# Assistant conversation Y2FCHD - Canonical URL: - Resource IRI: - Type: assistant conversation - Mode: research ## Transcript ### 1. User look at how the thesis draft makes use of the "household recycling [..]" book (wheeler, glucksmann 2015) reference and the concept of consumption work, and relate to that actual book contents, and think about how the concept works or differs in the swapshop context which is not market/commercial exchange ### 2. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `list_documents` ```json {} ``` ### 3. 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 & 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 & 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 ### 4. Assistant I’ll trace (1) where the thesis draft uses Wheeler & Glucksmann / “consumption work”, then (2) the relevant parts of the book itself, then map the concept onto the swapshop case. #### Tool call: `get_document` ```json { "id": "FYG32U" } ``` #### Tool call: `get_document` ```json { "id": "4LST57" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "limit": 10, "query": "Wheeler Glucksmann consumption work household recycling" } ``` ### 5. 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 ### 6. Tool result: get_document DOCUMENT #4LST57 Title: Household Recycling and Consumption Work Outline: - 1 #W238BY Front Matter - 1.1 #E5XDK4 HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING AND CONSUMPTION WORK - 1.1.1 #XWRA5U Consumption and Public Life - 1.1.1.1 #NSQB8U Titles include: - 1.1.2 #F3YHCS Consumption and Public Life - 1.1.3 #UL3ZGU Household Recycling and Consumption Work - 1.1.4 #9TTZVT Social and Moral Economies - 1.2 #GD23EY Contents - 1.3 #4KHJKM Figures and Tables - 1.4 #LENC4R Figures - 1.5 #G2K26L Tables - 1.6 #WQWB82 Acknowledgements - 1.6.1 #JE7B76 England - 1.6.2 #K9T6GJ Sweden - 1.7 #EQ9CYK Abbreviations - 2 #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish - 2.1 #F9BQ54 Narrating rubbish historically - 2.1.1 #8GATCB Ruth's recollections from England - 2.1.2 #Y8P6AX Ulrika's recollections from Sweden - 2.2 #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling - 2.3 #54PR7R Capturing value - 2.4 #PLL67G Waste work - 2.5 #VYKGFA Moral messages - 2.6 #BZVVQK Household recycling and consumption work - 2.7 #52KHCY Research design and structure of the book - 3 #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste - 3.1 #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work - 3.2 #S2CJEK Socio-economic formations of labour: Divisions of labour, socio-economic modes of work, instituted economic process - 3.3 #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work - 3.4 #YZ3YS7 Consumption work as an economic activity - 3.5 #ZUQG3Z Acquisition of appropriate knowledge and skills - 3.5.1 #L5YPGT Coordination - 3.6 #UN9LHM Outsourcing of consumption work - 3.7 #2LDKSC Differentiating consumption work - 3.7.1 #XQA6FE Consumption - 3.7.2 #VT776A Domestic labour - 3.7.3 #PVEUCS Self-service, co-production, prosumption, etc. - 3.8 #3ZN9RH Researching consumption work - 4 #TWZCKJ Environmentally Regimented Rubbish: Recycling Systems in Sweden - 4.1 #MKBGBE Policy context - 4.2 #D9L9H7 Waste, recycling and collection statistics - 4.3 #QCQQMY Lund and Stockholm - 4.4 #TGUVU5 Division of responsibility for waste management - 4.4.1 #BH7HR5 Central government - 4.4.2 #ZGSUV5 Producers - 4.4.3 #46T3XX Municipalities - 4.4.4 #XNKP7H Waste management companies - 4.4.5 #N6G8KF Third sector - 4.4.6 #SN2VW9 Technology - 4.4.7 #7STB5C Incineration - 4.4.8 #6GSA8K Recycling technology - 4.5 #WDSBDX The consumer's role in the division of responsibility for waste management - 4.6 #LWS3U2 Conclusion - 5 #NAF2QB Market and State Heterogeneity: Recycling Systems in England - 5.1 #86WDDY Policy context - 5.2 #U9TWHG Waste, recycling and collection statistics - 5.3 #BSXAM2 Varieties of waste management in three local authorities - 5.3.1 #8EADM6 Essex - 5.3.2 #F5EA4A Lewisham - 5.3.3 #3G6F4S Shropshire - 5.4 #T5VUGU Division of responsibility for waste management - 5.4.1 #Z6UERA Central government - 5.4.2 #3YA79B Local authorities - 5.4.3 #TJNKDM Waste management companies - 5.4.4 #ZFW3A6 Producers - 5.4.5 #WN6WPE Third sector - 5.4.6 #XM87AH Technology - 5.4.7 #ZJFANH Black bag waste - 5.4.8 #EEAZMR Recyclable materials - 5.5 #BGYSQZ The consumer’s role in the division of responsibility for waste management - 5.6 #KR8AFZ Conclusion - 6 #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work - 6.1 #ST7AMV Consumer case studies in England - 6.2 #UJFPBM Gemma and Dave - 6.3 #Z3CCES Liz and Ron - 6.4 #7JQ423 Jane and Barry - 6.5 #86QEP3 Mark - 6.6 #JQANKU Consumer research in Sweden - 6.6.1 #ANYF33 The consumer as supplier - 6.6.2 #2WFNK3 The consumer provides a warehouse - 6.6.3 #P7SZDU The consumer as distributor - 6.7 #C9T857 Gender and the three stages of recycling consumption work - 6.8 #8V8H63 Socio-economic formation of household recycling labour - 6.9 #E4JZ2S Modal division of labour - 6.10 #V9VWQE Processual division of labour - 6.11 #BRWHQV Conclusion - 7 #CSWTDX Comparing Recycling Consumption Work - 7.1 #6GY7E7 Six key features of comparison - 7.1.1 #XKPVMJ 1) The key actors and institutions providing waste management services - 7.1.2 #LPYFXS 2) The role of the public and private sectors - 7.1.3 #RPPGKG 3) Variations in the collection systems between and within the countries - 7.1.4 #WJJUVA 4) The degree to which recycling waste is separate from other household waste - 7.1.5 #ACA5US 5) The technologies employed to deal with waste - 7.1.6 #N9NDZQ 6) Strategies for mobilising consumers to recycle - 7.2 #DT2EJP Comparative economies of consumer recycling - 7.3 #G7KZPW Applying the SEFL framework to household recycling in Sweden and England - 7.4 #U8BGUQ Conclusion - 8 #XBXPMG Moral Economies of Recycling - 8.1 #DDQXJ2 Moral economy revisited - 8.2 #A8XQ6F Sweden: Recycling for the environment - 8.2.1 #HP3BDX Institutional system of provision - 8.3 #XQ37N3 Collective customs and the legitimacy of this moral economy - 8.3.1 #3VF6PJ Do people find it difficult to recycle in Sweden? - 8.3.2 #8F5ZS6 Where does that awareness come from? - 8.4 #WYRXL7 Lay normativities and the moral economy of recycling - 8.5 #G624RG England: Recycling to save public money - 8.5.1 #P6WGQW Institutional system of provision - 8.5.2 #HVAK39 Why is Islington making recycling compulsory? - 8.5.3 #3E9WZP Collective customs and the legitimacy of this moral economy - 8.5.4 #336W8E Lay normativities and the moral