #9PBVWF "it's just giving"
  Matching excerpt #X26GS7:
      Not all status differences are erased in garage sale exchange and, insofar as there is inequality in the status of the transactors, the giver, in accordance with Mauss’s model, is privileged in the transaction. Comfort levels in giving and receiving vary by individual among those of unequal status. Jeffrey Leiter (1989), reflecting on holding his own garage sale, agreed with my earlier depiction of garage sale exchange as giving (Soiffer and Herrmann 1987). Yet he felt as though the exchanges were more marketlike when blacks or the poor made purchases because they did not respond with gratitude. Some sellers find themselves most able to “give” to those of similar backgrounds, while others primarily do so to those in apparent need and thus of lower status. Some recipients save face by providing token payment. Despite inequalities in status, giving in the garage sale is more egalitarian than giving in charitable institutions because it is spontaneous, face-to-face, and not institutionalized. As with so many other aspects of garage sale practice, the lines of demarcation between giving and charity remain unclear.

2. Source: Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing (#UX42KU), Thomas Widlok, p. 99
  Context:
    #N5EK2K ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE ECONOMY OF SHARING
      #QZE3DG THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF SHARING DEMAND
        #LFFK32 Sharing and bodily presence
          #TLND73 BOX 7 HANGING AROUND FOR A SHARE IN THE KALAHARI
  Matching excerpt #KCB6QS:
      The transformations that I have sketched here for the domestic space of the house or the settlement may also be upscaled since they may cover the man-made landscape at large, sacred spaces, places and regions that are restricted in access and so forth. However, it is not just the attributes of the built environment that matter, but also how much autonomy people have to move around in that environment. Being able to come closer is just one side of the coin. Being able to move away is the other side of it. At a very fundamental level, violence and domination can be defined as imposed presence (Marten 1993: 17). When egalitarian and sharing systems break down, it is donors who impose their presence onto potential recipients and not vice versa. The money lenders and liquor producers who “give” on credit and thereby create dependencies are a case in point (see Widlok 1999). Other examples are the neighbouring raiders who control exchange relations by their presence (see Willerslev 2015) and finally the state and NGO agents who impose their presence and reduce the exit options for those to whom they give what was not demanded. Many acts of “unsolicited giving” are therefore not sharing in this technical sense. Gift giving and other forms of transfers may also enable access

3. Source: Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing (#UX42KU), Thomas Widlok, p. 173
  Context:
    #N5EK2K ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE ECONOMY OF SHARING
      #TJP89S INTRODUCING THE SHARING ECONOMY
        #86NAMJ When “sharing” is renting (out)
          #6J8925 BOX 13 PUTTING UP A GIVE BOX
  Matching excerpt #BXEAUH:
      to do (e.g. not to leave any perishable items) and things were regularly put into order and some items removed to the nearby rubbish containers if they were broken or in such a bad shape that they were unlikely to be picked up. Participant observation also revealed that although this giving was structured by the motives of the givers rather than by the needs of the receivers, the give box successfully filled a gap in the repertoire of (re-)distribution in at least two respects. Firstly, most items were gone fairly quickly, mostly from one day to the next. This indicates that there was a demand, after all. Secondly, the box successfully decoupled the act of giving from the act of receiving. Receiving alms, and the begging that goes with it, often makes people feel uneasy in societies in which everyone is supposed to work for what they desire. Most visitors whom I encountered and spoke to at the give box highlighted that they liked the box because they could give things away that were “too good to throw away”, even though observation showed that these visitors were there to search for items to take rather than for the opportunity to place things. Hence, visiting the box and browsing in public was okay since it was not concomitant with being a recipient of alms. This way “giving through the box” reached many people who would otherwise not be recipients of public welfare either because they are too ashamed to register or because they were just above the officially recognized level of poverty but still in need of things. Another important point that was repeatedly made by visitors to the box concerns possible abuses of the box as a “dumping ground” but also attempts to (re)commercialize the contents. Such concerns are also echoed by online comments with regard to give boxes that have a presence on social media or local websites (see www.givebox.eu ).

4. Source: Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing (#UX42KU), Thomas Widlok, p. 173
  Context:
    #N5EK2K ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE ECONOMY OF SHARING
      #TJP89S INTRODUCING THE SHARING ECONOMY
        #86NAMJ When “sharing” is renting (out)
          #6J8925 BOX 13 PUTTING UP A GIVE BOX
  Matching excerpt #3JWRLY:
      None of the “new” transfer modes that emerge with the “sharing economy” are isolated, they all get integrated into other transactions, most importantly into the framework of commercial market transactions. Thus, individuals who frequent the give box are not necessarily destitute or completely without money. Rather they seek ways of getting things for free which in turn frees money for other items or services for which there is no alternative but to pay for with money (e.g. energy bills, petrol, insurances etc.). This also holds for most of the transactions in the above-mentioned LETS exchange systems which carve out a domain for non-monetary exchange which allows the reserving of financial means for other domains. At the give boxes the integration into the wider economy of transactions is very visible in another way. At all give boxes that I have visited in situ or online, there were complaints about “hawks” who would patrol the give boxes for things that they then would sell at jumble sales or through other commercial platforms which continue to exist side-by-side with the new give boxes. In the context of give boxes such behaviour is usually scolded and complained about because it is said to be counteracting the purpose of the give boxes. This shows that for most people involved, give boxes are very much seen as being part of the register of giving of alms, giving to the poor and generosity. They are set apart from commercial exchange but also in practice from sharing which would leave more initiative with the receivers and which would highlight allowing access to goods and individual autonomy. In the view of most give-box initiators the establishment of

5. Source: Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing (#UX42KU), Thomas Widlok, p. 172
  Context:
    #N5EK2K ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE ECONOMY OF SHARING
      #TJP89S INTRODUCING THE SHARING ECONOMY
        #86NAMJ When “sharing” is renting (out)
          #6J8925 BOX 13 PUTTING UP A GIVE BOX
  Matching excerpt #NBZHN8:
      Those who place items in the box often drive up to the box, which is next to the road on a little square of green, get out of their car, just to drop things off and then move on. Others who sit on a bench next to the box or who stroll around it are usually potential recipients who check more or less regularly whether new things have arrived which they may find attractive. There is usually no interaction between givers and receivers although some individuals are both or claim to be both providers and occasional takers. Also, some items disappear from the box but reappear some days later, which suggests that they have been taken home but returned later. Some types of items seem to be in higher demand (office and school requisites such as paper notebooks for instance) while others stay for longer (many of the books, for instance). Unlike with classified ads which fall into "wanted" and "offered" categories, there is no way for the potential recipients to express their demands. The only act of demanding that I have experienced when visiting the give box was when someone who had observed my placing of things had spotted the camera which I used to document changes in the box and about which he asked whether I was planning to put it into the box as well. This was an exception since for most other intents and purposes "give boxes" are exactly what the name suggests, a way of giving things away that one no longer wants but for which giving away seems more appropriate than disposing of as waste. They also typically decouple giving from taking.

6. Source: Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing (#UX42KU), Thomas Widlok, p. 28
  Context:
    #N5EK2K ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE ECONOMY OF SHARING
      #ELZDXK THIS IS NOT A GIFT
        #XH3Z3M Ceci n'est pas un don
          #DFCCJH BOX 1 NO GIFT INTENDED: SHARING GAME MEAT IN A HADZA HUNTING CAMP ﷐
  Matching excerpt #BJBCDF:
      The core of gift-giving theory since Mauss is the tripartite obligation to give a gift, to receive it and to give a return gift, as already mentioned above. The time lapse between receiving and returning a gift is of central theoretical importance and will be discussed at some length below. The inapplicability of the concept and theory of the gift with regard to sharing has been discussed primarily with regard to the lack of a return gift. Sharing often has no recognizable return, certainly not in the way in which gift and counter-gift are connected in the theory of exchange. However, there is more to it. While gifts are often accompanied by displays of generosity and power, sharing acts are not – and indeed often explicitly should not be. The obligation to share typically only emerges when and if a demand is being made and attempts are often made to refuse or diffuse the demand (see Chapter 2).

Approximate matches

1. Source: Gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale? (#4UEQN8), Gretchen M. Herrmann, p. 12
  Context:
    #QF9LBR gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale?
      #9PBVWF "it's just giving"
  Score: 0.56
  Related excerpt #A4WF9P:
      Giving in the garage sale is often unpretentious and unmediated. One older woman said of her generosity to others, "It's not charity , it's just giving ." In organized charity, the giver is generally of a higher social class than the receiver (Collins 1988; Ostrander 1984; Stein 1989); thus, charitable institutions (re)create and reinforce markers of social stratification. Collins (1988:43-44) observes that charity is readily converted into status, particularly by the middle- and upper-class "ladies bountiful." The giver gains easy symbolic capital since the recipients, who are poor, cannot reciprocate. Although most shoppers purchase goods from those of equal

2. Source: The gift of waste: The diversity of gift practices among dumpster divers (#7VNTAB), Olli Pyyhtinen, Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen, p. 12
  Context:
    #MBGECJ The gift of waste: The diversity of gift practices among dumpster divers
      #XPJHAL Materials and methods
        #CW8R4E Free giving
  Score: 0.6
  Related excerpt #GPS2ZN:
      nature of giving is possible in a case like the one described by Salla, where the obligation to reciprocate that characterizes gift exchange is not relevant. Whoever came to the bin after Salla would not even be able to make a corresponding gift in return even if they wanted to. Here the giving is unilateral, insofar as it concerns interpersonal relationships between self and others (while acknowledging that for example the act of self-congratulating oneself and the feeling of being satisfied with oneself for being generous can set the 'return' in motion within the mind of the giver, as Derrida (1994) insists). Or, if there is reciprocity involved, it remains anonymous, at most: one may see oneself as participating in a convention of giving that surpasses specific individuals, as it were. One may for example give by thinking that just as the treasures one leaves at the dumpster may please someone else and satiate their hunger, it would be preferable if others donated as well; not least so because it might just happen that some day one was in need of food oneself.

3. Source: The gift of waste: The diversity of gift practices among dumpster divers (#7VNTAB), Olli Pyyhtinen, Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen, p. 12
  Context:
    #MBGECJ The gift of waste: The diversity of gift practices among dumpster divers
      #XPJHAL Materials and methods
        #CW8R4E Free giving
  Score: 0.573
  Related excerpt #LPRM5B:
      Furthermore, secretive or anonymous giving does not merely involve the self-effacement of the giver; the potential recipient may also remain unknown to the giver. In the example above, the position of the recipient remains an empty place that can be assumed by essentially anyone. Hénaff (2020) suggests that the nature of the free and gracious gift is primarily psychological and moral, aiming to generate joy in the recipient. However, when Salla left items in the bin for those who might come after her, she did not seek to control the response created and the effect her gift would potentially make. She simply left them there.

4. Source: The gift of waste: The diversity of gift practices among dumpster divers (#7VNTAB), Olli Pyyhtinen, Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen, p. 15
  Context:
    #MBGECJ The gift of waste: The diversity of gift practices among dumpster divers
      #NVN8PR Conclusion
  Score: 0.555
  Related excerpt #3HYAW6:
      There were four modalities of waste gifts that we encountered in our interviews with dumpster divers, each with its own system of justification and meaning. For example, reciprocity, which is crucial in and for the trash parties embodying solidarity-based gifts, is not relevant to the parasitic relationship marked by the givenness of waste or to free giving. Similarly, the self-effacement of the giver and the concealment of the expectation of reciprocation, which are appropriate in or even necessary conditions for free, disinterested giving, would hardly make any sense in the solidarity-based gift, the purpose of which is to bind giver and recipient. Further, while the givenness of waste involves no generosity in the strict sense of the term, it is present in the other three forms of the gift. In each, however, generosity plays a different role: while in the solidarity-based gift, the generous offer tends to be reciprocal and contributes to the continuity of a relationship, in free giving it is unconditional and aimed at graciousness. Finally, in the gift of non-giving, the generous offer consists, paradoxically, in the withdrawal from giving, and the recipient – nature – knows nothing of the gesture.

5. Source: The gift of waste: The diversity of gift practices among dumpster divers (#7VNTAB), Olli Pyyhtinen, Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen, p. 13
  Context:
    #MBGECJ The gift of waste: The diversity of gift practices among dumpster divers
      #XPJHAL Materials and methods
        #CW8R4E Free giving
  Score: 0.547
  Related excerpt #RBNQP6:
      a bit randomly. When we asked him whether he announced (semi-)publicly anywhere that he had all these sausages, he replied with chuckles that 'I think it is nicer to hand it [i.e. a package] as a surprise, as a surprise present' and imitated the move of drawing a package out of the breast pocket. Interestingly, for us, pure giving appears in these examples to be a kind of counterpart of the parasitism discussed above. Both free giving and parasitism entail a relation where there is no reversal of direction; things flow one way only. To some extent, by taking without giving, the parasite may even establish the condition for the possibility of pure and unidirectional giving, and the gesture of pure giving places the recipient in the position of the parasite, irrespective of the intentions of giver or recipient (see also Copeman, 2008: 28).

6. Source: The Gift, the Indian Gift and the Indian Gift (#Q24SW5), Jonathan Parry, p. 16
  Context:
    #QSCQ6W THE GIFT, THE INDIAN GIFT AND THE 'INDIAN GIFT'*
      #M5XECH The ideology of the 'pure gift'
  Score: 0.563
  Related excerpt #5D2KT3:
      It is of course the case that the common fate of such 'free' gifts is to become a purchase price of salvation, resulting in the kind of actuarial calculation represented by the Merit Books of the pious Buddhist (e.g. Spiro 1970), or the arithmetical relationship between alms-offerings and the elimination of sin established by Cyprian (Westermarck 1906: 555). But this same ideology may react against such reckoning in the name of an ideal of purely disinterested action.

7. Source: Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing (#UX42KU), Thomas Widlok, p. 173
  Context:
    #N5EK2K ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE ECONOMY OF SHARING
      #TJP89S INTRODUCING THE SHARING ECONOMY
        #86NAMJ When “sharing” is renting (out)
          #6J8925 BOX 13 PUTTING UP A GIVE BOX
  Score: 0.591
  Related excerpt #BXEAUH:
      to do (e.g. not to leave any perishable items) and things were regularly put into order and some items removed to the nearby rubbish containers if they were broken or in such a bad shape that they were unlikely to be picked up. Participant observation also revealed that although this giving was structured by the motives of the givers rather than by the needs of the receivers, the give box successfully filled a gap in the repertoire of (re-)distribution in at least two respects. Firstly, most items were gone fairly quickly, mostly from one day to the next. This indicates that there was a demand, after all. Secondly, the box successfully decoupled the act of giving from the act of receiving. Receiving alms, and the begging that goes with it, often makes people feel uneasy in societies in which everyone is supposed to work for what they desire. Most visitors whom I encountered and spoke to at the give box highlighted that they liked the box because they could give things away that were “too good to throw away”, even though observation showed that these visitors were there to search for items to take rather than for the opportunity to place things. Hence, visiting the box and browsing in public was okay since it was not concomitant with being a recipient of alms. This way “giving through the box” reached many people who would otherwise not be recipients of public welfare either because they are too ashamed to register or because they were just above the officially recognized level of poverty but still in need of things. Another important point that was repeatedly made by visitors to the box concerns possible abuses of the box as a “dumping ground” but also attempts to (re)commercialize the contents. Such concerns are also echoed by online comments with regard to give boxes that have a presence on social media or local websites (see www.givebox.eu ).

8. Source: Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing (#UX42KU), Thomas Widlok, p. 173
  Context:
    #N5EK2K ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE ECONOMY OF SHARING
      #TJP89S INTRODUCING THE SHARING ECONOMY
        #86NAMJ When “sharing” is renting (out)
          #6J8925 BOX 13 PUTTING UP A GIVE BOX
  Score: 0.553
  Related excerpt #3JWRLY:
      None of the “new” transfer modes that emerge with the “sharing economy” are isolated, they all get integrated into other transactions, most importantly into the framework of commercial market transactions. Thus, individuals who frequent the give box are not necessarily destitute or completely without money. Rather they seek ways of getting things for free which in turn frees money for other items or services for which there is no alternative but to pay for with money (e.g. energy bills, petrol, insurances etc.). This also holds for most of the transactions in the above-mentioned LETS exchange systems which carve out a domain for non-monetary exchange which allows the reserving of financial means for other domains. At the give boxes the integration into the wider economy of transactions is very visible in another way. At all give boxes that I have visited in situ or online, there were complaints about “hawks” who would patrol the give boxes for things that they then would sell at jumble sales or through other commercial platforms which continue to exist side-by-side with the new give boxes. In the context of give boxes such behaviour is usually scolded and complained about because it is said to be counteracting the purpose of the give boxes. This shows that for most people involved, give boxes are very much seen as being part of the register of giving of alms, giving to the poor and generosity. They are set apart from commercial exchange but also in practice from sharing which would leave more initiative with the receivers and which would highlight allowing access to goods and individual autonomy. In the view of most give-box initiators the establishment of

### 17. Assistant

I’m going to tag the obvious draft fragments/placeholders in Chapters 4–5 as I go, so they’re easier to find later.