economy of recycling - 8.6 #PAS94J Moral economies compared - 8.7 #FQFQWF Conclusion - 9 #RKL76Z Living Off Tips: Waste and Recycling in Brazil and India - 9.1 #Q45AD2 Brazil1 - 9.2 #26YLBU Waste and recycling: Provision and policy - 9.3 #9KR3DV Division of responsibility for waste management - 9.3.1 #95EHAW Public and private sectors - 9.3.2 #LZHUEY Waste pickers, cooperatives and the third sector - 9.3.3 #TN4WMQ Consumers - 9.4 #GBJF2V India - 9.5 #R2LNJU Narratives of waste disposal - 9.5.1 #P2E7TZ Rie: Delhi - 9.5.2 #3TYMM7 Amit: Siliguri and Delhi - 9.5.3 #DL4H8Z Tara: Pune - 9.5.4 #UUHKY2 Human waste and 'manual scavengers' - 9.5.5 #39N48A Municipal solid waste collection - 9.6 #79KXQZ Recycling: The hierarchy of 'informality' - 9.7 #N2VHT2 Consumers and socio-economic formations of recycling labour in India - 9.8 #BJ4R8L Comparative contrasts: Brazil and India - 10 #E4VADY Varieties of Recycling Work - 10.1 #CQNVSV Comparative contrasts: Sweden and England, Brazil and India - 10.2 #ZN3G2A Waste, value and morality - 10.3 #XN35ZM SEFL and future directions - 11 #FDWYAB Back Matter - 11.1 #D43HZT Notes - 11.1.1 #NN4HH2 1 Picking a Way through Rubbish - 11.1.2 #HKEVA2 2 Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste - 11.1.3 #TSA4CH 3 Environmentally Regimented Rubbish: Recycling Systems in Sweden - 11.1.4 #ECE5FB 4 Market and State Heterogeneity: Recycling Systems in England - 11.1.5 #NVDW7F 5 The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work - 11.1.6 #33AM9C 7 Moral Economies of Recycling - 11.1.7 #7PKEMQ 8 Living Off Tips: Waste and Recycling in Brazil and India - 11.1.7.1 #R359K8 9 Varieties of Recycling Work - 11.2 #KX3VX7 Bibliography - 11.3 #RE5Q74 Index - 11.3.1 #2MH6EF ethnic minorities - 11.3.2 #T2FURP European Community, 195 - 11.3.3 #98APMD European Union (EU) - 11.3.4 #QJUA9G Eurostat, 60, 84 - 11.3.5 #37HBKT Evans, D., 18, 206 n.4 - 11.3.6 #SCVCU8 Ewert, S., 27, 104, 112, 115, 145, 153, 154, 207 n.15 - 11.3.7 #77SYPN The Family from One End Street - 11.3.8 #XGCGD9 Ferragina, E., 146 - 11.3.9 #MCAFMM Fine, B., 206 n.2 - 11.3.10 #JGJX5Y food waste bins, 20 - 11.3.11 #N2ZW2M Förpacknings- och Tidningsinsamlingen - 11.3.12 #WCENB8 'Forum on Waste and Citizenship', 173 - 11.3.13 #N3ZWKH Fourcade, M., 146 - 11.3.14 #ZM7CJ3 Friends of the Earth (FOE), 80–1, 152, 155, 158, 159 - 11.3.15 #5ZJEXF Fuller, L., 52 - 11.3.16 #X756L9 Gandy, M., 91, 92 - 11.3.17 #PYDMF7 Gärtner, S., 146 - 11.3.18 #LUHC3B Garrett, J., 107 - 11.3.19 #U7U7JW gender - 11.3.20 #2MFKA4 George, R., 182 - 11.3.21 #N23KB7 Gershuny, J., 48 - 11.3.22 #FVGX99 Gill, K., 187 - 11.3.23 #FXK4S8 glass recycling, 25 - 11.3.24 #XQ2B8Q Glazer, N. Y., 29, 50 - 11.3.25 #52MQ82 Gliig, A., 156 - 11.3.26 #CXWUC8 Glucksmann, M., 12, 32, 33, 35, 39, 49, 55, 104, 132, 183, 204 - 11.3.27 #5J27CB Goodman, M. K., 144 - 11.3.28 #A72YE2 Gottsdener, M., 38 - 11.3.29 #X8DK43 Granovetter, M., 146 - 11.3.30 #GAPN56 grass-roots campaign groups, 97, 102, 136, 164 - 11.3.31 #WGA3Z2 Grayson, K., 50 - 11.3.32 #2ZL53Z Greater London Authority, 156 - 11.3.33 #KYH9F6 Greater London Council, 92 - 11.3.34 #2WX8L4 green economy, 82, 156 - 11.3.35 #9TG5YC green groups, 190 - 11.3.36 #X2HS9V Gregson, N., 14, 17, 147, 161 - 11.3.37 #G65URY Grön Flagg (Green Flag), 72, 151, 200 - 11.3.38 #VUNLUB Gyberg, P., 27, 145, 153, 155 - 11.3.39 #B8XWGD Hage, O., 63, 66, 107 - 11.3.40 #K8369N Håll Sverige Rent (HSR) (Keep Sweden Clean), 71–2, 150 - 11.3.41 #DSAMNJ Harvey, M., 17, 34, 45, 189, 192, 208 n.3 - 11.3.42 #F9QSST Hawkins, G., 144, 145 - 11.3.43 #MC9TQ3 Hayami, Y., 187, 188 - 11.3.44 #9J6ZF5 Healy, K., 146 - 11.3.45 #GWM2W9 Henriksson, G., 75, 104, 112, 113, 114, 124, 209 n.3 - 11.3.46 #WJ2EN8 Hilty, L., 206 n.4 - 11.3.47 #VXRLMQ Hindu valmiki, 181 - 11.3.47.1 #7BE8FE HMRC, 81 - 11.3.48 #UFFSYC Hollbrook, B., 207 n.2 - 11.3.49 #8Y2EBW Holm, Stefan, 153 - 11.3.50 #WSN7GA Horne, M., 52 - 11.3.51 #QJVUZP household recycling, 1 - 11.3.51.1 #829743 see also recycling - 11.3.52 #CBPRK7 household waste, 2–4, 59, 62, 206 n.3 ### 7. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 52 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Matching excerpt #QKCNZ2: The eventual disposal of goods after they have been consumed may also demand work on the part of the consumer, and this is increasingly so as societies become more environmentally aware. Of the various modes of disposal, recycling of household waste, as already suggested, imposes regular and routine demands on consumers if their rubbish is to be collected. Over the last decade, transformation of waste collection and disposal especially in the global North has impacted on routine household activity, requiring consumers to sort and assemble various categories of waste in a particular manner either for kerbside collection or for transfer to recycling centres (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015). This represents a new and expanding form of consumption work and the main focus of this book. 2. 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 Matching 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. 3. Source: The (im)possibilities of circular consumption: Producing and performing circular clothing consumption in retail and household settings (#8EVNK8), Réka Tölg, p. 107 Context: #KBKAA9 Concluding discussion #92JYP3 Research contributions #GA7H2G Implications for future research Matching excerpt #JHTY3R: It also follows from the findings of this dissertation that the work of consumers in the CE is shaped by retail markets. Studying further the making of consumption work through retail markets can be of interest to sociology of consumption scholars who are engaged with understanding consumption in relation to wider economic arrangements. Future research could continue with taking a 'practice theories' approach (Evans, 2020), and explore how the work of consumers is formed in other empirical contexts. Although consumption work is central to the CE (Greene et al., 2024; Hobson et al., 2021), and the concept has been developed through studies focused on household recycling (e.g., Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015a, 2015b), the concept is not limited to circular economies (Glucksmann, 2009, 2016). The role of retailers in this reorganisation of consumer labour can be explored in contexts other than the CE. For instance, how does the work of consumers become re-arranged as part of various social or environmental challenges, leading to, for instance, food scarcity or challenged access to other commodities and essential goods? Through such studies, further light can be shed on the possibilities to re-allocate work in the case of different challenging situations impacting societies. 4. Source: Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing (#AVNZLE), Christian Fuentes, Réka Tölg, p. 2 Context: #S6NTVJ Care and circularity: how the enactment of care enables and shapes the circular consumption of clothing #QR437R Introduction Matching excerpt #WR6R66: Sutcliffe, 2022). These studies have shown the often highly gendered completing and complementing work (Glucksmann, 2016) that consumers undertake, for instance, in composting and repair activities (Sutcliffe, 2022) or in household recycling (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015). In line with this, we also approach circular consumption as a social, cultural and material phenomenon whose performance is demanding for consumers and tightly connected to everyday life. However, with a focus on care, we add that most forms of circular consumption involve and are enabled and shaped by enactments of care. We will take a particular interest in the problems involved in the enactment of care and how these issues stand in the way of the performance of circular consumption. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #BA7Z5L LIST OF SOURCES Matching paragraph #9L6ZGC: Wheeler, K. and Glucksmann, M. (2015) Household recycling and consumption work: social and moral economies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #A43655 Modal labour across socioeconomic modes Matching 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. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #W8HHQV Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #LMKLTZ Consumption Work Matching 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. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work Matching 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. 9. 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. 10. Source: (#VWPB2S), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 1 Context: #DPNN52 ‘It’s kind of saving them a job isn’t it?’ The consumption work of household recycling #DH3N7C Introduction Matching excerpt #BVCCP3: The division of labour concept is in need of revision because, despite its enduring status within the sociology of work, it struggles to deal with the growing complexity and connections of labour within contemporary society. Building on the multi-dimensional conception of the division of labour outlined by Glucksmann (2009), we explore the work of consumers within recycling processes to demonstrate the critical role that they play within this industry. Elsewhere, we have made our case for incorporating the work of consumers within distinctive systems of recycling provision in Sweden and England, detailing how this work varies nationally and interdepends with labour conducted within the overall system (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2013). Here we take a closer look at how recycling consumption work is practically accomplished by consumers, drawing attention to what the work comprises and the implications of its successful accomplishment for subsequent labour processes. We present data from qualitative interviews with both consumers and key informants in the waste industry to reveal how the practices of consumers are shaped by wider systems of recycling provision and vice versa. In so doing, we make our case for a renewed conception of division of labour that can make sense of transformations of work within contemporary society. Approximate matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 117 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work Score: 0.71 Related excerpt #79CSM4: This chapter draws extensively on the household study conducted in England in 2012 in order to demonstrate how consumers act as suppliers, warehouses and distributors for recyclable materials (see also Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015). Through a presentation of four in-depth case studies, we reveal how recycling is organised and negotiated between household members on an everyday basis. We then go on to demonstrate how these three stages of work are performed by consumers in the Swedish context, drawing on secondary sources (Ewert et al., 2009; Henriksson et al., 2010; Skill, 2008), as well as our expert 2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 3 Context: #W238BY Front Matter #E5XDK4 HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING AND CONSUMPTION WORK #XWRA5U Consumption and Public Life #NSQB8U Titles include: Score: 0.698 Related excerpt #D3C4SM: HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING AND CONSUMPTION WORK 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 52 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Score: 0.69 Related excerpt #QKCNZ2: The eventual disposal of goods after they have been consumed may also demand work on the part of the consumer, and this is increasingly so as societies become more environmentally aware. Of the various modes of disposal, recycling of household waste, as already suggested, imposes regular and routine demands on consumers if their rubbish is to be collected. Over the last decade, transformation of waste collection and disposal especially in the global North has impacted on routine household activity, requiring consumers to sort and assemble various categories of waste in a particular manner either for kerbside collection or for transfer to recycling centres (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015). This represents a new and expanding form of consumption work and the main focus of this book. 4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 1 Context: #W238BY Front Matter #E5XDK4 HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING AND CONSUMPTION WORK Score: 0.674 Related excerpt #4DB2S8: 'This rich and impressive study challenges the idea of recycling as a straightforward process of converting waste into resources. By focusing on the consumption work of householders, their labour sorting and classifying, Kathryn Wheeler and Miriam Glucksmann show how moral and economic values are thoroughly interconnected. Through detailed investigations of England, Sweden, India and Brazil, "recycling" emerges as a complex and very variable field of waste management practices. After reading this book it is impossible to consider waste as the end of value. Instead, it emerges as a site where the relations between consumption, markets and disposal emerge as potent and problematic. Putting out the garbage will never be the same again!' 5. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 14 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish Score: 0.673 Related excerpt #3C8ZN5: Recycling is increasingly high on the global economic agenda. As governments across Europe pledge to increase their recycling rates, the household or the consumer becomes an important target for policy interventions. Without the input and effort of consumers who sort their recyclable waste from their non-recyclable waste, targets like those set out in the European Union (EU) Waste Framework Directive to reach a 50 percent household recycling rate by 2020 (Directive 2008/98/EC) will be impossible to meet. In recent years, requirements have been placed on consumers to sort their recyclable waste into different fractions and, in some cases, transport this waste to communal sites. The active participation of households through the performance of routine and regular consumption work links to a new global market economy of materials reuse, which is only likely to expand in a future of scarce natural resources. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #BA7Z5L LIST OF SOURCES Score: 0.79 Related paragraph #9L6ZGC: Wheeler, K. and Glucksmann, M. (2015) Household recycling and consumption work: social and moral economies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #W8HHQV Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #LMKLTZ Consumption Work Score: 0.696 Related 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. 8. 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: 0.725 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. 9. Source: Reuse practices and household consumption work (#V9QTJP), David M. Evans, Peter Jackson, Rorie Beswick-Parsons, p. 1 Context: #ZKYDXP Reuse practices and household consumption work #N73JMC KEYWORDS Score: 0.695 Related excerpt #NMRYAA: Consumption work; circular economy; package-free shopping; reuse; household practices 10. 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: 0.674 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. Assistant I found the exact thesis locations: the theory subsection “Consumption Work” and Chapter 5 “The Work of Circular Consumption.” I’m reading those alongside the book’s concept chapters and the “three stages” chapter, because that’s where the original model is clearest. #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "LMKLTZ", "F2943E" ], "expand": true } ``` #### Tool call: `read` ```json { "blocks": [ "BZVVQK", "MCE5DZ", "S2CJEK", "TNJ9YK", "YZ3YS7", "ZUQG3Z", "UN9LHM", "2LDKSC", "ANYF33", "2WFNK3", "P7SZDU", "E4JZ2S", "V9VWQE", "PAS94J", "ZN3G2A" ], "expand": true } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4LST57", "limit": 10, "query": "all work necessary for the purchase use re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "FYG32U", "limit": 20, "query": "consumption work circular labour modal processual technical valuation volunteer Brīvbode" } ``` ### 9. Tool result: read THESIS #FYG32U Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia 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. 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) ### 10. Tool result: read DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #BZVVQK Household recycling and consumption work EXCERPT #UVZCZP p. 38 These four issues concerning reuse and recycling, the capture of value, the work required to process waste and the norms and moral codes surrounding waste and its disposal form a tightly linked nexus. It is difficult to separate one from another even analytically, let alone in real life practice. At any given time and place, whether and how worn-out or used-up goods are reused or recycled depends on the means available for extracting value from them, which in turn presupposes an integrated infrastructure in order to be a viable enterprise. Different regimes of waste and means of extracting value involve consumers in undertaking a different range of activities to dispose of their waste, to which they attach particular norms and moral ideas. Households and consumers express and imbibe a variety of ethical and normative values about waste and 'wasting' shaped in relation, and complementary, to prevailing waste regimes that guide and sustain their practical activity. All disposal methods involve work, but the tasks, nature of the workforce and who does what differ according to the wider system of disposal. This integrated nexus of waste, value, work and morals was evident from Ruth's and Ulrika's narratives, and is closely linked to the overarching aims of the book to analyse the varying work of consumers in household recycling in different times and places. DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work EXCERPT #5YBMYM p. 41 This chapter develops the analytical approach underpinning our contention that consumers in England and Sweden perform a key role in the division of labour of waste management and our interpretation of recycling as a form of unpaid work. We introduce the notion of consumption work as a more general concept for recognising the work of consumers as a significant and growing field. And we propose a conceptual framework for understanding such work as an integral part of the division of labour which rests on reformulation and expansion of traditional approaches. The labour associated with consumption is not new, but it has been rapidly expanding in recent years as a consequence of socio-economic change and technical innovation. The requirement to sort and recycle household waste, introduced by national and local states, represents one instance of such developments. We are all familiar with self-service in supermarkets, with online checking-in and with self-assembly equipment. Not only is an increasing range of tasks transferred from producers and retailers to consumers, but emergent forms of leisure activity, travel arrangements, financial management that are often Internet dependent introduce new kinds of work for consumers that were previously unknown. Few goods or services are delivered 'complete' to consumers in the sense that they are ready for use without further activity. On the contrary, work is normally required before they can be consumed and, also, with the extension of recycling, after they have been used but before they can be