#### Tool call: `tag_paragraphs`

```json
{
  "blocks": [
    "QPZXSP",
    "JXSMQW",
    "YNMVCK",
    "8R7Q44",
    "T9XJDZ",
    "B3S7DW",
    "WQCQ9A",
    "MC4GH7"
  ],
  "tags": [
    "fragment"
  ]
}
```

### 18. Tool result: tag_paragraphs

PARAGRAPH TAGS ATTACHED
Blocks: #QPZXSP, #JXSMQW, #YNMVCK, #8R7Q44, #T9XJDZ, #B3S7DW, #WQCQ9A, #MC4GH7
Tags: fragment
Statements: 8

### 19. Assistant

I found the main architecture. One more pass for stronger citation anchors around attachment/detachment, second-hand stigma, valuation/curation, and gendered household routing.

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 8,
  "query": "appropriation appreciation devaluation divestment disposal attachment detachment Evans 2020"
}
```

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 8,
  "query": "loving and letting go things keep circulating second-hand markets Bohlin"
}
```

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 8,
  "query": "valuation action thrift store moving things along maximize profit Larsen"
}
```

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 8,
  "query": "secondhand clothing stigma shame thrift cultural capital previous owners energy"
}
```

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 8,
  "query": "gender women household recycling consumption work sorting men transport"
}
```

#### Tool call: `search_text`