thrown away. Recognition of the interdependence between the work undertaken prior to and after the purchase of goods and services and before their disposal problematises any assumption that post-purchase activity comprises only EXCERPT #4DPPLQ p. 41 EXCERPT #4R4S4P p. 42 EXCERPT #WF9ACX p. 42 consumption. It challenges the notion of 'production' and 'consumption' as watertight realms and calls for a conception of the division of labour that extends from the market and world of paid employment to encompass the end user. Recycling is to be understood as one example of the broader phenomenon of consumption work. EXCERPT #LR5FFK p. 42 Over the years, scholars have commented on developments requiring greater input on the part of end consumers, for example the growth of self-service in retail (Humphery, 1998) and fast-food outlets (Ritzer, 2001), the 'work transfer' in health care (Glazer, 1993) and the proliferation of 'self-provisioning' activities including Do It Yourself (DIY) (Pahl, 1984). Yet the full range of such developments, including the work associated with getting rid of waste, has not been systematically brought together, nor have their broader theoretical implications been explored. Incorporating the consumer into the division of labour poses a challenge to this foundational concept, given its traditional focus on the technical division of tasks within a labour process or sector of work relating to paid employment. Yet, insofar as the completion of a circuit of production, distribution, exchange and consumption, and its repetition, is predicated on consumers undertaking work in order to consume, analysis of the division of labour would be inadequate without their inclusion. If tasks are reallocated from municipal authorities or producers or retailers to consumers, then the framework of analysis requires extension in order 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 figures neither in the study of work, nor of consumption, and a further aim is to establish another bridge between the study of these two fields. EXCERPT #3WVQWA p. 42 Two everyday examples provide a flavour of the issues involved, self-assembly furniture and the washing machine. Whereas in the past furniture was made and assembled by the manufacturer and sold and delivered by retailers in its final form, flat pack removes the assembling stage from paid employment and transfers it to the consumer. Transporting the goods from store to home also becomes the responsibility of the customer. The labour and costs of transport and assembly thus shift downstream and across socio-economic domain to the consumer. Insofar as the furniture has to be assembled in order to be useable, the consumer has labour to undertake after having bought the goods, but before they can be consumed and used. Consumers either accomplish it EXCERPT #YJF8B3 p. 43 EXCERPT #UYXZ52 p. 43 themselves (unpaid) or employ one of the new small companies offering assembling services. The self-assembly of furniture required by a company such as IKEA is an integral component not only of the firm's business model but also of its whole manufacturing and design process. All the different stages from raw material preparation, design, through manufacture, joinery and upholstery, to packing and distribution not only connect with each other but presuppose that final assembly work will be undertaken at its eventual destination by the consumer. Thus, the emergence of flat pack shifts the final assembly work associated with making furniture ready for use from the traditional terrain of 'production' to that of 'consumption', moving it out of the factory and shop and into the home, where it incorporates the unpaid labour of the consumer. EXCERPT #6TEQ2U p. 43 In the second example of a washing machine, the range of work activities undertaken by the consumer to support consumption is again fairly self-evident. When buying a new machine, the consumer will need to research the range of possible models to choose between, the retail options and which outlet sells what, and then order online, by phone or in store, and arrange for delivery. Plumbing alterations may be required prior to installation, so any necessary arrangements have to be made for these, normally by acquiring the paid services of a plumber. On delivery, the machine has to be unpacked, then installed, either by the consumer herself or himself or by paying for this to be done. She or he will also need to study the instructions, become familiar with the machine's functions and learn how to use it, undertake periodic maintenance and, at the end of its life, arrange for its disposal and recycling. All these tasks are distinct from the actual act of consuming or using the machine to wash and cannot be simply subsumed as domestic labour. EXCERPT #Q4PRXF p. 43 Both these examples highlight the distinction between the 'consumption work' that is a prerequisite for consumption and consumption itself, in the sense of consuming or using a product or service. The distinction between production, retail and consumption work is also evident. The first example points to historical reconfiguration of the technical division of labour involving the transfer of some production work across socio-economic spaces to consumers. Part of the more generalised expansion of consumption work is associated with such transfers in a variety of fields. By contrast, the second example does not point to anything new. Rather, it brings into view the normally 'invisible' range of tasks associated with acquiring and using a washing machine throughout its life cycle. A similar range of demands applies EXCERPT #6XW55Z p. 44 EXCERPT #BNWWWF p. 44 to the many kinds of domestic, leisure and personal equipment that our routine lives increasingly rely on. Work is necessary not only in order for the consumption of goods and services to take place, but many forms of consumption also create work as a consequence of use (e.g. disposal of the washing machines). And since many forms of consumption work presuppose particular competencies or knowledge, its relation to learning and skills acquisition is also an important area for consideration. Coordination represents a further significant aspect of consumption work: over and above the tasks linked with specific goods are those required both to coordinate a range of products that are used in combination and also to coordinate between consumers where consumption is a collective or social activity. Examples involving both these dimensions