```json
{
  "document_kind": "literature",
  "limit": 8,
  "query": "voluntary clothing disposition social practice community based swapping Počinková divestment"
}
```

### 20. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: After Practice? Material Semiotic Approaches to Consumption and Economy (#4EFC4F), David M. Evans, p. 5
  Context:
    #AG3WUY Theories of Practice and Material Semiotics
  Matching excerpt #NZ35DC:
      The analysis that follows makes this argument through reference to three bodies of work: (i) actor-network approaches to market agencements ; (ii) perspectives on the social life of things, and (iii) discussions of ontological politics. In each case, I use brief examples from a recent project on the significance of 'freshness' in the agro-food sector 5 to demonstrate the basis and potential for integration with practice theoretic accounts of consumption. Before getting to this, it is important to present a working definition of consumption. I understand consumption as a process involving specific 'moments' beyond the act of acquisition. Following Warde (2005), I suggest that consumption also involves appropriation (use, personalisation and incorporation into people's everyday lives) and appreciation (involving personal and symbolic frameworks of judgement and evaluation). To each of these A's, I propose a counterpart D (Evans, 2019) such that consumption also involves devaluation (the loss of economic or use value, symbolic failure), divestment (the loss of personal meaning, the unravelling of attachments) and disposal (getting rid of things). These processes can involve goods, services and experiences which can either be accessed and disposed of through market exchanges or alternative channels. Consumers have 'some degree of discretion' in these processes, which are undertaken for 'utilitarian, expressive and contemplative' purposes (see Warde, 2005: 137). This definition is provisional and intended to frame engagement with each of the following three perspectives.

2. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 57
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #SNWRH8 Summary
  Matching excerpt #VXHMM7:
      To summarise, I understand consumption as different moments of acquisition, appropriation, appreciation (Warde, 2005, 2014) and devaluation, divestment, disposal (Evans 2019) that arise within and for the enactment of practices (Warde, 2005, 2014, Evans 2019). Marrying this conceptualisation with market studies arguments, I acknowledge the role of socio-material

3. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 38
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #BDRQSR A practice theories approach to producing and performing circular consumption
        #6W7W3E The practice turn in the sociology of consumption
  Matching excerpt #Z4SQKT:
      Importantly, Evans (2019) argues that consumption is not only about how things come into use but also involves how these things (or experiences and services) are eventually parted with. Thus, Evans (2019: 507) proposes that each of Warde's (2005, 2014) "As" has a counterpart "D", that is devaluation, divestment and disposal. In this framework, devaluation refers to how the derived pleasure from a consumption object diminishes, and divestment describes the process where the personal meanings and attachments are broken with the object (Evans, 2019). Lastly, disposal describes the different processes by which objects are parted with (Evans, 2019). Thus, the 3As and 3Ds framework describes consumption from the moment of goods being acquired, until how they are eventually disposed of.

4. Source: The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach (#Y3CFPX), Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta, p. 3
  Context:
    #QQDSF8 Practice theory in the field of consumption
  Matching excerpt #VMLDNN:
      whether for utilitarian, expressive or contemplative purposes, of goods, services, performances, information or ambience, whether purchased or not, over which the agent has some degree of discretion" (Warde, 2005, p. 137). This is a broad definition that moves beyond the act of purchase and includes use. Moreover, expanding on the idea that consumption is a process rather than a practice, Warde, and later Evans, conceptualised consumption as a process consisting of various phases, what they called the three As of acquisition, appropriation, and appreciation and the three Ds of devaluation, divestment, and disposal (Evans, 2019).

5. Source: The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach (#Y3CFPX), Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta, p. 3
  Context:
    #QQDSF8 Practice theory in the field of consumption
  Matching excerpt #YWSREJ:
      Acquisition entails processes of exchange, such as purchasing, but it can also include other ways in which people gain access to goods, such as gifting, trading, or borrowing. Appropriation involves the process of giving meaning to the things acquired and making them fit into one's everyday life. Appreciation refers to various forms of pleasure and satisfaction from the use of goods. Devaluation is understood as the counterpart of appreciation, which entails the loss of value, either materially through wear and tear, or the loss of cultural meanings, for example, by something going out of style. Divestment is the counterpart of appropriation and refers to instances in which goods no longer fit consumers and their everyday practices and are therefore divested from use. Finally, the counterpart of acquisition, disposal, involves the various ways in which goods are disposed of, such as gifting, recycling, or binning (Evans, 2019). Thus, a single good – a service or a product – can go through multiple phases of consumption from being acquired, appropriated, and appreciated to being devalued, divested, and disposed.

6. Source: The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach (#Y3CFPX), Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta, p. 9
  Context:
    #MPE3TK Discussion and conclusions
  Matching excerpt #HQMDDN:
      We exemplified three modes of circular consumption by following Ann's green sweater in three very different circular consumption scenarios. The accompanying theoretical readings of these examples showed that for each type of circular consumption mode to be possible, the garment had to go through several processes of acquisition, appropriation, and appreciation, as well as divestment and devaluation (Evans, 2019). A specific set of elements also had to be assembled for these to happen. This sociomaterial reading illustrated that the assembling of circular consumption arrangements was a complex accomplishment involving the cultivation of new meanings, the development of competencies, and the use of and access to materials, devices, and infrastructures. Figure 26.1 presents a summary of the insights from the three narratives.

Approximate matches

1. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 38
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #BDRQSR A practice theories approach to producing and performing circular consumption
        #6W7W3E The practice turn in the sociology of consumption
  Score: 0.593
  Related excerpt #Z4SQKT:
      Importantly, Evans (2019) argues that consumption is not only about how things come into use but also involves how these things (or experiences and services) are eventually parted with. Thus, Evans (2019: 507) proposes that each of Warde's (2005, 2014) "As" has a counterpart "D", that is devaluation, divestment and disposal. In this framework, devaluation refers to how the derived pleasure from a consumption object diminishes, and divestment describes the process where the personal meanings and attachments are broken with the object (Evans, 2019). Lastly, disposal describes the different processes by which objects are parted with (Evans, 2019). Thus, the 3As and 3Ds framework describes consumption from the moment of goods being acquired, until how they are eventually disposed of.

2. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 57
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #SNWRH8 Summary
  Score: 0.544
  Related excerpt #VXHMM7:
      To summarise, I understand consumption as different moments of acquisition, appropriation, appreciation (Warde, 2005, 2014) and devaluation, divestment, disposal (Evans 2019) that arise within and for the enactment of practices (Warde, 2005, 2014, Evans 2019). Marrying this conceptualisation with market studies arguments, I acknowledge the role of socio-material

3. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 56
  Context:
    #T6KQ92 Introduction
      #M8A82T The overarching ‘practice theories’ approach to producing and performing consumption
        #67DCL7 Research paper 4 – Valuation work in circular practices
  Score: 0.503
  Related excerpt #ZX8CKC:
      Valuation includes the social processes through which the values of things are “established, assessed, negotiated, provoked, maintained, constructed and/or contested” (Doganova et al., 2014: 87). Taking this perspective means a shift away from seeing value as something that is ‘naturally’ part of the object or the person who is doing the valuation. Rather value, both in the monetary and non-monetary sense, is understood in this paper, aligned with theories of practice, as an outcome of social practices but also being productive of these practices. How a product is used, for how long, and whether it needs special maintenance or repair, are questions that are subjected to valuations. Similarly, when to dispose of a garment and through what channels, are issues that are dealt with through valuation processes.

4. Source: Changing understandings of waste reduction and avoidance in moralities of thrift: A comparison of Mass Observers’ narratives three decades apart (#XUHRZA), Helen Holmes, Ulrike Ehgartner, p. 0
  Context:
    #AF4EMT Changing understandings of waste reduction and avoidance in moralities of thrift: A comparison of Mass Observers' narratives three decades apart
      #K6FTMX 1. Introduction
  Score: 0.493
  Related excerpt #HBBWU6:
      Whilst it matters what kinds of goods and materials are made available and acquired in the first place, the environmental impact of these goods and materials increases or lessens through the ways in which they are used, maintained and disposed of. Crucially, scholars have noted that these practices are not limited to how materials and goods are acquired, appropriated, and appreciated, but also how they are divested, devalued and disposed of (Evans, 2019). Thus, beyond the choices we make when we acquire things, our material culture also entails the ways in which we engage with and separate and detach from things, such as through forms of gifting, donating, selling, repurposing and disposing (Clarke, 2000, Gregson and Beale, 2004; Gregson et al., 2007; Gregson,

5. Source: The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach (#Y3CFPX), Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta, p. 3
  Context:
    #QQDSF8 Practice theory in the field of consumption
  Score: 0.632
  Related excerpt #YWSREJ:
      Acquisition entails processes of exchange, such as purchasing, but it can also include other ways in which people gain access to goods, such as gifting, trading, or borrowing. Appropriation involves the process of giving meaning to the things acquired and making them fit into one's everyday life. Appreciation refers to various forms of pleasure and satisfaction from the use of goods. Devaluation is understood as the counterpart of appreciation, which entails the loss of value, either materially through wear and tear, or the loss of cultural meanings, for example, by something going out of style. Divestment is the counterpart of appropriation and refers to instances in which goods no longer fit consumers and their everyday practices and are therefore divested from use. Finally, the counterpart of acquisition, disposal, involves the various ways in which goods are disposed of, such as gifting, recycling, or binning (Evans, 2019). Thus, a single good – a service or a product – can go through multiple phases of consumption from being acquired, appropriated, and appreciated to being devalued, divested, and disposed.

6. Source: The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach (#Y3CFPX), Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta, p. 5
  Context:
    #NZ44LX Narratives of circular consumption: Assembling, reducing, reusing, and recycling arrangements
      #S338WQ The biography of Ann's green sweater
  Score: 0.516
  Related excerpt #S3Z8BA:
      When Ann visited the store, she was drawn to the sweater, attracted by its colour and design; she then decided to purchase it on an impulse (Petersson McIntyre, 2021). This exemplifies the process of acquisition. Ann started to use the sweater in her yoga class, as she had seen others use the same brand, and she wanted to fit in with the group and express her belongingness to this collective (Matthews et al., 2021). This phase entails the processes of appropriation of the sweater into everyday use and appreciation of the value it had for Ann, as it became a key part of performing social identity in this specific context. Its value went beyond the mere warmth and protection that the sweater offered; it even went beyond its aesthetic qualities. To Ann, it was also valuable for its symbolic qualities. However, Ann soon learned that she was pregnant, and as her body changed, the sweater no longer fit her. As her body changed, the sweater went from being uncomfortable to impossible to wear. This entails the process of divestment, as the sweater no longer fit Ann's everyday practices (Evans, 2019). The sweater's material capacities did not accommodate wearing it, so it ended up in her wardrobe as an unworn item (Bye & McKinney, 2007).

7. Source: The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach (#Y3CFPX), Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta, p. 7
  Context:
    #NZ44LX Narratives of circular consumption: Assembling, reducing, reusing, and recycling arrangements
      #JJF6M7 Reusing – The story of how the sweater changed owners
  Score: 0.495
  Related excerpt #MPS4Q4:
      However, although many people tried on Ann's sweater at the swapping event, it did not find a new owner as it did not fit anyone. After the event was over, Ann still wanted to get rid of the sweater, so she engaged in a process of divestment by washing it and putting it into a cardboard box, together with some of her children's used clothes. Ann disposed of the box by mailing it to an online secondhand store, and thus eliminated the need to put any effort into selling the sweater herself. The online store had a business model in which they used secondhand experts – consumers who have much experience and competency in pricing, photographing, and sorting secondhand fashion items – to facilitate the selling. One such expert went through Ann's items, photographed, and priced them, engaging in a process of re-appreciation. Ann was notified through email that her sweater was acquired by a customer at the online store. As the buyer appropriated the sweater for new use, both Ann and the expert shared the profit from the resale.

8. Source: WITH and WITHOUT THINGS. AN INTRODUCTION (#ZNC4FL), Francisco Martínez, Tomás Errázuriz, p. 9
  Context:
    #L58DJJ WITH AND WITHOUT THINGS. AN INTRODUCTION
      #CLTKXQ I SORT, THUS I INHABIT
  Score: 0.496
  Related excerpt #X9DYHE:
      bonding, our material divestment is also central to the process by which people separate from their companions and make room for new relationships. For example, in Errázuriz' insights, getting rid of things is part of feelings of mourning. Following Gregson, he notes how everyday objects move through different stages, referring to how we accommodate relationships with others at home.

### 21. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany (#4Y4DVC), Petra Kuppinger, p. 4
  Context:
    #AYGQVA Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany
      #3THHP6 Second-hand cultures and thrift stores
  Matching excerpt #U28MDA:
      Today, charitable thrift stores are part of alternative economies where people (re-)circulate goods, mend items, recycle or upcycle objects, and try to make the best use of things, keep them out of landfills, share things, and create social links between community members (Isenhour and Reno, 2019; Lehner et al., 2020; Martínez, 2017; Minter, 2019; Seo and Kim, 2019). Thrift stores are situated in larger second-hand economies that include related practices like garage or yard sales (North America), flea markets (continental Europe), or car boot sales (UK), swapping events, and commercial and cooperative internet platforms (Ebay, Facebook) for resale and sharing (e.g. Berry et al., 2018; Crewe and Gregson 1998; Murphy, 2017). Current second-hand circuits and cultures creatively combine notions of frugality and good use with practices critical of hyper-consumption, and the quest for more sustainable futures. They seek to reinvent meaning into things and respect into their use (Appadurai 1986). Garage or yard sales neatly illustrate transformations in recent decades.

2. Source: Second-Hand Cultures and Economies of Reuse, Repair, Sharing, and Care (#B5KMLA), Petra Kuppinger, p. 22
  Context:
    #BTPYSB Second-Hand Cultures and Economies of Reuse, Repair, Sharing, and Care
      #2LDVPH Introduction: Second-Hand Cultures and Economies of Reuse, Repair, Sharing, and Care
        #UHERVL RECENT ECONOMIES OF REUSE, REPAIR, SHARING, AND CARE IN THE GLOBAL NORTH
  Matching excerpt #4XSPKN:
      Regardless of the organization of second-hand venues, Gregson and Crewe (2003) maintain that consumers carefully design their practices and understand them as politically, socially, and ecologically relevant. Interlocutors tell Gregson and Crewe that they practiced “green consumerism” (Gregson and Crewe 2003, 103). One person emphasized they had not bought new things in 20 years, another added that they only buy new underwear (ibid., 104), underlining beliefs that individual action matters. Another interlocutor remarked that buying used is “about fighting against the capitalist system. It’s about not being drawn into consumerism” (ibid., 103). They insist on their agency and political participation via consumer choices, remake linear consumer models of production–consumption–discarding, and propose different “temporalities of possession and disposal” (ibid., 117), when they keep goods moving and reinvest them into circulation when they no longer need them (Bohlin 2018). Second-hand spaces offer transactions that “subvert and transgress the experience of the mall and high street” (Crewe and Gregson 1998, 40). Of course, there is always the end-of-life moment for goods, but it can be postponed with good stewardship, reuse, and mending, and repurposing.

3. Source: On Materiality and Meaning: Ethnographic Engagements with Reuse, Repair & Care (#CUWPC9), Cindy Isenhour, Joshua Reno, p. 4
  Context:
    #3YJ9P3 On Materiality and Meaning: Ethnographic Engagements with Reuse, Repair &amp; Care
      #LLPBZ4 Contributions &amp; Organization of the Collection
  Matching excerpt #R453P2:
      But if we understand reuse, in part, as an expression of care for the meaning and materials embodied in goods, what happens when people decide to part with objects of affection? Does the act of ‘letting go’ signify the termination of care? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork tracing circuits of second-hand acquisition and divestment in Sweden, Anna Bohlin argues that the acts of caring for and letting go of objects are not necessarily contradictory. Contrary to Bauman’s observation that contemporary consumption is fleeting, ambivalent, and as short lived as our shifting identities, Bohlin observes that many people come to understand second hand objects as things-in-motion—and perform care as they pass them on for reuse, rather than disposal. Indeed, many of the interlocutors participating in Bohlin’s study were fundamentally concerned with the wastefulness of contemporary consumption and had thus come to see the ongoing circulation of objects as a fundamental moral concern. Their commitment to these objects is therefore a particular expression of ‘serial care’ extended over time and through networks of reuse. As Bohlin writes, ‘by dispersing the care for objects across a series of imagined owners, the concern with the longevity of objects can be combined with benefits of transience for the individual owner’ (Bohlin, this issue).

4. Source: Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets (#MBXQXR), Anna Bohlin, Staffan Appelgren, p. 1
  Context:
    #3U9XEW Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets1
      #TY8WTD Introduction
  Matching excerpt #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.

5. Source: ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets (#ZJUEY4), Anna Bohlin, p. 10
  Context:
    #SSAEUN 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets
      #GXEA3T References
  Matching excerpt #AHZ2KA:
      How to cite this article: Bohlin, A. 2019. 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets. Worldwide Waste: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies , 2(1): 3, 1–11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/wwwj.17

6. Source: ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets (#ZJUEY4), Anna Bohlin, p. 0
  Context:
    #SSAEUN 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets
  Matching excerpt #R3D4QX:
      Using the case of Sweden, this article examines the growing sector of reuse and second-hand activities from the perspective of how people express and practice their relationships to objects that they acquire from second-hand markets. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in flea markets, second-hand shops, homes and recycling depots, it explores how people relate to and handle goods which, instead of becoming waste, enter new life cycles through reuse. It suggests that buying, using and passing on certain kinds of second-hand things involves particular forms of affection and 'serial' care for the objects as things-in-motion. At the same time, part of the attraction of these objects is how they enable the practising of a particular kind of subjectivity: that of an informed, moral and caring consumer. Part of such reuse subjectivity is the capacity to form close bonds with, and care for objects, but also to untie these bonds in order to carefully and responsibly let go of them. The article suggests that paying attention to the affective orientation and disposition that form part of such consumer subjectivity may provide keys to understanding what drives second-hand consumption and the accelerated circulation of goods it may entail. Offering an opportunity to examine assumptions of reuse and circulation as inherently 'sustainable', it also provides perspectives on practices of care.

7. Source: ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets (#ZJUEY4), Anna Bohlin, p. 4
  Context:
    #SSAEUN 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets
      #E744H2 Introduction
        #BQFTPZ Letting Go
  Matching excerpt #DLSHSB:
      Besides illustrating the fuzziness of the sociality of second-hand objects, the fate of Helen's two chairs also highlighted two themes that repeatedly came up during fieldwork: the moral virtue attached to keeping things circulating, and the importance of not throwing away functioning objects. The next section explores these themes in the light of how people articulated and engaged in divestment practices when donating their used goods to second-hand markets.

Approximate matches

1. Source: On Materiality and Meaning: Ethnographic Engagements with Reuse, Repair & Care (#CUWPC9), Cindy Isenhour, Joshua Reno, p. 4
  Context:
    #3YJ9P3 On Materiality and Meaning: Ethnographic Engagements with Reuse, Repair &amp; Care
      #LLPBZ4 Contributions &amp; Organization of the Collection
  Score: 0.61
  Related excerpt #R453P2:
      But if we understand reuse, in part, as an expression of care for the meaning and materials embodied in goods, what happens when people decide to part with objects of affection? Does the act of ‘letting go’ signify the termination of care? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork tracing circuits of second-hand acquisition and divestment in Sweden, Anna Bohlin argues that the acts of caring for and letting go of objects are not necessarily contradictory. Contrary to Bauman’s observation that contemporary consumption is fleeting, ambivalent, and as short lived as our shifting identities, Bohlin observes that many people come to understand second hand objects as things-in-motion—and perform care as they pass them on for reuse, rather than disposal. Indeed, many of the interlocutors participating in Bohlin’s study were fundamentally concerned with the wastefulness of contemporary consumption and had thus come to see the ongoing circulation of objects as a fundamental moral concern. Their commitment to these objects is therefore a particular expression of ‘serial care’ extended over time and through networks of reuse. As Bohlin writes, ‘by dispersing the care for objects across a series of imagined owners, the concern with the longevity of objects can be combined with benefits of transience for the individual owner’ (Bohlin, this issue).

2. Source: Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets (#MBXQXR), Anna Bohlin, Staffan Appelgren, p. 0
  Context:
    #3U9XEW Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets1
      #KXPKZM Abstract
  Score: 0.535
  Related excerpt #26ES6P:
      From having been associated with poverty and low status, the commerce with second-hand goods in retro shops, flea markets, vintage boutiques and trade via Internet is expanding in Sweden as in many countries in the Global North. This article argues that a significant aspect of the recent interest in second-hand and reuse concerns the meaningfulness of circulation in social life. Using classic anthropological theory on how the circulation of material culture generates sociality, it focuses on how second-hand things are transformed by their circulation. Rather than merely having cultural biographies, second-hand things are reconfigured through their shifts between different social contexts in a process that here is understood as a form of growing. Similar to that of an organism, this growth is continuous, irreversible and dependent on forces both internal and external to it. What emerges is a category of things that combine elements of both commodities and gifts, as these have been theorized within anthropology. While first cycle commodities are purified of their sociality, the hybrid second-hand thing derives its ontological status as well as social and commercial value precisely from retaining 'gift qualities', produced by its circulation.

3. Source: ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets (#ZJUEY4), Anna Bohlin, p. 10
  Context:
    #SSAEUN 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets
      #GXEA3T References
  Score: 0.631
  Related excerpt #AHZ2KA:
      How to cite this article: Bohlin, A. 2019. 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets. Worldwide Waste: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies , 2(1): 3, 1–11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/wwwj.17

4. Source: ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets (#ZJUEY4), Anna Bohlin, p. 8
  Context:
    #SSAEUN 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets
      #2EMEH4 Conclusion
  Score: 0.581
  Related excerpt #R7ZTTM:
      The discussion above has explored how people expressed and carried out their relationships to things acquired from second-hand markets, and how they tended to foreground strong positive feelings towards such belongings. Expressions of such feelings often focused on the sociality of the object, accessed through indexical signs and traces of its previous history, and narratives about its previous phases became a kind of social currency that people actively drew on, when embedding them in their own lives, as well as in moments of exchange. Yet, we also saw that there is not necessarily a contradiction between expressing strong affection for objects and donating them or selling them on second-hand markets. On the contrary, part of the 'self-as-reuser' subjectivity entails the capacity not just to enter into caring and affectionate relationships with pre-used things, but also to let go of them in an equally caring and responsible way, through reuse channels. Notions of circularity thus shaped the way that interlocutors perceived and handled the objects, from the acts of purchasing them, and keeping them for a while, to passing them on. The overriding commitment was often to the longevity and integrity of the objects, as things-in-motion, rather than to extending one's own ownership of them.

5. Source: ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets (#ZJUEY4), Anna Bohlin, p. 6
  Context:
    #SSAEUN 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets
      #9JA8BQ Discussion: Caring Deeply But Serially
  Score: 0.547
  Related excerpt #KH4GUQ:
      The observations above are of people who, in different ways, interact with second-hand markets in the role of shoppers, sellers or donors. Even though examples are drawn from very different contexts and moments in people's lives, they point to the existence of certain norms and ideas that recur across these contexts. One emerging theme concerns the general belief in the goodness of keeping things in circulation. Regardless of whether acquiring or discarding objects, there is a widespread notion that passing things on, and extending their lives, is a good thing, while destroying them or throwing them away, is bad. For many people, active in these circles, the benefit of circulating things is a self-evident truth. When probed further, most would cite affordability and environmental aspects, such as saving resources, reducing waste, and bringing consumption levels down, or providing goods to those who need it. Second-hand shopping in other words perfectly combines what Miller has referred to as the morality of thrift and concern for the household with the ethics of caring for broader issues affecting humanity, two values that often clash (2012: 88; cf. Isenhour 2012).

6. Source: ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets (#ZJUEY4), Anna Bohlin, p. 4
  Context:
    #SSAEUN 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets
      #E744H2 Introduction
        #BQFTPZ Letting Go
  Score: 0.544
  Related excerpt #DLSHSB:
      Besides illustrating the fuzziness of the sociality of second-hand objects, the fate of Helen's two chairs also highlighted two themes that repeatedly came up during fieldwork: the moral virtue attached to keeping things circulating, and the importance of not throwing away functioning objects. The next section explores these themes in the light of how people articulated and engaged in divestment practices when donating their used goods to second-hand markets.

7. Source: ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets (#ZJUEY4), Anna Bohlin, p. 6
  Context:
    #SSAEUN 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets
      #E744H2 Introduction
        #JNNA5N Coming Full Circle
  Score: 0.542
  Related excerpt #6AB2VB:
      In some instances, people drew attention to the fact that they were donating specific items to the very same second-hand shop that they had once bought them from. One man in his sixties donated an ornate traditional wooden chair that he had bought in the same second-hand shop, but decided he no longer had space for. Laughing, he said that the chair had now come full circle. Indeed, references to circularity were common, both in terms of the limited loops between the second-hand shop and one's home, and in terms of broader notions of things circulating in society, passing from hand to hand. Likely influenced by Swedish public discourse—not least official—that in recent years have proclaimed the benefits of the, supposedly,

8. Source: ‘It will Keep Circulating’: Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets (#ZJUEY4), Anna Bohlin, p. 0
  Context:
    #SSAEUN 'It will Keep Circulating': Loving and Letting Go of Things in Swedish Second-hand Markets
  Score: 0.537
  Related excerpt #R3D4QX:
      Using the case of Sweden, this article examines the growing sector of reuse and second-hand activities from the perspective of how people express and practice their relationships to objects that they acquire from second-hand markets. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in flea markets, second-hand shops, homes and recycling depots, it explores how people relate to and handle goods which, instead of becoming waste, enter new life cycles through reuse. It suggests that buying, using and passing on certain kinds of second-hand things involves particular forms of affection and 'serial' care for the objects as things-in-motion. At the same time, part of the attraction of these objects is how they enable the practising of a particular kind of subjectivity: that of an informed, moral and caring consumer. Part of such reuse subjectivity is the capacity to form close bonds with, and care for objects, but also to untie these bonds in order to carefully and responsibly let go of them. The article suggests that paying attention to the affective orientation and disposition that form part of such consumer subjectivity may provide keys to understanding what drives second-hand consumption and the accelerated circulation of goods it may entail. Offering an opportunity to examine assumptions of reuse and circulation as inherently 'sustainable', it also provides perspectives on practices of care.

### 22. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store (#HJXUZN), Frederik Larsen, p. 17
  Context:
    #V7GCNS Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store
      #SMPJFG References
  Matching excerpt #EGJ6BZ:
      Larsen, F. 2019. "Valuation in Action: Ethnography of an American Thrift Store." Business History 61(1): 155-171. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2017.1418330

2. Source: Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store (#HJXUZN), Frederik Larsen, p. 16
  Context:
    #V7GCNS Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store
      #WGJ6B7 The Practice of Thrifty Selling
  Matching excerpt #W3LBHF:
      Thrift is performed every day, everywhere as part of other practices. Very few people are un-thrifty all the time. So, as part of consumption practices, thrift is one value among other values. The surprising effects of thrift as a principle guiding work practices are that it is a way of getting rid of resources, not saving them. Although thrift can be described as a practical way of managing resources, to imbue a sense of control over the flow of goods that carries moral value and a consideration for the future, the consequences are very different in the household and in the thrift store. While the thrift store works to “move things along,” the aim is to generate resources in the form of profit for the charities they support. There is a clear economic aim, but the aim is pursued through being thrifty. Practicing thrift in the thrift store means making sure that objects move along, that they do not get stuck or left on a shelf. Thrift thus takes on a whole new meaning in the context of a thrift store and reveals a dynamic relationship between the ethical dimension and the practical application of thrift. The perspectives I present here underline the value of pursuing thrift as an analytical concept to reveal the different dimensions of business in practice.

3. Source: Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store (#HJXUZN), Frederik Larsen, p. 18
  Context:
    #V7GCNS Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store
      #SMPJFG References
  Matching excerpt #HRFMZA:
      Frederik Larsen is the co-founder of the consultancy In futurum advising companies and organizations on sustainability and social justice. He holds a PhD in organizational anthropology from the Copenhagen Business School with a doctoral dissertation on second-hand valuation practices from 2015. He completed his Post Doc at the Design School Kolding in 2018 and has published industry reports and book chapters on sustainability, business practices and design, and an article in Business History on the workings of a thrift store.

4. Source: Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store (#HJXUZN), Frederik Larsen, p. 6
  Context:
    #V7GCNS Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store
      #36Y2EC Entering an American Thrift Store
  Matching excerpt #LR6HVS:
      In the thrift store in which I conducted fieldwork, however, the thrifty principles went far beyond the customers. As part of my doctoral research, I studied practices of valuation in second-hand markets on the West Coast of the United States. I followed old things around global value chains to explore their social lives (Appadurai 1986), which included participant observation in and around second-hand organizations. As I began by exploring all the different stores, markets, and organizations in the area, I came across the Community Thrift Store which had a wide and, I thought, interesting selection of stuff in the store. It was a bit more expensive than most of the Goodwill shops, but not much, and they had a lot of different departments and curious objects in the store. The people who worked there also caught my attention. They appeared to be a diverse group of people who also seemed to have a particular way of communicating with each other in the store. There was a lot of banter and shouting, but in a fun and playful way, it seemed. The store also appeared to attract a large variety of different customers, including people whom I read as Mexican American families, queer people, older people, tourists, and hipsters, as well as locals.

5. Source: Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store (#SHZ6RT), Frederik Larsen, p. 11
  Context:
    #DLSW98 Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store
      #6EZUR8 Problematic categorisations
        #PUBDN9 Thrift in the thrift store
  Matching excerpt #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.

6. Source: Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store (#SHZ6RT), Frederik Larsen, p. 1
  Context:
    #DLSW98 Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store
      #NJEST3 KEYWORDS
  Matching excerpt #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.

7. Source: Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store (#SHZ6RT), Frederik Larsen, p. 7
  Context:
    #DLSW98 Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store
      #T28US8 Valuation in action
        #NX5PXC Last stage of commoditisation
  Matching excerpt #HCRMFS:
      Objects that have been discarded during the valuation or after being 'called' in the store are collected in bags and boxes and put in a corner in the back area, to be picked up by other companies that either recycle them or sort them again to see if there is anything of value. The donated clothes that go to recycling are those that have turned out to be too dirty or in too poor condition. There are also items that have been in the store for a long time but have not sold. These clothes are all put in plastic bags and are picked up several times a week, by a recycling company. I observed the pickups of most of the different types of objects, from pottery to clothing and books. In the book department Drew explained how the decision is made to get rid of books that have been in the store for too long: 'I try not to get rid of stuff that might sell, but you have to throw some things away'. Like all the others working at the Community Thrift, Drew is highly aware of the organisation's principle that they want to make as much money for the charities as possible, so that getting rid of stuff that might sell is a difficult decision. Since the company that picks up the books pays by bulk and not by individual value, there is no need to throw out valuable books. The process of creating or capturing the value of the donated objects relies on a combination of organisational principles and ad hoc judgements. As the objects leave the thrift store, either as recycled material or by being sold they enter a larger second-hand economy that constitutes the context of valuation practices.

Approximate matches

1. Source: Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany (#4Y4DVC), Petra Kuppinger, p. 4
  Context:
    #AYGQVA Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany
      #3THHP6 Second-hand cultures and thrift stores
  Score: 0.535
  Related excerpt #RAVRQM:
      Overwhelmed by stuff and not inclined to do their own garage sales (or having stuff left after sales), many people lug their excess belongings to Salvation Army, Goodwill, local church, and other charitable stores (Gregson et al., 2007; Le Zotte, 2017; Minter, 2019). With time, occasional church rummage sales turned into permanent stores and more thrift stores opened. Commercial consignment stores promise a small profit for those who bring their clothes to be resold. Yet much of the second-hand landscape operates outside the capitalist market and provides work for some and access to affordable goods to others; it extends the lifespan of things, enables the sharing of items, and creates cooperative communities (Bohlin, 2018; Herrmann, 2006). For many customers or participants, thrift stores, repair cafés, clothes-swapping parties, or tool-sharing cooperatives are part of a 'deliberative project of value transformation that challenges dominant paradigms and cultural constructions while building alternative social and physical structures from the "ruins of modernity"' (Crocker and Chivervalls quoted in Isenhour and Reno, 2019: 1).

2. Source: Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany (#4Y4DVC), Petra Kuppinger, p. 4
  Context:
    #AYGQVA Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany
      #3THHP6 Second-hand cultures and thrift stores
  Score: 0.533
  Related excerpt #RCC3HX:
      Given different names (thrift store, charity shop, opportunity/op-shop) in different countries, thrift stores accept donations from consumers, sort, re-value, and resell them (Gregson and Crewe, 2003; Larsen, 2019). Larger ventures are often located on urban fringes or in commercial districts that provide sizeable premises at lower rents. Charitable thrift stores operate beyond the urban limelight and work in unattractive spaces where they handle huge quantities of consumer waste (Isenhour and Berry, 2020; Minter, 2019).

3. Source: Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store (#HJXUZN), Frederik Larsen, p. 17
  Context:
    #V7GCNS Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store
      #SMPJFG References
  Score: 0.599
  Related excerpt #EGJ6BZ:
      Larsen, F. 2019. "Valuation in Action: Ethnography of an American Thrift Store." Business History 61(1): 155-171. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2017.1418330

4. Source: Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store (#HJXUZN), Frederik Larsen, p. 11
  Context:
    #V7GCNS Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store
      #U6KN7W Detecting thrift
  Score: 0.559
  Related excerpt #VWRZPN:
      During my time in the Community Thrift Store, I heard the statement that “we just want the stuff to sell” again and again. No one working in the organization prices objects with the expectation that the items will hang around until the right buyer turns up. The objects must “move”, that is, they have to sell in a relatively short period of time. This is an underlying principle, just like the principle that the organization will try to raise as much money as possible from the donations received. The two principles work together, not through extracting maximum profit

5. Source: Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store (#HJXUZN), Frederik Larsen, p. 12
  Context:
    #V7GCNS Selling Thrift: Work Practices in an American Thrift Store
      #U6KN7W Detecting thrift
  Score: 0.557
  Related excerpt #4UDNLK:
      from each individual objects, but by making sure that as many of the donated objects “move” as possible. The principle acts as a way of using up the donated things, but also as a way of making sure that they do not end up on a shelf somewhere. Making things “move” is a jargon also applied in conventional retail encouraging sale staff to sell more and applying attractive pricing, to ensure a good flow of goods that ultimately result in higher economic profit. In the thrift store, making things move also ensured an economic flow. At the same time, it makes room for the constant supply of donations that arrive daily at the back door.

6. Source: Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store (#SHZ6RT), Frederik Larsen, p. 5
  Context:
    #DLSW98 Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store
      #T28US8 Valuation in action
  Score: 0.544
  Related excerpt #UPS8VP:
      Even ordinary items like mugs, T-shirts and paperbacks need individual inspection and consideration to ensure their condition is up to standard. With most objects the condition has to be perfect. At the same time, because the organisation has a strong commitment to generating as much profit for the charities as possible, the inspection and consideration of each object is taken very seriously. Everything that is donated is valued. One day when I was working at the back door with Scott pricing objects, I came across some office supplies that were left at the bottom of a box: some pins, a roll of tape, some post-its, pens, etc. I asked Scott if he ever priced stuff at less than fifty cents, because I had just priced a number of items slightly bigger and more attractive than these at fifty cents. He told me they did not and said I should 'bundle them together'. Bundling means finding a way to ensure the items stay together, either by securing them with tape or using one of the various sized bags they keep for the same reason. I made bundles of ten pens and an eraser for two dollars, or three post-it blocks, or three packets of staples + five pens. I then taped up the bags, priced them and put them in 'office supplies' in the homeware section of the store. As an expression of the thrifty approach adopted in the Community Thrift, investing some time ensures the leftover objects become marketable. Over the six months I worked in the warehouse I heard again and again the statement that 'we just want the stuff to sell'. No one prices objects in the expectation that the items will hang around until the right buyer (maybe) turns up: the objects must 'move' . This is an underlying principle, just like the principle that the organisation will try to raise as much money as possible from the donations they receive.

7. Source: Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store (#SHZ6RT), Frederik Larsen, p. 7
  Context:
    #DLSW98 Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store
      #T28US8 Valuation in action
        #NX5PXC Last stage of commoditisation
  Score: 0.533
  Related excerpt #HCRMFS:
      Objects that have been discarded during the valuation or after being 'called' in the store are collected in bags and boxes and put in a corner in the back area, to be picked up by other companies that either recycle them or sort them again to see if there is anything of value. The donated clothes that go to recycling are those that have turned out to be too dirty or in too poor condition. There are also items that have been in the store for a long time but have not sold. These clothes are all put in plastic bags and are picked up several times a week, by a recycling company. I observed the pickups of most of the different types of objects, from pottery to clothing and books. In the book department Drew explained how the decision is made to get rid of books that have been in the store for too long: 'I try not to get rid of stuff that might sell, but you have to throw some things away'. Like all the others working at the Community Thrift, Drew is highly aware of the organisation's principle that they want to make as much money for the charities as possible, so that getting rid of stuff that might sell is a difficult decision. Since the company that picks up the books pays by bulk and not by individual value, there is no need to throw out valuable books. The process of creating or capturing the value of the donated objects relies on a combination of organisational principles and ad hoc judgements. As the objects leave the thrift store, either as recycled material or by being sold they enter a larger second-hand economy that constitutes the context of valuation practices.

8. Source: Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store (#SHZ6RT), Frederik Larsen, p. 1
  Context:
    #DLSW98 Valuation in action: Ethnography of an American thrift store
      #NJEST3 KEYWORDS
  Score: 0.519
  Related excerpt #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.

### 23. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: Gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale? (#4UEQN8), Gretchen M. Herrmann, p. 9
  Context:
    #QF9LBR gift or commodity: what changes hands in the U.S. garage sale?
      #HFLAJ6 possessions and the spirit of the gift
  Matching excerpt #7P8QKH:
      for secondhand goods such as rummage sales or flea markets precisely because, in the former, they encounter the original owners of what they have bought and so can claim to be taking away something of the previous owners with their purchases.

2. Source: Practice theory approach to Gen Z's sustainable clothing consumption in Finland (#86EHHS), Olga Gurova, p. 8
  Context:
    #Q9Y7AV Practice theory approach to Gen Z's sustainable clothing consumption in Finland
      #8WWK73 Methods and data
        #8E74DW Method of data analysis
          #ZUNLWX Acquisition
  Matching excerpt #5GY5XZ:
      Thrifting extends the lifecycle of clothing ( Niinimäki, 2020 ). Used-goods consumption seems to be normalized among young people in Finland and is not a matter of shame or embarrassment. The meaning of "used goods" is not associated with poverty. Instead, the used goods are perceived as no different from the new ones (except for some groups of clothing, such as underwear or socks). However, income plays a role in thriftingness as thrift stores may be cheaper and more accessible for overall thrifty and not so well-off Gen Z consumers. Such change of meaning makes this practice a strong contributor to sustainable fashion. This conclusion is in line with other studies stating that buying secondhand is one of the main ways to participate in the circular economy among Finland's population ( Korsunova et al., 2023 ). Moreover, in Finland, there might be peer pressure to

3. Source: What does that shirt mean to you? Thrift-store consumption as cultural capital (#UBF5U3), Shelly Steward, p. 1
  Context:
    #VW7Q6W What does that shirt mean to you? Thrift-store consumption as cultural capital
      #LW2U5K Keywords
        #HTAZ9Q Corresponding author:
  Matching excerpt #AMBJZB:
      This article examines the development of contrasting symbolic understandings of consumption by two groups of thrift-store shoppers Portland, Oregon, and the deployment of those understandings as cultural capital, signifying cultural value to others. Some shoppers, like Angela, value the search for bargains and the economy of this market. Others, like Rebecca, value the distance of the market from other retailers and see their consumption as an act of creativity. These different understandings hold value to these consumers; they are a form of cultural capital. This examination of thrift-store shopping contributes to understandings of cultural capital in three ways. First, it confirms the increasingly embodied nature of cultural capital. Second, it illustrates the potential for groups to draw from one another in the process of defining valuable cultural capital. Third, and most significantly, it shows how cultural capital is defined through the interactive process of consumption in the space of the thrift store.

4. Source: What does that shirt mean to you? Thrift-store consumption as cultural capital (#UBF5U3), Shelly Steward, p. 9
  Context:
    #VW7Q6W What does that shirt mean to you? Thrift-store consumption as cultural capital
      #TMZ5G5 Methods: An ethnography of shopping
        #M4XP6B Constructing narratives of consumption
  Matching excerpt #8QWMAY:
      Once in the space of the thrift store, when talking about their consumption, both thrift-seekers and creativists talked little about their motivations for entering. Instead, they focused on positioning themselves within the space of the market. They constructed narratives about both their own shopping and that of fellow consumers in order to give their consumption meaning. This process parallels that observed by Bogdanova (2013) in her examination of consumption in antique markets in Russia. When trying to establish the economic value of goods, when lacking complete information, sellers and consumers contextualized an object within a social environment through processes of storytelling. Storytelling, Bogdanova found, led to the shared understandings necessary for the markets to function. In thrift stores, economic valuation is not contentious; the clothing is inexpensive. Instead, autobiographical storytelling creates cultural value, and particular narratives hold value for each group. These symbolically valuable narratives can be seen as embodied cultural capital. The accounts people give of their consumption carry more significance than the articles of clothing themselves.

5. Source: What does that shirt mean to you? Thrift-store consumption as cultural capital (#UBF5U3), Shelly Steward, p. 3
  Context:
    #VW7Q6W What does that shirt mean to you? Thrift-store consumption as cultural capital
      #LMXPXX Background: Cultural capital and consumption today
        #SJZLNS Thrift stores as a site of investigation
  Matching excerpt #3H7M5U:
      Given the rising discussion about authenticity and creativity in cultural spheres (Michael, 2015; Peterson, 1997b; Zukin, 2008), thrift stores are a particularly apt market to address cultural definition. They are not typical markets. The products sold come from donations; profits are generally used for some type of charity and prices are usually very low. They tend to be widely accessible markets; location, education, or self-presentation tend not to prohibit customers from entering. Such accessibility facilitates multiple understandings of consumption in the same space, as Isla (2013) concluded in her international analysis of second-hand shopping. Given the wide approachability of these stores, the unreliability of goods and their quality, and the potential stigma against used clothing, it is likely that customers with the economic means to shop elsewhere may forgo thrift shopping. However, increasing references about thrift stores in popular culture and reports from the resale industry suggest an increasing appeal of these stores among privileged clientele (Amer and Vincent, 2013; The Economist , 2014). Furthermore, past studies have found customers with a range of backgrounds in these types of stores (Alexander et al., 2008; Miller, 1997). The interactive process of consumption, thrift stores' very low economic barrier to entry, and the universal necessity of many of the goods sold suggest a potential mingling of customers with diverging interests, likely to lead to different understandings.

6. Source: What does that shirt mean to you? Thrift-store consumption as cultural capital (#UBF5U3), Shelly Steward, p. 0
  Context:
    #VW7Q6W What does that shirt mean to you? Thrift-store consumption as cultural capital
      #TXRFYZ Abstract
  Matching excerpt #3L4W33:
      Recent work shows cultural capital taking increasingly vague and embodied forms. Attitudes and understandings of “creativity” and “authenticity,” for example, hold more symbolic value than any particular objects. How are these culturally valuable understandings defined and transmitted? This project examines thrift-store shopping to show how symbolic meanings are defined and employed as a form of embodied cultural capital. Ethnographic observation and interviews with shoppers at thrift stores in Portland, Oregon, reveal competing symbolic understandings among two groups of consumers. One group, the “thrift-seekers,” is motivated by a desire to find bargains. Members of this group describe their consumption as a game in which they are able to compete with other consumers. The other group, the “creativists,” comes from a more privileged background and is motivated by a rejection of conventional stores. They describe their consumption as an exercise of creativity through which they establish superiority over other consumers. Each group implicates the other as it constructs its narrative of consumption. Outside of the thrift store, the creativists employ their narratives of creativity as a form of cultural capital, giving them status in relation to similarly privileged peers. This project illustrates the embodied nature of contemporary cultural capital and shows how classes implicate one another in definitions of it. Furthermore, it demonstrates how thrift stores hold particular significance as sites in which embodied cultural capital is defined.

Approximate matches

1. Source: Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany (#4Y4DVC), Petra Kuppinger, p. 15
  Context:
    #AYGQVA Incidental sustainability? Notes from a thrift store in Germany
      #ULF7YL Conclusion
  Score: 0.652
  Related excerpt #9J8PCJ:
      Thrift stores help people to reinsert values and practices of frugality and reuse, repair, repurposing, sharing, and care into their lives and to initiate small but consequential social and cultural transformations where, to oversimplify things, the new and glittery becomes less attractive or prestigious, and the used or repaired are valued. In the process cultural notions of frugality and reuse move or return from their marginalized position into the mainstream and turn second-hand items into cultural and political badges of honor or value. One thrifter noted: 'in my circles, a gift has to be either home-made or thrifted; don't show up with a store-bought gift.' Here, people take pride in reused or crafted items (often using thrifted materials), as values shift from how much a product costs to making sure it is responsibly sourced, and care is indicated by way of crafting. This thrifter, like many others, sees second-hand purchases as political acts. For them thrift stores are not spaces of incidental sustainability but core hubs. Thrift stores connect thrifters to powerful global webs of ordinary world-makers like Willie, Ghanaian technicians, and Polish gardeners who tirelessly work to make the world a better place, and challenge the dominance of capitalism.

2. Source: The Simple Bare Necessities- Scales and Paradoxes of Thrift on a London Public Housing Estate (#7RVN6J), Catherine Alexander, p. 13
  Context:
    #NVBVQ9 The Simple Bare Necessities: Scales and Paradoxes of Thrift on a London Public Housing Estate
      #LNURD9 DECENCY AND RESPECTABILITY
  Score: 0.647
  Related excerpt #LNKA7X:
      The brief history of thrift just presented is a preliminary foray into its class dimensions over time. Here I will explore ethnographically the complications of managing on a limited budget to maintain at least a public face of decency. Institutional admonishments to have a planetary conscience, or indeed accounts of the rising popularity of secondhand circuits of exchange such as charity shops, car boot sales, or eBay (e.g., Tranberg Hansen and le Zotte 2019), typically eclipse the sharp class difference between conspicuous thriftiness as a fashionable trend and careful frugality as the only means of managing on a low income when poverty is a recent memory and painfully near to hand. To paraphrase Clifford Geertz's observation that the difference between a twitch and a blink hinges on the action's context (1973: 6), we might say that darning a sock can be read very differently if that sock was initially a good quality wool one able to bear several darnings or one that rapidly disintegrates. The same action can be a statement of skill or eco-commitment—"visible" darns have become an eco-fashion statement (Noguchi 2019) enacting an aesthetic of thrift irrespective of need—or a source of shame because it denotes poverty, or simply a habit. 13

3. Source: Second-Hand Cultures and Economies of Reuse, Repair, Sharing, and Care (#B5KMLA), Petra Kuppinger, p. 22
  Context:
    #BTPYSB Second-Hand Cultures and Economies of Reuse, Repair, Sharing, and Care
      #2LDVPH Introduction: Second-Hand Cultures and Economies of Reuse, Repair, Sharing, and Care
        #UHERVL RECENT ECONOMIES OF REUSE, REPAIR, SHARING, AND CARE IN THE GLOBAL NORTH
  Score: 0.657
  Related excerpt #4XSPKN:
      Regardless of the organization of second-hand venues, Gregson and Crewe (2003) maintain that consumers carefully design their practices and understand them as politically, socially, and ecologically relevant. Interlocutors tell Gregson and Crewe that they practiced “green consumerism” (Gregson and Crewe 2003, 103). One person emphasized they had not bought new things in 20 years, another added that they only buy new underwear (ibid., 104), underlining beliefs that individual action matters. Another interlocutor remarked that buying used is “about fighting against the capitalist system. It’s about not being drawn into consumerism” (ibid., 103). They insist on their agency and political participation via consumer choices, remake linear consumer models of production–consumption–discarding, and propose different “temporalities of possession and disposal” (ibid., 117), when they keep goods moving and reinvest them into circulation when they no longer need them (Bohlin 2018). Second-hand spaces offer transactions that “subvert and transgress the experience of the mall and high street” (Crewe and Gregson 1998, 40). Of course, there is always the end-of-life moment for goods, but it can be postponed with good stewardship, reuse, and mending, and repurposing.

4. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 15
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #MPWK67 Findings and discussion
        #M6MXLZ Reconceptualizing swapping practice
  Score: 0.656
  Related excerpt #HYUZGB:
      clothing especially if they see a stranger looking or trying on their item [C04, C10 and C14]. Similar findings have been found in previous swapping studies (Matthews and Hodges, 2016). Despite second-hand clothing consumption continuing to be destigmatize, it is necessary to consider that hygiene is a key consumer concern (Henninger et al. , 2019) and, therefore, marketing on the basis of previous owners could draw away potential practitioners.

5. Source: Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes (#VC6397), Andrew Brooks, p. 200
  Context:
    #Q6AD2R CLOTHING POVERTY
      #9T3Y7P OTHER NOTABLE EXAMPLES
        #DDWUVQ Vintage fashion in cities
  Score: 0.669
  Related excerpt #XRSN47:
      For some people pre-owned garments have romantic associations, and used clothes can even embody an imagined persona which is both nostalgic and individualistic. 10 The new owner may reflect upon their distinctive history – perhaps thinking about the last person who wore a pair of jeans. Nostalgia and heritage can be influential in shaping systems of provision. The promotion of heritage is a powerful cultural force. Museums and galleries, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Paris's Musée Galliera and the V&A in London, are devoted to the preservation and popularization of past clothing styles and thereby contribute to the commercialization of the provision of certain second-hand clothing styles. The cultural economy which surrounds consumption – exhibitions, blogs, themed parties, commercialized nostalgia – is all part of the social landscape that enables vintage clothing systems of provision.

6. Source: Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes (#VC6397), Andrew Brooks, p. 208
  Context:
    #Q6AD2R CLOTHING POVERTY
      #9T3Y7P OTHER NOTABLE EXAMPLES
        #5PTBH2 Used clothing markets in the global South
  Score: 0.661
  Related excerpt #AG4UUY:
      styles from Gap to Gucci inside clothing bales. The politics of the second-hand clothing trade are associated with the framing of the nation and a reassertion of gender roles and traditional identities. Informal second-hand clothing markets provide an opportunity for female economic empowerment, but are in tension with state-led policies which value the female citizen 'for her role in the reproduction of population and culture'. 24

7. Source: Clothing Poverty: The Hidden World of Fast Fashion and Second-hand Clothes (#VC6397), Andrew Brooks, p. 194
  Context:
    #Q6AD2R CLOTHING POVERTY
      #9EUG3Q Old clothes and new looks
        #CCGBVY The M65 US military field jacket
  Score: 0.651
  Related excerpt #DFRYJ4:
      Old clothes influence new looks. This chapter explores further hidden sides to second-hand clothing systems of provision. A mosaic of different mini case studies shows how old and vintage clothing plays a role in communities around the world. Used clothes are not just exported from the global North to the South; the real economic geography is multilayered (see Table 3). Second-hand apparel passes between different groups both within the same societies and internationally. 1 The ways in which different values are attributed to ‘vintage’ second-hand clothes and how symbolism is shaped and enhanced merit critical attention. Vintage clothing is both praised as an environmental alternative to the excesses of fast fashion and celebrated as a way to produce distinctive looks. 2 The true story is somewhat different as retro garments also play an important role in inspiring new clothing collections and fuelling fast-fashion trends. The two sectors can, and do, operate in tandem.

8. Source: The Assembling of Circular Consumption: A sociomaterial practice approach (#Y3CFPX), Christian Fuentes, Elina Närvänen, Nina Mesiranta, p. 8
  Context:
    #NZ44LX Narratives of circular consumption: Assembling, reducing, reusing, and recycling arrangements
      #JJF6M7 Reusing – The story of how the sweater changed owners
  Score: 0.68
  Related excerpt #EYVNXN:
      These efforts to assemble circular consumption in the form of reuse practices can be thwarted not only by the stigmatisation of secondhand products but also by the materialities involved. The body of the one wearing the clothing is a significant material agent in clothing practices (i.e., clothes may need to be washed because of sweat and other bodily traces, bodies change the appearance of clothes through stretch and wear, and also determine whether they fit), which may prevent the re-appropriation of a garment in practical terms. In addition, the materiality of the clothing items may also act as a barrier, preventing its resale. Certain materials and designs are more difficult to resell than others; the physical wear and tear of products makes them, in certain cases, less adaptable to reselling; however, the opposite can also be true in, for example, the selling of items with patina, in which the wear and tear adds value rather than reduces it. In other words, assembling the reuse arrangement is by no means an easy or straightforward task.

### 24. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 144
  Context:
    #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work
      #BRWHQV Conclusion
  Matching excerpt #KCKDVU:
      This chapter has offered useful insights into the difficulties that some consumers face when sorting their waste for recycling, with uncertainties about what can be recycled and how it ought to be distributed relating back to the wider system in which these decisions are shaped. Different household members can have quite different understandings and levels of competence when it comes to sorting their waste. Thus, we have identified some key practical barriers to recycling at home which may be of interest to those with responsibility for promoting recycling within society. Our research further shows that recycling consumption work tasks are differentiated by gender within the household, with women typically taking responsibility for sorting materials and men usually taking responsibility for their distribution to the kerbside/recycling centre. This finding challenges existing research which has claimed that women tend to carry the burden of sustainability policies within the household – although women are likely to spend more total time sorting and storing waste, with men's contribution related to the less regular task of distribution.

2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 131
  Context:
    #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work
      #C9T857 Gender and the three stages of recycling consumption work
  Matching excerpt #AYEXHQ:
      As highlighted in the case studies with English consumers, consumption work tasks appear to be differentiated by gender, with women typically taking responsibility for sorting materials and men usually taking responsibility for their distribution to the kerbside/recycling centre. Likewise in Sweden, 'it is mainly the men... who are responsible for taking the waste fractions to the recycling stations by car' (Skill, 2008: 183). Existing research that has explored the relationship between gender and recycling has found that women tend to be more likely to recycle (Oates and MacDonald, 2006; Pettifor, 2012). However, drawing on insights from research in both countries, we argue that recycling consumption work is divided according to the stage at which it falls, with women more likely to be involved in the supply of recyclable materials and men more likely to distribute the materials to the kerbside or recycling centre. So it is not the case that 'men or women perform more or less environmentally friendly activities, but that the responsibility

3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 152
  Context:
    #CSWTDX Comparing Recycling Consumption Work
      #G7KZPW Applying the SEFL framework to household recycling in Sweden and England
  Matching excerpt #T9ENFD:
      and expertise and hierarchy of work and employees. These extend from the local to the very global, with large multinational companies such as Veolia and SITA straddling a range of industries. In both countries, the consumer plays a distinctive and essential role in the overall division of labour, which presupposes their contribution, whatever methods of waste treatment are operative. We have argued that consumers perform three distinct recycling tasks – of supply, warehouse and distribution – which are differentiated by gender, with women typically taking responsibility for sorting materials and men usually taking responsibility for their distribution to the kerbside/recycling centre. In Sweden, the ‘distribution’ task is more onerous for the consumer than in England, given the requirement for consumers to transport most of their recyclable goods, as well as sort them. The Swedish system relies upon the consumer performing a proficient sort, thus removing the need for advanced technological sorting processes. In England, on the other hand, consumers are often confused about what is and is not recyclable so waste management companies provide an alternative technological sorting system, thus alleviating some of the burden on the consumer to distinguish between materials. This is a historically distinctive and specific division of labour which contrasts with arrangements in many countries, especially in the global South, where consumers do not sort their waste but rather this is done by waste pickers on vast waste dumps (see Chapter 8).

4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 133
  Context:
    #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work
      #C9T857 Gender and the three stages of recycling consumption work
  Matching excerpt #7R5MG5:
      Exploration of the gendered division of recycling consumption work reveals a more complex picture than women merely doing more than men, with criteria for assessing relative contributions within households not always clear. Future research into this field ought to consider the different stages/tasks involved in household recycling rather than assume that the work of household recycling can be accounted for with a single variable.

5. Source: Reuse practices and household consumption work (#V9QTJP), David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons, p. 4
  Context:
    #YDJM7S Prácticas de reutilización y trabajo de consumo doméstico
      #ZZ3Y5X Literature review
  Matching excerpt #8EF7DD:
      Within the context of household waste management practices, economies of consumer recycling remain a predominant focus in household work. Through a variety of recycling tasks and activities including cleaning, squashing, disassembling, sorting, storing, and transporting items, Wheeler and Glucksmann (2015a) highlight the interdependencies of such work within the home, with work tasks conducted by other waste management actors/technologies (see also Chappells & Shove, 1999; Middha & Horne, 2024). Seldom recognized as 'work', but rather portrayed as 'a conscious green act' (Oates & McDonald, 2006, p. 421), recycling activities are often enacted through a moral economy of resource stewardship and environmental citizenship. They are also, however, embedded within relations of familial care, conventions of household order in keeping one's house tidy, norms of cleanliness and hygiene, and conveniences more generally (Pedersen & Manhece, 2020; Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b). Contributions such as Lindsay and colleagues on consumption work in low waste households, not only emphasize debates about sustainability and transition to a circular economy failing to recognize the amount of additional labour often required, but also the gender disparity in enacting this (Lindsay et al., 2024). They draw to attention the inclusion of 'sustainability labour' as part of existing household dynamics and gendered practices (see also Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015a), in attempts to reduce plastic consumption involving new and additional modes of shopping and relying on other domestic activities, such as meal planning. These ideas build on earlier work by Organo, Head and Waitt, who found that women spent more time on sustainable practices than men and did so more often (Organo et al., 2013). Referring to waste management in apartment living, Horne et al. (2022) refer to the temporalities and rhythms of plastic waste being intensified due to space requirements, or lack thereof, with practices of sorting, recycling, and disposing of plastic waste important in maintaining household hygiene, convenience, and emotions of living in apartment spaces.

6. Source: Linking social practice theories to the perceptions of green consumption: An overview (#VGCYKU), Samira Jabin, Shah Md Atiqul Haq, p. 8
  Context:
    #ZVHF4Q Linking social practice theories to the perceptions of green consumption: An overview
      #JWETGQ 4. Discussion
        #TAD89V 4.2. Gender-specific behavioural pattern
  Matching excerpt #WEJ75J:
      This paper investigates the gender dynamics in green consumption, highlighting the factors that shape differing attitudes between men and women toward consumption. These distinctions arise from variations in personal norms and altruism, differences in household and public environmental practices, social expectations, financial responsibilities, environmental knowledge, and health-related motivations. Gender plays a significant role in shaping green consumption behaviours, with women generally exhibiting a stronger environmental concern, particularly through practices related to energy conservation, recycling, and eco-friendly purchasing. Their motivations are often driven by nurturing norms linked to family and children's well-being (Hunter et al., 2004; Zhao et al., 2020). In contrast, men's consumption tends to be more influenced by economic factors, resulting in higher energy consumption through behaviours like travel and meat consumption (Rätty & Carlson-Kanyama, 2010). Interestingly, while men are often more informed and demonstrate a cognitive focus on green purchasing, driven by aspects like value and necessity (Mostafa, 2007; Tung et al., 2017), their sustainable consumption intentions align more closely with women's when social identity is emphasized (Costa Pinto et al., 2014).

7. Source:  (#VWPB2S), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 15
  Context:
    #DPNN52 ‘It’s kind of saving them a job isn’t it?’ The consumption work of household recycling
      #3PUVKE Recycling consumption work and societal divisions of labour
  Matching excerpt #GR39TD:
      Returning to each dimension of the SEFL framework; we have illustrated how consumers perform three distinct recycling tasks (dimension 1) – of supply, warehouse and distribution – which can have a knock-on effect for the processes of labour that precede/follow it. This technical division of recycling consumption work reveals a historically distinctive and specific division of labour which contrasts with arrangements in many countries, especially in the global south, where consumers do not sort their waste but rather this is done by waste pickers on vast waste dumps (Beecheno, 2013). Our research further shows that within the household, recycling consumption work tasks are differentiated by gender, with women typically taking responsibility for sorting materials and men usually taking responsibility for their distribution to the kerbside/recycling centre. This finding challenges existing research which has claimed that women carry the burden of sustainability policies within the household – although, women are likely to spend more total time sorting and storing waste, with men's contribution related to the less regular task of distribution.

Approximate matches

1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 131
  Context:
    #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work
      #C9T857 Gender and the three stages of recycling consumption work
  Score: 0.778
  Related excerpt #AYEXHQ:
      As highlighted in the case studies with English consumers, consumption work tasks appear to be differentiated by gender, with women typically taking responsibility for sorting materials and men usually taking responsibility for their distribution to the kerbside/recycling centre. Likewise in Sweden, 'it is mainly the men... who are responsible for taking the waste fractions to the recycling stations by car' (Skill, 2008: 183). Existing research that has explored the relationship between gender and recycling has found that women tend to be more likely to recycle (Oates and MacDonald, 2006; Pettifor, 2012). However, drawing on insights from research in both countries, we argue that recycling consumption work is divided according to the stage at which it falls, with women more likely to be involved in the supply of recyclable materials and men more likely to distribute the materials to the kerbside or recycling centre. So it is not the case that 'men or women perform more or less environmentally friendly activities, but that the responsibility

2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 144
  Context:
    #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work
      #BRWHQV Conclusion
  Score: 0.738
  Related excerpt #KCKDVU:
      This chapter has offered useful insights into the difficulties that some consumers face when sorting their waste for recycling, with uncertainties about what can be recycled and how it ought to be distributed relating back to the wider system in which these decisions are shaped. Different household members can have quite different understandings and levels of competence when it comes to sorting their waste. Thus, we have identified some key practical barriers to recycling at home which may be of interest to those with responsibility for promoting recycling within society. Our research further shows that recycling consumption work tasks are differentiated by gender within the household, with women typically taking responsibility for sorting materials and men usually taking responsibility for their distribution to the kerbside/recycling centre. This finding challenges existing research which has claimed that women tend to carry the burden of sustainability policies within the household – although women are likely to spend more total time sorting and storing waste, with men's contribution related to the less regular task of distribution.

3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 132
  Context:
    #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work
      #C9T857 Gender and the three stages of recycling consumption work
  Score: 0.734
  Related excerpt #L2QJFU:
      In her study of the relationship between waste separation and housework, Pettifor (2012) finds that women were generally more likely to separate their waste for recycling than men, but this depended upon who did that majority of the housework in the household. Such a conclusion fits with our findings – recycling tasks are often coordinated with other domestic tasks, suggesting that consumption work is shaped by existing divisions of labour within the household. As one of our Swedish experts highlighted:

4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 133
  Context:
    #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work
      #C9T857 Gender and the three stages of recycling consumption work
  Score: 0.731
  Related excerpt #7R5MG5:
      Exploration of the gendered division of recycling consumption work reveals a more complex picture than women merely doing more than men, with criteria for assessing relative contributions within households not always clear. Future research into this field ought to consider the different stages/tasks involved in household recycling rather than assume that the work of household recycling can be accounted for with a single variable.

5. Source: Reuse practices and household consumption work (#V9QTJP), David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons, p. 4
  Context:
    #YDJM7S Prácticas de reutilización y trabajo de consumo doméstico
      #ZZ3Y5X Literature review
  Score: 0.742
  Related excerpt #8EF7DD:
      Within the context of household waste management practices, economies of consumer recycling remain a predominant focus in household work. Through a variety of recycling tasks and activities including cleaning, squashing, disassembling, sorting, storing, and transporting items, Wheeler and Glucksmann (2015a) highlight the interdependencies of such work within the home, with work tasks conducted by other waste management actors/technologies (see also Chappells & Shove, 1999; Middha & Horne, 2024). Seldom recognized as 'work', but rather portrayed as 'a conscious green act' (Oates & McDonald, 2006, p. 421), recycling activities are often enacted through a moral economy of resource stewardship and environmental citizenship. They are also, however, embedded within relations of familial care, conventions of household order in keeping one's house tidy, norms of cleanliness and hygiene, and conveniences more generally (Pedersen & Manhece, 2020; Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015b). Contributions such as Lindsay and colleagues on consumption work in low waste households, not only emphasize debates about sustainability and transition to a circular economy failing to recognize the amount of additional labour often required, but also the gender disparity in enacting this (Lindsay et al., 2024). They draw to attention the inclusion of 'sustainability labour' as part of existing household dynamics and gendered practices (see also Wheeler & Glucksmann, 2015a), in attempts to reduce plastic consumption involving new and additional modes of shopping and relying on other domestic activities, such as meal planning. These ideas build on earlier work by Organo, Head and Waitt, who found that women spent more time on sustainable practices than men and did so more often (Organo et al., 2013). Referring to waste management in apartment living, Horne et al. (2022) refer to the temporalities and rhythms of plastic waste being intensified due to space requirements, or lack thereof, with practices of sorting, recycling, and disposing of plastic waste important in maintaining household hygiene, convenience, and emotions of living in apartment spaces.

6. Source:  (#VWPB2S), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 15
  Context:
    #DPNN52 ‘It’s kind of saving them a job isn’t it?’ The consumption work of household recycling
      #3PUVKE Recycling consumption work and societal divisions of labour
  Score: 0.779
  Related excerpt #GR39TD:
      Returning to each dimension of the SEFL framework; we have illustrated how consumers perform three distinct recycling tasks (dimension 1) – of supply, warehouse and distribution – which can have a knock-on effect for the processes of labour that precede/follow it. This technical division of recycling consumption work reveals a historically distinctive and specific division of labour which contrasts with arrangements in many countries, especially in the global south, where consumers do not sort their waste but rather this is done by waste pickers on vast waste dumps (Beecheno, 2013). Our research further shows that within the household, recycling consumption work tasks are differentiated by gender, with women typically taking responsibility for sorting materials and men usually taking responsibility for their distribution to the kerbside/recycling centre. This finding challenges existing research which has claimed that women carry the burden of sustainability policies within the household – although, women are likely to spend more total time sorting and storing waste, with men's contribution related to the less regular task of distribution.

7. Source:  (#VWPB2S), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 0
  Context:
    #DPNN52 ‘It’s kind of saving them a job isn’t it?’ The consumption work of household recycling
      #RYEF8N Abstract
  Score: 0.73
  Related excerpt #8E67DA:
      Keywords: consumption work, division of labour, gender, recycling, waste

8. Source:  (#VWPB2S), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 5
  Context:
    #DPNN52 ‘It’s kind of saving them a job isn’t it?’ The consumption work of household recycling
      #HTNRHE Economies of consumer recycling
  Score: 0.717
  Related excerpt #94G2W7:
      To say that cleaning, sorting and transporting recyclable packaging involves work for consumers may seem obvious. However, as Oates and McDonald (2006: 421) point out, recycling has seldom been recognized as 'work' and instead tends to be portrayed as ' a conscious green act '. Studies of gendered divisions of household recycling have recognized recycling as an additional chore to be integrated into existing domestic routines and found that women tend to carry the day-to-day burden of this work. But recycling is rarely conceptualized as a distinctive form of consumer work, its performance interdependent with wider processes of labour within waste management.

### 25. Tool result: search_text

Exact matches

1. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 15
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #PMMXAX Conclusion
  Matching excerpt #EYXFNZ:
      This paper has explored consumers' voluntary disposition practices through swapping events organised by community-based enterprises. This paper has contributed to existing knowledge about swapping events and offered novel findings regarding the letting go stage which is a necessary step enabling consumers to participate in these community-based enterprises. This paper offers an important theoretical contribution to the TSP as the element of meaning has been found as a driving force in the context of swapping and having significant impact on material and competence elements. The findings show that consumers with more experience of attending swap events use a "swap bag" strategy to aid with selection of garments. The swap bag is curated over time in anticipation of swap event attendance, which can make the preparation for the practice less time consuming, less stressful and in turn more convenient. At the same time selecting items that have emotional value can at the same time create social value as garments are exchanged to foster a common goal of re-use and longevity (Lautermann, 2013). The findings further show that, besides explicitly stated rules imposed by organisers, there is an implicit social contract among swappers of all experience levels, which is based on complex relationships built between the community-based enterprise and swap participants (Sforzi and Bianchi, 2020). The implicit social contract influences the material element of swapping practice as consumers attempt to bring "better" clothing to swaps. This links to improving overall consumer experience with swap events as well as alleviating the key concern of quality which has been raised in previous research (Henninger et al. , 2019). The meaning element of the practice, therefore, redefines how swapping is exercised. The process of voluntary disposition has been visualised in Figure 1, summarising the driving forces behind letting

2. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 0
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #CH9KRD Abstract
  Matching excerpt #W99MXB:
      Keywords Swapping, Collaborative consumption, Theory of social practice, Fashion, Voluntary disposition, Community-based enterprises

3. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 6
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #CXMF4Q Literature review
        #WMLW3V The theory of social practice
  Matching excerpt #3BMAJ9:
      Better understanding of practice elements have a direct implication for understanding of the practice itself and are, therefore, important to research further (Philip et al. , 2019). This research contributes to better understanding of key practice elements in community-based enterprises, unravelling the dynamic relationships between material (i.e. clothing) and competence (i.e. letting go) which has a direct impact on the active operation of swap events as community-based enterprises. Understanding voluntary disposition of garments is essential for comprehending how practitioners either reproduce or defect from swapping (Shove et al. , 2012). Moreover, community-based enterprises play a significant role as spaces

4. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 1
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #UDVUTK Introduction
  Matching excerpt #D89HQU:
      Swapping emerged as an activity organised by community-based enterprises. These community-based enterprises are founded on the basis to tackle a key issue within a certain community ( Sforzi and Bianchi, 2020 ), which in the case of this article focuses on clothing “waste”. To explain, these community-based enterprises develop swap events to provide a solution to the dominating throw-away culture, by further fostering trust, inclusion and social relationships between the organising members and the wider community ( Wilkinson and Quarter, 1996 ; Borzaga and Sforzi, 2015 ). Community-based enterprises form a subcategory of social enterprises. The term community, here, is defined as a geographically close location (e.g. neighbourhood) that shares a similar culture and, in this case, ethical and sustainable principles on clothing use and/or voluntary disposition ( Peredo and Chrisman, 2006 ; Albinsson and Perera, 2009, 2012 ; Kleinhans et al., 2020 ). One of the key characteristics of these community-based enterprises is that they are not-for-profit and set up with the purpose of delivering long-term benefits for people and/or the community ( Wallace, 2005 ; Finlayson and Roy, 2019 ).

5. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 0
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #CH9KRD Abstract
  Matching excerpt #NE8BDC:
      Originality/value – This paper contributes to and advances an understanding of swapping events organised by community-based enterprises. The theory of social practice lens offers a unique viewpoint on the elements influencing the consumers' decision-making process with reference to voluntary disposition.

6. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 3
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #CXMF4Q Literature review
        #NQTLD2 Community-based enterprises, social innovation and swapping practice
  Matching excerpt #MVBCCM:
      Camacho-Otero et al. (2019) outline specific elements of practice which are central to swapping, identifying interplays between practice elements and its impact on swapping performance and recruitment of new practitioners. Although Camacho-Otero et al. (2019) findings form an important ground for understanding swapping from a social practice perspective, their study does not elaborate on the decision-making behind brought garments, which links to voluntary disposition, despite identifying clothes brought to swaps as a key material element. Similarly, Philip et al. (2019) contribute a framework of skills, meanings, rules and materials that enable online peer-to-peer swapping. The context of online swapping is however fundamentally different from offline swapping; hence the relevance of their finding is limited for public swapping events which are often based on community-based enterprises ( LoveYourClothes, 2023; Albinsson and Perera, 2012 ) and the subject of this study.

7. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 0
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #CH9KRD Abstract
  Matching excerpt #HGRN5P:
      Purpose – This paper aims to explore consumers' voluntary disposition practices through swapping events organised by community-based enterprises. The paper investigates consumers' decision-making strategies and factors affecting voluntary clothing disposition via public swapping events across the UK.

Approximate matches

1. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 0
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #CH9KRD Abstract
  Score: 0.62
  Related excerpt #W99MXB:
      Keywords Swapping, Collaborative consumption, Theory of social practice, Fashion, Voluntary disposition, Community-based enterprises

2. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 6
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #CXMF4Q Literature review
        #CSF8PT Clothing disposal versus voluntary disposition
  Score: 0.605
  Related excerpt #B9F2D2:
      were more likely to participate in swapping and other alternative modes of voluntary disposition such as resell and take-back programs. Donation to charity shops or charity bins was found to be the standard practice for most consumers even with clothing that was mildly stained or had minor defects (Morgan and Birtwistle, 2009; Weber et al. , 2017).

3. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 0
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #CH9KRD Abstract
  Score: 0.597
  Related excerpt #HGRN5P:
      Purpose – This paper aims to explore consumers' voluntary disposition practices through swapping events organised by community-based enterprises. The paper investigates consumers' decision-making strategies and factors affecting voluntary clothing disposition via public swapping events across the UK.

4. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 1
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #UDVUTK Introduction
  Score: 0.583
  Related excerpt #D89HQU:
      Swapping emerged as an activity organised by community-based enterprises. These community-based enterprises are founded on the basis to tackle a key issue within a certain community ( Sforzi and Bianchi, 2020 ), which in the case of this article focuses on clothing “waste”. To explain, these community-based enterprises develop swap events to provide a solution to the dominating throw-away culture, by further fostering trust, inclusion and social relationships between the organising members and the wider community ( Wilkinson and Quarter, 1996 ; Borzaga and Sforzi, 2015 ). Community-based enterprises form a subcategory of social enterprises. The term community, here, is defined as a geographically close location (e.g. neighbourhood) that shares a similar culture and, in this case, ethical and sustainable principles on clothing use and/or voluntary disposition ( Peredo and Chrisman, 2006 ; Albinsson and Perera, 2009, 2012 ; Kleinhans et al., 2020 ). One of the key characteristics of these community-based enterprises is that they are not-for-profit and set up with the purpose of delivering long-term benefits for people and/or the community ( Wallace, 2005 ; Finlayson and Roy, 2019 ).

5. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 2
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #CXMF4Q Literature review
        #NQTLD2 Community-based enterprises, social innovation and swapping practice
  Score: 0.583
  Related excerpt #PRMXV8:
      Swapping implies an exchange of garments, whereby ownership is redistributed between individuals, without monetary fees (Henninger et al. , 2019; Philip et al. , 2019). Swapping events are often organised by individuals within a community and, thus, could be described as forming community-based enterprises. These community-based enterprises often emerge as a result of community members wanting to address a specific issue in their vicinity, whether this may be, here, overconsumption of garments and, thus, going against the dominant paradigm of throw-away culture, or wanting to make garments accessible to every person living within the community (Sforzi and Bianchi, 2020). Developing community-based enterprises can be challenging, as they are based on complex relationships, not only between the members who have created the enterprise, but also between the enterprise and the community, as without commitment and participation these enterprises cannot survive (Borzaga and Sforzi, 2015).

6. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 5
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #CXMF4Q Literature review
        #CSF8PT Clothing disposal versus voluntary disposition
  Score: 0.574
  Related excerpt #HB4P3J:
      The available literature on clothing disposal and/or voluntary disposition outlines a focus on exploring motivations, reasons and consumer factors and, thus, reveals a gap in understanding voluntary disposition through the TSP. Although it is useful to understand the motivations and reasons as these are part of the practice to a certain degree (Shove et al. , 2012), these are not linked with any actions following voluntary disposition such as new product acquisition nor being presented as part of any practice, which are gaps addressed in this research. Albinsson and Perera (2009) explore swapping as a form of voluntary disposition; this is done together with other non-monetary disposition modes, therefore, lacking in-depth focus on the swapping format itself. Using swapping events as channels for voluntary disposition is, thus, contextually novel and extends the theoretical understanding of collaborative consumption models (e.g. swapping) as avenues for unwanted clothing.

7. Source: Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice (#TBPJS6), Aurelie Le Normand, Claudia E. Henninger, Lucie Počinková, Marta Blazquez Cano, p. 15
  Context:
    #94JRZJ Exploring the role of community-based enterprises in consumers' voluntary clothing disposition via UK swapping events using theory of social practice
      #PMMXAX Conclusion
  Score: 0.572
  Related excerpt #EYXFNZ:
      This paper has explored consumers' voluntary disposition practices through swapping events organised by community-based enterprises. This paper has contributed to existing knowledge about swapping events and offered novel findings regarding the letting go stage which is a necessary step enabling consumers to participate in these community-based enterprises. This paper offers an important theoretical contribution to the TSP as the element of meaning has been found as a driving force in the context of swapping and having significant impact on material and competence elements. The findings show that consumers with more experience of attending swap events use a "swap bag" strategy to aid with selection of garments. The swap bag is curated over time in anticipation of swap event attendance, which can make the preparation for the practice less time consuming, less stressful and in turn more convenient. At the same time selecting items that have emotional value can at the same time create social value as garments are exchanged to foster a common goal of re-use and longevity (Lautermann, 2013). The findings further show that, besides explicitly stated rules imposed by organisers, there is an implicit social contract among swappers of all experience levels, which is based on complex relationships built between the community-based enterprise and swap participants (Sforzi and Bianchi, 2020). The implicit social contract influences the material element of swapping practice as consumers attempt to bring "better" clothing to swaps. This links to improving overall consumer experience with swap events as well as alleviating the key concern of quality which has been raised in previous research (Henninger et al. , 2019). The meaning element of the practice, therefore, redefines how swapping is exercised. The process of voluntary disposition has been visualised in Figure 1, summarising the driving forces behind letting

8. Source: Consumer engagement in the circular economy: Exploring clothes swapping in emerging economies from a social practice perspective (#UB9EAT), Casper Boks, Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Juana Camacho-Otero, p. 4
  Context:
    #7Q7UZ6 Consumer engagement in the circular economy: Exploring clothes swapping in emerging economies from a social practice perspective
      #UV3MRF 4 | MATERIALS AND METHODS
        #G3HV37 4.1 | Case studies
  Score: 0.576
  Related excerpt #K4DGUX:
      entertainment, and data collection. Each group has specific tasks and they meet periodically before the event. The events are planned to happen during dates that are commercially important, that is, when people are expected to shop like Mother's Day or Friendship Day, so consumers have an alternative to buying. On the swapping day, the event works in a similar way as Initiative A, volunteers receive and examine the clothes and give tokens in exchange, and others organize the clothes in a space that looks like a store. Although people are giving their clothes, artistic performances are happening as well as a fair with local sustainable products for sale. People can start choosing clothes 2 hr after the event started. If two people choose the same garment, they are expected to solve the conflict by playing "stone, paper, scissors." After the event, the organizers prepared a video to share in their social networks.

### 26. Assistant tool calls

#### Tool call: `write_note`

```json
{
  "block_ids": [
    "E3QN63",
    "VVZXM9",
    "QZ8Q4K",
    "DJGUE3",
    "SP57EV",
    "Z48STM",
    "YLHWNT",
    "HZZ52R",
    "BXEAUH",
    "3JWRLY",
    "B3A7P8",
    "AC8LX9",
    "8Q8FJL",
    "NZ35DC",
    "Z4SQKT",
    "R3D4QX",
    "R7ZTTM",
    "KH4GUQ",
    "G5UMDM",
    "4ALAE2",
    "U575JS",
    "YJA4V6",
    "PTWXU3",
    "VQARCF",
    "NVL4HP",
    "AFFP4F",
    "DKNKM6",
    "K4CB2W",
    "DP97U6",
    "H28U22",
    "P26BPV",
    "W3LBHF",
    "4UDNLK",
    "Q6BLWD",
    "G26N4U",
    "AYEXHQ",
    "KCKDVU",
    "GR39TD",
    "WTJQJQ",
    "JXSMQW",
    "7AQN26",
    "UM6BJY",
    "WQCQ9A",
    "ENZMT5",
    "JJA5J6",
    "8JXBYH",
    "T5LNZ9"
  ],
  "text": "Revision note for empirical Chapters 4–5. Chapter 4 works best as the practice-theory chapter: freecycling as a practice-entity made of materials, meanings and competencies (#E3QN63, #VVZXM9), moving along the trajectory of things (#QZ8Q4K). Strong anchors: Tan & Yeoh on material co-presence, storage and spatial constraints (#DJGUE3, #SP57EV) for Brīvbode as physical infrastructure (#Z48STM, #YLHWNT, #HZZ52R); Widlok on give boxes decoupling giving/taking and anxieties about dumping/resale (#BXEAUH, #3JWRLY) for moral economy/exchange-not-charity (#B3A7P8, #AC8LX9, #8Q8FJL); Evans’s 3As/3Ds and detachment (#NZ35DC, #Z4SQKT) plus Bohlin on serial care/letting go (#R3D4QX, #R7ZTTM, #KH4GUQ) for attachment/letting go (#G5UMDM, #4ALAE2, #U575JS); Smith & Jehlička quiet sustainability (#YJA4V6, #PTWXU3) for sustainability section (#VQARCF, #NVL4HP). Chapter 5 works best as consumption-work chapter: unpaid labour, valuation, modal/processual/gendered distribution (#AFFP4F, #DKNKM6). Anchors: Wheeler & Glucksmann definitions (#K4CB2W, #DP97U6, #H28U22); Larsen on thrift-store valuation/moving things along (#P26BPV, #W3LBHF, #4UDNLK); Evans/Jackson/Beswick-Parsons on reuse work being invisible domestic labour (#Q6BLWD, #G26N4U); gendered sorting/transport (#AYEXHQ, #KCKDVU, #GR39TD); Tan & Yeoh/Hobson on social circularities and relational labour (#WTJQJQ). Suggested restructuring: move or integrate Chapter 4’s long competencies fragments (#JXSMQW–#7AQN26) into Chapter 5.2 valuation work, or make them a cleaner subsection in Chapter 4 only if framed as competencies of practice rather than labour. Move #UM6BJY to a footnote or keep as tonal detail. Chapter 5 conclusion currently has duplicate conclusion fragments (#WQCQ9A, #ENZMT5, #JJA5J6); merge into #8JXBYH–#T5LNZ9.",
  "title": "Chapters 4–5 revision map: theory/literature connections and structure"
}
```

### 27. Tool result: write_note

NOTE SAVED #BFHK52
IRI: https://sheaf.less.rest/BFHK52

### 28. Assistant

I read Chapters 4–5 and the relevant theory/literature sections. Overall: the empirical material is strong, and the main issue is not lack of theory but **sorting the theoretical jobs of the two chapters** so they do not blur into each other.

## Main structural recommendation

I would make the division very explicit:

- **Chapter 4 = practice-theory chapter**: how freecycling in Brīvbode is constituted through **materials, meanings, competencies, performances, tensions**. This is already announced well in #E3QN63 and #QZ8Q4K.
- **Chapter 5 = consumption-work chapter**: what this circulation costs in **labour, time, valuation, care, modal redistribution, gendered household work**. This is already clear in #AFFP4F and #DKNKM6.

This framing would make the chapters feel more cohesive and reduce repetition.

---

## Chapter 4: flow and possible reordering

### Suggested outline

1. **Incoming flow: divestment from home**  
   Keep #M45HLW as the opening. It works well because it begins before the shop, with domestic divestment as the source of circulation.

2. **Brīvbode as circulation infrastructure**  
   Combine “Managing the flow on site” and “Material elements” more tightly. Start with the queue/opening scene #ALYNWW, then ownership transfer #2YWFSM, speed of circulation #TVPES3, then physical permanence/co-presence/storage #Z48STM–#HZZ52R.

3. **Norms and moral economy of non-monetary exchange**  
   Put explicit rules, relational acceptability, charity/exchange distinction, resellers, heavy takers together. This would include #QY9B8B, #9X74TE, #VJU6JZ, #ETSGMU, #B3A7P8–#VZMVZA.

4. **Freeness, attachment and detachment**  
   Keep the Evans/attachment material here: #G5UMDM, #4ALAE2, #UZH6RE, #5YYBKM, #H28B2Q, #U575JS. But I would move the more “self-management work” paragraphs into Chapter 5.

5. **Plural meanings of acquisition**  
   This section is one of the best parts: dignity, experimentation, craft gaze, stigma, generational change. Keep #Z7Y86N mostly as is, but finish the fragment #8R7Q44.

6. **Quiet and articulated sustainability**  
   Keep, but tighten. It currently has several note-like fragments. The strongest line is: sustainability is sometimes explicit, often not, and practice theory lets you analyse sustainable outcomes without reducing them to declared environmental motivation.

---

## Concrete Chapter 4 citation anchors

### Practice theory / elements of practice

Use Shove et al. to support the chapter’s “materials, meanings, competencies” framing. You already say this in #E3QN63 and the theory chapter defines it in #VVZXM9. A literature block you can cite directly is Gurova’s summary of Shove: practices combine materials, meanings and competences, and recruit practitioners when elements link together (#XL67W8). Tölg also gives a compact version (#L87E64).

Good insertion point: after #E3QN63 or #QZ8Q4K.

### Divestment, attachment, detachment

For #GXDTQG, #9XUQEC, #WWSZA8, #G5UMDM, #4ALAE2, #U575JS:

- Evans defines consumption beyond acquisition: appropriation, appreciation, devaluation, divestment, disposal (#NZ35DC).  
- Tölg summarises Evans’s 3As/3Ds and says divestment is where personal meanings and attachments are broken (#Z4SQKT).
- Bohlin is very useful for your argument that letting go can itself be caring: second-hand users practice “serial care” for things-in-motion (#R3D4QX), and responsible reuse can mean loving things enough to let them circulate (#R7ZTTM, #KH4GUQ).

This would strengthen the section from “people feel better donating” into a sharper argument: **Brīvbode enables detachment without abandoning care**.

### Physical site, co-presence, storage, overflow

For #Z48STM, #YLHWNT, #HZZ52R, #EP6U2C, #AUZKM4:

- Tan & Yeoh say freecycling works better through embodied co-presence because people can handle and try things, but this depends on space and storage (#DJGUE3).
- They also show that without storage, freecycling markets create waste after the event because leftovers must be cleared (#SP57EV).
- Their “material co-presence of givers, takers and reusable things” point is very close to Brīvbode’s density and speed (#GKTRKH).

This makes Brīvbode’s permanence theoretically important, not just descriptive.

### Moral economy: exchange, charity, resale, dumping

For #B3A7P8, #AC8LX9, #8Q8FJL, #MB7WW5:

- Widlok’s give box analysis is perfect. Give boxes decouple giving and receiving, reduce the awkwardness of alms, and allow people to take without performing need (#BXEAUH).
- He also notes concerns about give boxes becoming dumping grounds or being used for resale (#BXEAUH, #3JWRLY).
- The “no direct demand” aspect of give boxes also helps explain Brīvbode’s donor-driven supply (#NBZHN8).

This strongly supports your exchange-not-charity discussion and the reseller ambiguity.

### Acquisition meanings: class, stigma, creativity, distinction

For #QCTGLZ, #PAYAS2, #EJM4WU, #GN8UUK, #86CMYM:

- Steward is useful for thrift as cultural capital: thrift stores produce different symbolic understandings, from bargains to creativity (#AMBJZB, #3L4W33).
- Steward also notes thrift stores are accessible but still affected by stigma around used clothing (#3H7M5).
- Gurova gives a contrast case where second-hand is normalized among young people in Finland and “not a matter of shame” (#5GY5XZ). This supports your generational shift claim in #86CMYM.
- Catherine Alexander is useful for the class ambiguity of thrift: the same practice can be eco-skill, habit, or shame depending on class context (#LNKA7X).

This helps avoid an overly celebratory account of freecycling as universally empowering.

### Quiet sustainability

For #VQARCF, #NVL4HP, #3N5GKC:

- Smith & Jehlička define quiet sustainability as practices with beneficial environmental/social outcomes that are not represented by practitioners as sustainability goals (#YJA4V6).
- They also stress that such practices are common in post-socialist societies and may need recognition/protection (#PTWXU3).
- Mašek is useful if you want to loosen the “non-market” criterion, since he notes that the market-transaction aspect is not always crucial to quiet sustainability (#V674Q3).

---

## Chapter 5: flow and possible reordering

Chapter 5 is already conceptually strong, but its headings could better mirror Wheeler & Glucksmann.

### Suggested outline

1. **Introduction: the bumblebee and the hidden work of circulation**  
   #AFFP4F and #DKNKM6 are good. Keep them.

2. **Volunteer time and sufficiency as a condition of circulation**  
   Keep #KWZ8DM, but frame it as a precondition: Brīvbode “flies” because some people have flexible time, skills and low-consumption lifestyles.

3. **Technical/valuation labour: sorting, judging, curating, self-regulating**  
   This should include #L5PE5X and probably some of the currently fragmentary “competencies” material from Chapter 4: #JXSMQW–#7AQN26. These read more like labour/valuation than Chapter 4 practice-elements.

4. **Modal labour: market, non-market, formal, informal routes**  
   Keep #A43655. This is where online resale, textile containers, charity storage, Brīvbode, household work and volunteer work can be compared as different socioeconomic forms of the same circulation work.

5. **Processual labour: networks, households, gender**  
   Keep #38335C. This is very strong and should probably be one of the key contributions of the thesis.

6. **Conclusion**  
   Merge #8JXBYH and #T5LNZ9. Delete or integrate the duplicate conclusion fragments #WQCQ9A, #ENZMT5, #JJA5J6.

---

## Concrete Chapter 5 citation anchors

### Consumption work framework

For #DKNKM6:

- Wheeler & Glucksmann define technical, modal and processual labour very clearly (#K4CB2W).
- Evans/Jackson/Beswick-Parsons summarise the same framework and stress how it helps analyse shifting boundaries between domestic labour and consumption work (#DP97U6).
- The shorter article version defines consumption work as all work necessary for purchase, use, reuse and disposal (#H28U22).

### Valuation work and sorting

For #ZU8ZS9, #ZJG8XW, #737NYX:

- Larsen’s thrift-store work is very relevant: thrift-store valuation involves testing, cleaning, sorting, bundling, pricing and making donations usable (#P26BPV).
- He argues that thrift in the store means moving things along, not saving them in place (#W3LBHF).
- “We just want the stuff to sell/move” is a useful parallel to Brīvbode’s “keep it flowing” logic (#4UDNLK, #UPS8VP).
- Larsen also describes valuation as categorisation that temporarily fixes value so objects can re-enter second-hand economies (#7EJUMJ).

This would help make #ZU8ZS9 more grounded: in Brīvbode, price disappears, but valuation does not.

### Circular consumption as care and work

For #VFVNL8, #737NYX, #4PNKDC, #DGLFX7:

- Tölg/Fuentes argue that circular clothing consumption involves care, but care requires resources and can fail when resources are missing (#VP8FU5).
- Their paper says circular consumption is socially and materially embedded and requires consumption work (#B6BCMX).
- Tan & Yeoh cite Hobson’s “social circularities”: sequential reuse is not automatic; it depends on relational labour (#WTJQJQ).

This is extremely close to your argument that things do not circulate by themselves; people make them circulate.

### Modal/processual labour and invisibility

For #HM3BWV, #A43655, #SP2V6Q:

- Evans/Jackson/Beswick-Parsons show that reuse work is often invisible because it is coordinated with ordinary domestic labour (#Q6BLWD).
- They argue that processual labour in reuse extends beyond the home and raises the question of who — state, market, household — is required to do what work (#G26N4U).

This supports your point that Brīvbode redistributes work rather than eliminating it.

### Gendered labour

For #8QVYKY, #JY7V8V, #DGLFX7, #LQTPNH:

- Wheeler & Glucksmann find recycling work is gendered: women tend to sort, men tend to transport (#AYEXHQ, #KCKDVU).
- The article version makes the same point very directly (#GR39TD).
- Evans/Jackson/Beswick-Parsons also connect sustainability labour to existing gendered household dynamics (#8EF7DD).

This is a very solid citation base for your gendered Brīvbode argument.

---

## Specific paragraphs/sections to move or revise

I tagged the obvious fragments as `fragment`: #QPZXSP, #JXSMQW, #YNMVCK, #8R7Q44, #T9XJDZ, #B3S7DW, #WQCQ9A, #MC4GH7.

Most important edits:

1. **Merge #QPZXSP into #LHMEDR**  
   #QPZXSP is just a dangling clause.

2. **Move or integrate the competencies list #JXSMQW–#7AQN26**  
   Best home: Chapter 5.2, “Valuation work without price.” These are really about evaluative labour, material literacy, acquisition discipline and sorting work.

3. **Finish #8R7Q44**  
   Suggested completion:  
   “While alternative, these meanings simultaneously overlap with some meanings present in capitalist consumption: novelty, self-expression, distinction and the pleasure of the search. Brīvbode does not stand outside consumer culture so much as recombine some of its meanings within a non-monetary arrangement.”

4. **Tighten #6535KC**  
   Keep #FNDALQ, #NDV326, #VQARCF, #XHSHXZ, #XNL7TE, #NVL4HP, #3N5GKC, #EWC4HE/#B4P2SJ/#X9XV4X if needed. Remove or integrate #T9XJDZ and #B3S7DW.

5. **Clean Chapter 5 conclusion**  
   Keep #8JXBYH and #T5LNZ9 as the real conclusion. Fold useful phrasing from #ENZMT5 and #JJA5J6 into them; delete #WQCQ9A.

6. **Consider moving #YNFMZ5 to Chapter 4 acquisition meanings**  
   The Miller/flea-market point fits the rhythm and pleasure of acquisition better than the Chapter 5 conclusion.

7. **#ANCRJA is interesting but needs a home**  
   Rasa feeling less guilty about not sorting waste because she works at Brīvbode could become a sharp small paragraph on “transactions of responsibility” in Chapter 5.3 modal labour.

---

## The big argument emerging

A concise version of the combined Chapters 4–5 argument could be:

> Brīvbode sustains circularity not simply by making things available, but by assembling a practice of circulation: a physical site, moral meanings of exchange and responsibility, competencies of valuation and restraint, and repeated performances by givers, takers and volunteers. Yet this circulation is not frictionless. It depends on unpaid, gendered, often invisible consumption work: sorting, cleaning, transporting, judging, curating, remembering others’ needs, and managing one’s own attachments. Brīvbode therefore appears both as an alternative moral infrastructure and as a pressure valve for overconsumption.

That argument is already present in #GJ3YQT and #T5LNZ9; the revision task is mostly to make every section clearly serve it.

I saved a durable revision note with the citation map and structure suggestions: #BFHK52.

### 29. Assistant

Yes — this is exactly the kind of “chapter spine” that should make the redrafting less like wrestling an octopus in Word. Below is a proposed **reorganized Chapter 4** using mostly existing paragraph blocks, with suggested new headings and brief notes about what each paragraph does. I also mark where I think you need **new connective tissue** or where a paragraph should be **merged / shortened / moved to Chapter 5**.

# Proposed Chapter 4 spine  
## Chapter 4: **Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation**

Alternative title if you want to stay closer to the current one:  
**The Circulation of Things and the Practice That Sustains It**

Core argument of the chapter:

> Brīvbode sustains circulation not simply by making free things available, but by assembling a practice: household divestment routes, a physical site, norms of exchange, competencies of valuation and restraint, and plural meanings that recruit different practitioners. The chapter follows things from home, into the shop, through moral/evaluative negotiations, and out again into new use.

---

## 4.0 Introduction: following things through the practice

### #E3QN63  
Keep. This is already a strong opening: it names the chapter as an analysis of freecycling as practice-entity and performance. It gives you your theoretical frame: physical venue, materials, meanings, competencies, friction.

### #QZ8Q4K  
Keep but revise to match the new outline. Currently it says the chapter follows the trajectory of things, which is exactly right. It just needs to preview the reorganized sections more cleanly.

**Possible revised gist:**  
“This chapter follows things from households into Brīvbode, through the sorting table and shop floor, and into new attachments. In doing so, it shows how circulation depends on material infrastructures, moral meanings, evaluative competencies, and sustainability orientations that do not always align.”

---

# 4.1 Divestment begins at home: household rhythms and moral removal

This section should establish that Brīvbode does not begin at the shop. It begins with household overflow, sorting, moving, guilt, attachment, and the need for a socially acceptable route out.

### #GXDTQG  
Keep as the conceptual opening of the empirical chapter proper. It nicely says that one practice’s output — domestic divestment — becomes another practice’s resource — acquisition. This is the hinge between household and shop.

**Connective function:** establishes Brīvbode as a node in wider domestic circulation.

### #S5FWGM  
Keep, but possibly shorten. It connects to Shove/Gregson and the migration of thrift from repair into divestment. Useful theory anchor for “responsible disposal” as identity work.

### #BGYXVM  
Keep. Strong analytical paragraph: giving and taking do not necessarily recruit the same carriers or meanings. Very important for the chapter’s structure because it justifies why you treat divestment and acquisition separately.

### #FN9Y53  
Keep. This gives the ordinary rhythm: things accumulate until a bag is full. Good transition from abstract divestment to practical household temporality.

### #FPHE4J  
Keep. Expands from ordinary accumulation to larger pulses: moving, renovation, death, downsizing. This gives scale and shows why supply is uneven.

### #AZ2L4J  
Keep. Very good material-practice paragraph: the size of the home shapes divestment pressure. Connects domestic infrastructure to circulation.

### #LGE48Z  
Keep, maybe slightly shorten. This gives texture to decluttering as cultural script and embodied relief. Viesturs’s quote is good because it also links decluttering culture to Brīvbode’s supply quality.

### **NEW connective paragraph after #LGE48Z**  
You need a short bridge from domestic divestment to moral divestment:

> These household rhythms do not only produce surplus materially; they also produce a question of responsibility. Once an item is no longer wanted but still usable, participants must decide not only how to remove it, but how to remove it well.

### #9XUQEC  
Keep. This is key. It names the moral work that Brīvbode does: relieving guilt, maintaining responsible consumer identity, transferring responsibility.

### #WWSZA8  
Keep. Excellent paragraph. It explains visibility as affective closure: people like seeing things being taken. This is an important distinction from textile containers.

---

# 4.2 Imagined receivers and contested usability

This subsection should develop the idea that, because giver and receiver are often decoupled, givers imagine a receiver — and that imagined receiver shapes what counts as “good enough.”