might include commensality (coordinating the various elements of the meal and the people eating it) or a camping trip (researching the location, getting together the equipment, means of transport, participants). These and other distinctive characteristics of consumption work will be developed below. EXCERPT #B3GJXZ p. 44 Recognising consumption work as a terrain for study in its own right entails a number of theoretical presuppositions and implications. Conventional approaches to the division of labour, which focus predominantly on the market and paid employment, or which study one industry or work place, are unlikely to include the work of consumers within their analytical frame. Yet such work, usually unpaid, is often essential to completion of a process of production or service provision. The following discussion aims to clarify the terrain of consumption work, its empirical significance as a field of research enquiry, and to define and delimit it in relation to existing concepts and concerns. The first section situates consumption work within a broader three dimensional framework for analysing divisions, or 'socio-economic formations', of labour. The second defines and characterises consumption work, using examples drawn from everyday life. The third section distinguishes consumption work and the approach we are developing to it from other activities and forms of work that may overlap with it and the literatures conceptualising them. The three main foci here are consumption, domestic labour and the linked approaches of co-production, prosption and co-creation. Finally, we summarise our understanding of the household recycling of waste as a form of consumption work, shaped by prevailing systems of provision and occupying a distinctive place within the division of labour. We suggest that the input of consumers is a key component of economic process in this as in many other domains. EXCERPT #RRC8KD p. 45 DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #S2CJEK Socio-economic formations of labour: Divisions of labour, socio-economic modes of work, instituted economic process EXCERPT #K4CB2W p. 45 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. EXCERPT #HYCPN4 p. 45 This approach therefore distinguishes two further forms of differentiation and integration of labour from the dominant traditional understanding of the division and complementarity of tasks. The first dimension (division of labour, or DL) remains the technical division of skills and jobs within particular work processes, organisations or sectors, and their allocation to different kinds of people usually in a hierarchy. (To avoid confusion, the term 'division of labour' is here confined to the traditional definition.) Chapter 1 pointed to changes in the labour process for paid refuse workers consequent on the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering in English waste services during the 1980s (experienced as an intensification of work by municipally employed workers) and on the development of new types of waste wagon and waste bins in each country. Ulrika and Ruth both noticed a EXCERPT #LKFDCK p. 46 EXCERPT #LQLZQL p. 46 reduction in the number of dustmen or alteration of their tasks as new technologies of disposal and collection were implemented. Ruth recalled dustmen collecting and returning the bins from and to the porch by the back door when she was a child, whereas now their task is restricted to picking up a black bag she has placed in the road, while Ulrika signals the virtual disappearance of the regular dustman, the molok in the backyard now being emptied fortnightly by a lorry driver operating a crane. EXCERPT #8F4SNG p. 46 The second dimension of differentiation and interaction is of labour across socio-economic modes (total social organisation of labour, or TSOL) (Glucksmann, 2005). These domains include the state, market, not-for-profit sector, household and community, where the same tasks (e.g. care work) may be undertaken on very different bases (paid or unpaid, formal or informal). Work may shift across socio-economic boundaries from one domain to another for a variety of reasons (including privatisation, outsourcing or cuts in public services), and the boundaries themselves may change. The work undertaken in one socio-economic domain presupposes or interdepends with that undertaken in another. For example, the recent history of care work across many European countries provides an instructive case, where a pre-existing division between private and public provision has been reconfigured, often with the result that unpaid household and community labour assumes a greater role than previously (Glucksmann and Lyon 2006; Lyon and Glucksmann, 2008). In different countries and at different times, work activities are distributed in particular ways between socio-economic domains, resulting in distinctive 'modal' organisations of labour. These are operative and may be discerned at a variety of scales, from particular fields of economic activity to the national or societal level. Some countries are characterised by the dominance of the market, with the public and not-for-profit sectors being relatively undeveloped, while in others the public sector may account for a large proportion of employment and the market for less. Interaction and interdependence between the multiplicity of socio-economic modes is a basic characteristic of contemporary capitalism, which may be more accurately described as 'multi-modal' than a 'mixed' economy. EXCERPT #XVC3Z8 p. 46 The collection of domestic waste offers a clear example of multi-modal interaction, the unpaid labour of consumers in preparing their rubbish for collection being integral to the prevailing collection regime undertaken by paid workers employed by municipal authorities or private outsourced companies. Each form of work relies on the other. However, the boundary between paid and unpaid labour is subject to change: EXCERPT #79F39U p. 47 EXCERPT #X9WL4L p. 47 if the municipality introduces materials separation, the boundary will shift towards greater reliance on the unpaid work of consumers and away from the paid employment of dustmen. But, alternatively, if it opts for mechanical sorting of recyclables in a materials recovery facility, this reduces the extent of unpaid work required of consumers to separate their rubbish. A mix of paid and unpaid labour characterises waste work, the workers being variously employed by the public or private sector. At the level of socio-economic domain, however, rather than simply paid or unpaid work, the enterprise of domestic refuse disposal in present-day England relies on the involvement of and interaction between three domains, each of which operates on a different economic basis: the public sector, private profit-making companies and the household consumer. The Swedish system is more complex, encompassing a fourth socio-economic domain: the not-for-profit agency owned by a collective of packaging producers, who retain legal responsibility for its collection and recycling. EXCERPT #RAHAS2 p. 47 Shifting perspective, a third differentiation and connection of labour comes into focus when the work conducted at the various different stages of an overall instituted economic process is considered. Karl Polanyi's radical insistence on the shifting place of economy in society drew attention to the variability of that place across time and space, the different ways economic relations might be instituted within society, and differentiated to a greater or lesser degree from social, political, cultural and other relations (Polanyi, 1957). The content of economic relations is always specific. In his anthropological conception, 'economies' are constituted by two basic processes, distribution and ownership, whereby goods change place and hands by means of redistribution, reciprocity or exchange. In a recent development, the neo-Polanyian framework expands this with the addition of two further processes of transformation, of quality and of function or use, or in other words, production/provision and consumption. Harvey and colleagues (Harvey et al., 2001, 2002, 2007) consider production, distribution, exchange and consumption as a relational complex of four distinct but mutually dependent and interrelated processes. Their conception of instituted economic process (IEP) focuses on how these four processes are instituted and how relations between them become stabilised so as to form distinctive configurations enduring over a given space and time. EXCERPT #97ML5B p. 47 The framework being developed here approaches this conception of IEP from the perspective of work or labour. Adding work into the framework (instituted economic process of labour, or IEPL) involves EXCERPT #PXB7NE p. 48 EXCERPT #NDHQUC p. 48 recognising that the work undertaken to effect each process is also differentiated and interdependent. For example, work done in the exchange phase may impact on the work of distribution (Glucksmann, 2004, 2007), or the work of production may affect the work of consumption. 'Ikea-isation', as suggested above, reconfigures the work of production, distribution and consumption. So, the work activities of the different processes are also connected and mutually shaped, and they too may vary historically and/or shift between different stages. Crucially, this third component of differentiation and interdependence of labour provides the opportunity to include work undertaken at the consumption phase of an instituted economic process. It also recognises that the work of consumers cannot be understood in isolation or as self-standing, but only in relation to work undertaken in production/provision, distribution and exchange. Treating consumption work as part of an IEPL involves exploring how it is shaped in relation to work undertaken at other phases of that overall process. So, as we saw in Chapter 1, the amount and nature of consumption work undertaken by householders in preparing their waste for collection meshes directly with what is done by dustmen and subsequently by others working upstream in the disposal and recycling circuit. The tasks undertaken at all the various links in this chain, from household collection through to dumping in landfill or depositing in a materials recovery facility or being used as feedstock for anaerobic digestion plant, are mutually shaped and interdepend. They also change in relation to each other, as occurred in England following the introduction of wheelie bins and the 'rationalisation' of services linked to CCT and outsourcing. Ulrika's testimony points to similarly interconnected developments in Stockholm when the sopnedkast chute was replaced by the molok . The system of collecting rubbish was reintegrated on a new basis: what tenants did was still directly presupposed by the method of municipal collection, and vice versa, but the seamless transfer of waste depended on a different range of tasks now being undertaken by the tenants and municipality. EXCERPT #VHZZXC p. 48 In summary then, the analytical framework of consumption work rests on a multidimensional conception of 'socio-economic formations of labour' (SEFL) rather than a simple notion of a single technical division of labour. Three dimensions of interdependence and differentiation of labour are distinguished, as represented in Figure 2.1: EXCERPT #ZCMUDX p. 48 – Technical: the 'division of labour' as a technical division and complementarity of tasks and skills and their allocation to different kinds of people (DL) EXCERPT #6F4VNP p. 49 EXCERPT #75NQG2 p. 49 – Modal: interdependencies of work across differing socio-economic modes, where labour is undertaken on different socio-economic bases (market and non-market, formal or informal, paid or unpaid, etc.) ('total social organisation of labour', or TSOL) – Processual: connections of labour across the various stages of instituted economic processes encompassing work undertaken across the whole span of a process of production of goods or provision of services, including the work of consumers (instituted economic process of labour, or IEPL) EXCERPT #K5ND2D p. 49 Taken together, these three dimensions integrate a relational conception of the work of consumers within the analysis of the overall socio-economic formation of labour. Conversely, consumption work provides an analytically key entry route for exploring articulation of the three dimensions of socio-economic formations of labour. The work consumers undertake (what skills are acquired, the amount and range of work to make consumption possible) depends on how goods and services are sold, on how 'complete' they are and on their potential uses. As shown by the simple example of bread, the unpaid non-market mode of work that consumers need to do depends on how work is technically organised, as well as on how work is shifted upstream and downstream in the system of provision and marketing. In the case of recycling, the wartime experience in both England and in occupied France and the