### #QPZXSP + #LHMEDR  
Merge. #QPZXSP is currently a dangling clause. Fold it into #LHMEDR.

**Rewritten opening idea:**  
“In the absence of a specific receiver, givers construct a figure of a possible receiver, and this imagined recipient shapes what they consider appropriate to bring.”

Then keep Aiga’s imagined homeless/needy receiver example.

### #R6NNGM  
Keep. This is a very strong paragraph because it shows how imagined receivers collapse into real social negotiation. Aiga’s uncertainty and avoidance after being criticised gives the section emotional force.

### #R7549E  
Keep, but maybe use as a transition. It summarizes that supply is shaped by contested meanings, evaluative competencies, and domestic rhythms.

### **NEW connective paragraph after #R7549E**  
Bridge from imagined receiver to unruly materiality:

> Because these judgements are made before the object meets either volunteers or takers, Brīvbode receives not only clearly reusable goods but also ambiguous materials whose status remains unresolved until they enter the shop.

### #PUVY95  
Keep. Strong evidence that Brīvbode becomes a route for ambiguous things: repair projects, fragments, incomplete puzzles, personal hesitation about whether to take things out of your own backpack.

### #GGRHDF  
Keep. Very good ethnographic paragraph. It shows multiple scales of “usable”: sugar packets, expired covid tests, plastic containers, wire offcuts. The “imagined right-owner who may not exist” is a brilliant concept; foreground it.

### #QDFKGX  
Keep. This balances the previous paragraph: unpredictable supply produces both burden and magic. Nice transition toward acquisition meanings later.

### #YEPTVU  
Keep. Important structural critique: Brīvbode as pressure valve for fast fashion and retailer surplus.

### #QT3B9B  
Keep as the mini-conclusion of this subsection. Strong: Brīvbode as both alternative caring system and low-threshold overflow channel. This could almost be the chapter’s central tension.

---

# 4.3 The site as infrastructure: making circulation visible and possible

This section should move from households into Brīvbode as a material site. I would combine the current “Managing the flow on site” and “Material elements” sections.

### #ALYNWW  
Move here as an opening scene. Good sensory/temporal start: queue, opening time, “It begins.”

### #Z48STM  
Move after #ALYNWW. This gives the theoretical point: physical co-presence matters because things can be handled, tried on, assessed.

### #YLHWNT  
Keep. This is crucial: permanence and storage distinguish Brīvbode from temporary freecycling markets. Strong Tan & Yeoh connection.

### #PU3CKA  
Keep here. Shows that the physical format also produces social rhythm: regular visitors, Thursday/Friday, known volunteers, structure to the week.

### #T7BS4V  
Move after #PU3CKA or before it. This paragraph is about the shop’s visual/material arrangement and contested meanings of presentation. It is important because it shows that “materials” are not just objects but also shelves, spacing, hangers, aesthetics.

**Possible order note:**  
I slightly prefer #T7BS4V before #PU3CKA if you want to discuss the room first, then sociality. But #PU3CKA after #YLHWNT also flows well because permanence enables repeat visits.

### #2YWFSM  
Move here, after the site has been established. This introduces ownership transfer: once things enter the shop, they become Brīvbode’s to manage.

### #TVPES3  
Keep after #2YWFSM. It explains the speed of sorting and “moving things along.” Good Larsen anchor.

### #HZZ52R  
Keep. Important infrastructural paragraph: Brīvbode depends on textile containers, storage collaborations, charity organizations. This complicates any image of a closed circular loop.

### #EP6U2C  
Keep. Very strong fieldwork: overflow as embodied volunteer experience. Rasa’s “relief that these clothes are dirty” is great and darkly funny in the correct academic way.

### #AUZKM4  
Keep. Excellent ethnographic illustration: the shop swallows its own offerings. Could follow #EP6U2C as a concrete scene of overflow.

### #DZ72UL  
Keep. Very interesting: even after the site closes, the flow continues. This shows the practice has recruited carriers beyond the immediate infrastructure.

### #BW6UMW  
Keep, but expand or merge. As it stands it is fragment-like but conceptually strong: putting things in the shop makes overflow visible; there is no “away.”

**Possible revised version:**  
“By making things visible in the shop, Brīvbode also makes material overflow visible. Unlike textile containers or household bins, the shop does not allow things to disappear into an imagined ‘away’; volunteers and visitors encounter the volume, quality and ambiguity of surplus directly.”

---

# 4.4 Gendered stock, evaluative norms and situational boundaries

This section can retain some of the current “Circulation norms and competencies,” but I would **not** keep the long competencies list here in full. Chapter 4 needs enough about competencies to show how the practice is performed; Chapter 5 can take over the fuller “work” analysis.

### #C6YRCL  
Keep. This is a good bridge from material stock to gender: women’s and children’s clothing dominate, reflecting gendered household consumption management.

### #WVZQRH  
Keep but maybe shorten or move partly to Chapter 5. In Chapter 4, its function is to show that sorting competency is not self-evident. In Chapter 5, it could become labour. If kept here, emphasize “competency” rather than “work.”

### #LXRLTL  
Keep. Strong example of different thresholds for men’s clothing. Shows that evaluation norms are gendered and situational.

### #QY9B8B  
Keep. This is the clean introduction to norms: rules are relational rather than categorical.

### #9X74TE  
Keep. This connects norms to tension between maintaining quality and maintaining relationships.

### #WUN97C  
Keep. Food items provide a useful mini-case of trust, familiarity and informal judgement.

### #US7AXR  
Keep. Medicine provides a stronger boundary case. This paragraph is good because it shows norms being enforced indirectly, without open confrontation.

### **NEW connective paragraph after #US7AXR**  
Bridge from acceptability norms to learning freeness:

> These situational boundaries are not only enforced by volunteers; they are also learned by participants. To participate well in Brīvbode means learning how to interpret freeness, restraint, reciprocity and care in a setting where price no longer performs the work of evaluation.

### #ZC2Z2F  
Keep here or move to the next section. I would keep it here as the key “competency acquisition” example. Madara learns to replace “free” with “exchange.” This shows moral economy from the participant side.

### #JXSMQW, #YNMVCK, #D33QL7, #B66BK3, #VG295X, #9LRKLZ, #GWTLZ, #JH9JK9, #UBWP9G, #Q2A66G, #7AQN26  
**Do not keep all of these as separate paragraphs in Chapter 4.** They currently read like notes toward a section. I would either:

#### Option A: Compress into one new synthetic paragraph in Chapter 4  
Use them to write one paragraph like:

> The competencies of circulation in Brīvbode are largely social and evaluative rather than technical in a narrow sense. Participants learn how to read quality, when to come, how to navigate new stock, how to prepare items for giving, and how to judge whether something will actually fit into their existing wardrobe or household. These competencies include material literacy — recognizing fabrics, durability, stains and repairability — but also self-knowledge: knowing what one needs, what one already owns, and when not to take.

This would draw from #YNMVCK, #B66BK3, #VG295X, #9LRKLZ, #GWTLZ, #UBWP9G, #Q2A66G, #7AQN26.

#### Option B: Move most of this material to Chapter 5.2  
This is my preference. These fragments fit very naturally under **valuation work without price** in Chapter 5.

For Chapter 4, keep only a compressed version that supports “competency” as practice element.

---

# 4.5 Exchange, charity and the moral economy of circulation

This section should now move from informal norms to the larger moral framing: Brīvbode is not supposed to be charity, not supposed to be resale, but must tolerate ambiguity because circulation matters.

### #VJU6JZ  
Keep as opening. It names normative meanings and exchange-not-charity. Strong conceptual paragraph.

### #ETSGMU  
Keep. Rasa quote is important and vivid. It shows the equality/reciprocity aspiration.

### #B3A7P8  
Keep. Widlok/give box frame fits beautifully here.

### #AC8LX9  
Keep. Applies Widlok to Brīvbode: taking without performing need, but not straightforward sharing.

### #8Q8FJL  
Keep. Strong empirical/theoretical tension: resellers violate formal rules but may still move things along.

### #MB7WW5  
Keep. This is a key analytical paragraph. It names the hierarchy of meanings: circulation can trump non-monetary purity.

### #VZMVZA  
Keep. Viesturs’s “forest sanitarians” is excellent. It turns morally suspect actors into functional elements of flow. Also shows tactical curatorial competency.

### **NEW mini-conclusion for section**  
You need a short paragraph to close this section and prepare the transition to attachment/freeness:

> The moral economy of Brīvbode is therefore not a fixed code but a practical hierarchy negotiated in relation to material pressure. Exchange, equality and non-commerciality matter, but they are repeatedly adjusted to the deeper imperative that things must keep moving.

---

# 4.6 Freeness, attachment and competencies of letting go

This section should be about what the non-monetary regime does to attachment, commitment, experimentation and restraint. It can stay in Chapter 4 because it directly concerns meanings and competencies of the practice. But some parts could later feed Chapter 5.

### #G5UMDM  
Keep. Strong theoretical opening: Evans, attachment, appropriation/appreciation, monetary investment.

### #4ALAE2  
Keep. Rasa quote is central. It shows price as a binding force and Brīvbode as loosening commitment.

### #HXZYR8  
Keep. Good lively fieldwork showing low-stakes circulation and immediate swapping. Adds embodied texture after the theoretical opening.

### #UZH6RE  
Keep. Trial and return: acquisition does not equal permanent keeping. Very important for how non-monetary circulation alters attachment.

### #5YYBKM  
Keep. Necessary complication: low commitment can also encourage frequent acquisition. This keeps the argument from becoming too celebratory.

### #H28B2Q  
Keep. Elīna’s responsibility quote is excellent. It balances loosened attachment with increased ethical burden.

### #UM6BJY  
Probably move to footnote or cut. It is charming, but unless you use it to show joking as part of the value regime, it interrupts the analytical flow.

### #MPQ4JQ  
Cut as heading fragment.

### #FJ79YF  
Keep either here or move to Chapter 5. I would keep a shortened version here because it fits the “competency of restraint” idea: participants must supply the brake that price would usually provide.

### #8ZPRYC  
Cut or integrate. It is a note.

### #UYL6TZ  
Keep. Madara’s “not becoming the auntie with three bags” is great. It shows deliberate practice modification and sufficiency without environmental discourse.

### #VBVVXQ  
Keep if you want a concrete “enough” example. It shows sufficiency emerging from wardrobe capacity and pleasure in wearing things out.

### #5JJ4KK  
Keep, but maybe shorten. Aiga’s hoarding/scarcity/travel story gives biography and post-socialist material insecurity. It may be slightly long, but it is useful.

### #KWQ7AQ  
Keep if you want the Latvian geopolitical context to surface here. It gives a different, very situated reason for divestment: being able to leave quickly.

### #U575JS  
Keep. Māra explicitly names attachment as a process being worked on. This is one of the strongest “competency of letting go” paragraphs.

### #Z22MHT  
Merge with #U575JS or use as analysis after it. It is currently more note-like but conceptually important: Brīvbode as infrastructure enabling letting go.

### #JV33M5  
Merge with #Z22MHT. Good concept but fragment-like.

**Possible merged paragraph from #U575JS / #Z22MHT / #JV33M5:**  
> Māra’s account makes explicit what is often implicit elsewhere: detachment is not simply an event but a competency developed over time. Brīvbode functions as material infrastructure for this process. It does not only receive things after people have let go; it helps make letting go possible.

---

# 4.7 Plural meanings of acquisition: why people keep coming

This section is already strong. It should show that Brīvbode recruits participants through heterogeneous meanings: dignity, access, experimentation, originality, craft, stigma, generational change. This section should come **after** freeness/attachment because now the reader understands what the non-monetary regime does.

### #X6VKPZ  
Keep as section opening. It clearly states the argument: heterogeneous meanings allow broad recruitment.

### #QCTGLZ  
Keep. Marija: access, dignity, self-presentation, secret source. Very strong.

### #PAYAS2  
Keep. Anna: aesthetic autonomy, uniqueness, sewing competency, everyday festivity.

### #EJM4WU  
Keep. Style experimentation and low financial risk. The cross-dressing example is particularly strong because it shows Brīvbode enabling identity/style experimentation.

### #8N5CQ8  
Keep. Madara’s craftsperson gaze is excellent. Shows value recognition as competency and waste becoming resource.

### #MXY2NM  
Keep. Important negative counterpart: extracting buttons/zippers damages shared value. This prevents romanticizing craft reuse.

### #8R7Q44  
Finish and keep as bridge from positive meanings to consumer-culture overlap.

**Suggested completion:**  
> While alternative, these meanings simultaneously overlap with some of the meanings present in capitalist consumption: novelty, self-expression, distinction and the pleasure of the search. Brīvbode does not stand outside consumer culture so much as recombine some of its meanings within a non-monetary arrangement.

### #GN8UUK  
Keep. Very important corrective: stigma and shame. Marija refusing TV is powerful.

### #KBYYFJ  
Keep. Extends stigma to strategic concealment, especially gifts.

### #A99SUN  
Keep. Previous-owner energy / purgatory for things. Very anthropological, and it connects beautifully to object biographies and moral transformation.

### #86CMYM  
Keep as section ending. Generational shift and normalization. Luīze gives a forward-looking contrast to Marija’s shame.

---

# 4.8 Sustainability as outcome, meaning and tension

This should be the final analytical section. It should not feel like “and now sustainability.” It should answer: after all this, what kind of sustainability is Brīvbode doing?

### #FNDALQ  
Keep as opening. Viesturs frames Brīvbode as planetary rather than charitable, but also wants fun/joy foregrounded. Good entry into sustainability as one meaning among others.

### #NDV326  
Keep. Very good quiet-sustainability example: for Viesturs, the practice has become “a thing I do.”

### #VQARCF  
Keep. Rasa says sustainability is secondary in the intensity of practice. This pairs well with #NDV326.

### #XHSHXZ  
Keep. Luīze as explicit sustainability contrast.

### #XNL7TE  
Keep. Līva shows tension between environmental meaning and actual consumption. Important because it prevents a simple “values cause sustainable behaviour” account.

### #NVL4HP  
Keep, but maybe shorten because it repeats quiet sustainability definition. This is the main theoretical paragraph.

### #3N5GKC  
Keep. This is a good clarification: some participants are explicit, some quiet; practice theory can hold both.

### #UXQTEY  
Do not keep as a full paragraph in Chapter 4 unless rewritten. It reads like pasted literature note. Use the Kropfeld point in a sentence if useful: sufficiency motives can be self-related rather than altruistic/environmental.

### #T9XJDZ  
Cut. Fragment.

### #B3S7DW  
Cut or move to notes/future discussion. Interesting but undeveloped.

### #EWC4HE  
Keep or merge with #NVL4HP. Useful post-socialist/generational scarcity point.

### #B4P2SJ  
Keep or merge with #NVL4HP / #3N5GKC. It restates that many come for practical reasons, not activism.

### #X9XV4X  
Keep as final paragraph of the section, but maybe shorten. It nicely holds quiet/articulated sustainability together and gestures to future research.

### #CQFFRY  
Use only if expanded. Māra’s quote could support post-Soviet scarcity/reuse, but currently it floats. Either integrate into #EWC4HE or cut.

---

# 4.9 Conclusion: Brīvbode as moral infrastructure and overflow channel

The existing conclusion is strong. I would keep all three paragraphs, maybe with slight tightening.

### #54DUKD  
Keep. Good summary of plural meanings and moral economy.

### #7VVSEQ  
Keep. Clear sustainability conclusion: sustainable outcome without required conscious sustainability orientation.

### #GJ3YQT  
Keep as final paragraph. This is the strongest ending: Brīvbode is both alternative moral circularity infrastructure and overflow channel for surplus.

**Possible final sentence tweak:**  
Instead of “This tension just reflects…” maybe write:  
> This tension is not a failure of the practice but part of what the ethnography reveals: sustainable alternatives are assembled within, and remain dependent on, the very conditions of surplus they seek to interrupt.

---

# Short “move / compress / cut” list

## Definitely fix or merge
- #QPZXSP → merge into #LHMEDR.
- #Z22MHT and #JV33M5 → merge into analysis after #U575JS.
- #8R7Q44 → finish as bridge paragraph.

## Probably move to Chapter 5 or compress into one paragraph
- #JXSMQW
- #YNMVCK
- #D33QL7
- #B66BK3
- #VG295X
- #9LRKLZ
- #GWTLZ7
- #JH9JK9
- #UBWP9G
- #Q2A66G
- #7AQN26

These are good but belong more to **valuation work / consumption work** unless compressed as “competencies of circulation” in Chapter 4.

## Probably cut or footnote
- #UM6BJY — funny, but optional.
- #MPQ4JQ — heading fragment.
- #8ZPRYC — note fragment.
- #T9XJDZ — fragment.
- #B3S7DW — interesting but undeveloped.
- #WQCQ9A — Chapter 5 duplicate heading, not Chapter 4.
- #MC4GH7 — Chapter 5 fragment.

---

# One possible final ToC

## Chapter 4. Keeping Things Moving: Brīvbode as a Practice of Circulation  
**4.0 Introduction: following things through the practice**  
#E3QN63, #QZ8Q4K

**4.1 Divestment begins at home: household rhythms and moral removal**  
#GXDTQG, #S5FWGM, #BGYXVM, #FN9Y53, #FPHE4J, #AZ2L4J, #LGE48Z, #9XUQEC, #WWSZA8

**4.2 Imagined receivers and contested usability**  
#QPZXSP + #LHMEDR, #R6NNGM, #R7549E, #PUVY95, #GGRHDF, #QDFKGX, #YEPTVU, #QT3B9B

**4.3 The site as infrastructure: making circulation visible and possible**  
#ALYNWW, #Z48STM, #YLHWNT, #T7BS4V, #PU3CKA, #2YWFSM, #TVPES3, #HZZ52R, #EP6U2C, #AUZKM4, #DZ72UL, #BW6UMW

**4.4 Gendered stock, evaluative norms and situational boundaries**  
#C6YRCL, #WVZQRH, #LXRLTL, #QY9B8B, #9X74TE, #WUN97C, #US7AXR, #ZC2Z2F, compressed competencies paragraph from #JXSMQW–#7AQN26

**4.5 Exchange, charity and the moral economy of circulation**  
#VJU6JZ, #ETSGMU, #B3A7P8, #AC8LX9, #8Q8FJL, #MB7WW5, #VZMVZA

**4.6 Freeness, attachment and competencies of letting go**  
#G5UMDM, #4ALAE2, #HXZYR8, #UZH6RE, #5YYBKM, #H28B2Q, #FJ79YF, #UYL6TZ, #VBVVXQ, #5JJ4KK, #KWQ7AQ, #U575JS, merged #Z22MHT/#JV33M5

**4.7 Plural meanings of acquisition: why people keep coming**  
#X6VKPZ, #QCTGLZ, #PAYAS2, #EJM4WU, #8N5CQ8, #MXY2NM, #8R7Q44, #GN8UUK, #KBYYFJ, #A99SUN, #86CMYM

**4.8 Sustainability as outcome, meaning and tension**  
#FNDALQ, #NDV326, #VQARCF, #XHSHXZ, #XNL7TE, #NVL4HP, #3N5GKC, #EWC4HE, #B4P2SJ, #X9XV4X

**4.9 Conclusion: moral infrastructure and overflow channel**  
#54DUKD, #7VVSEQ, #GJ3YQT