EXCERPT #JG2HZ2 p. 49 graph TD; Top[Socio-economic formations of labour]; Tech{{Technical Division of labour}}; Modal{{Modal Total social organisation of labour}}; Econ{{Economic processual Instituted economic process of labour}}; Tech --> Top; Modal --> Top; Econ --> Top; Tech <--> Modal; Modal <--> Econ; Tech <--> Econ; Diagram illustrating the dimensions of differentiation and integration of labour. At the top is a box labeled 'Socio-economic formations of labour'. Below it are three shapes: a hexagon labeled 'Technical' with 'Division of labour' inside; a diamond labeled 'Modal' with 'Total social organisation of labour' inside; and a pentagon labeled 'Economic processual' with 'Instituted economic process of labour' inside. Arrows point from each of these three shapes up to the top box. Additionally, double-headed arrows connect the 'Technical' hexagon to the 'Modal' diamond, and the 'Modal' diamond to the 'Economic processual' pentagon. A curved double-headed arrow also connects the 'Technical' hexagon and the 'Economic processual' pentagon at the bottom. EXCERPT #HK7D5C p. 49 Figure 2.1 Dimensions of differentiation and integration of labour EXCERPT #3XBC6E p. 50 EXCERPT #L649QR p. 50 Netherlands demonstrates how attempts at salvage relied on all the various phases of the operation, and the work associated with them, being developed in concert and integrated one with another. The absence of one phase or insufficient integration of the chain compromised the viability of entire venture. In contemporary England and Sweden, the consumer is situated at both ends of the circuit, at the end and the starting point of a continuous cyclical process of recycling, as producer of feedstock and as consumer of new recycled goods. Recycling creates new goods and markets, and in the process the downstream becomes the upstream. EXCERPT #P2V22S p. 50 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. EXCERPT #HTP7UW p. 50 If the work of consumers is shaped in relation to work undertaken elsewhere in the particular process, and across socio-economic domains, then the primary research questions centre first on the shift of work (to and from consumers) across socio-economic boundaries and along instituted economic processes and, second, on interactions (between consumers and other workers) across modes and phases of work. Exploring these questions will throw into relief configurations where the work of consumers and others combines in specific ways, which may vary considerably between times and place. 1 DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work EXCERPT #T32NX9 p. 50 The work of consumers includes a whole range of activities both prior to, during and after acquisition of goods or services that are a precondition of using or appreciating them. Hence, our working definition of consumption work is as ' all work necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services '. Each good or service comes with its own specific range of consumption work tasks. These will be introduced sequentially with reference to everyday examples before more formally identifying certain generic characteristics of consumption work. EXCERPT #B4RWGD p. 50 Prior to the purchase or acquisition of goods and services is the associated searching and research work. Although a readily recognised feature of web-enabled or remote transactions, it is also presumed by other more traditional modes of purchase. Online searches and comparisons, consulting catalogues, visiting stores, becoming familiar with the range and specifications of items comprise the most common consumption EXCERPT #S46UGW p. 51 EXCERPT #NG9RSH p. 51 tasks associated with this initial phase by means of which consumers gather sufficient information to enable an informed choice. Clearly the nature of such research will vary according to the goods or services to be acquired, be they Internet service provision, concert tickets or clothing. EXCERPT #G56HTG p. 51 Following on from this is the actual purchase, involving shopping, effecting the exchange and, where necessary, the transporting of goods. Shopping at IKEA imposes quite different demands on the customer than buying goods from a traditional local grocery store, and this in turn differs from buying an insurance policy online or by telephone. New modes of shopping, often arising from technological innovation, presume new skills and work on the part of the consumer, if they are to be enjoyed as objects of consumption. Historical changes in modes of selling are necessarily accompanied by corresponding changes in modes of buying and their associated demands and skills (e.g. Gottdiener, 2000; Humphery, 1998; Kingston, 1994; Zukin, 2004). That work is required of consumers prior to purchase demonstrates that the exchange and distribution phases (IEPL) presuppose the active input of the end consumer prior to the final transaction or sale. EXCERPT #WK5TZF p. 51 Once acquired, a different range of tasks often has to be accomplished before goods or services can be used or appreciated. In the case of the washing machine, and much other mechanical equipment, this may involve making adaptations in order to install it, as well as learning how it works and how to operate it. Preparing a meal from bought ingredients would present a very different scenario, requiring a range of learned competences on the part of the cook, but also presupposing the presence of a working infrastructure of cooking equipment and utensils and a source of power. Appreciating classical music may not require any immediate input from the consumer, other than keeping equipment in working order. Nevertheless, appreciation could well rely on familiarity with musical forms and their complexities, and with particular modes of listening, representing knowledge and skills often honed over years. Assembling a desk or cupboard from a flat-pack kit poses a quite different range of demands on the consumer, which are more readily recognisable as requiring an input of labour after acquisition but prior to consumption. EXCERPT #DJ8GS5 p. 51 Maintaining goods and services may be required for their continuing reuse, the nature and frequency of such consumption work varying with the goods in question. Regular servicing, updating software, renewing contracts and coping with breakdowns all require attention which is the consumer's responsibility to organise or effect. Over time, technological developments, including the emergence of more user-friendly systems, EXCERPT #AN5X37 p. 52 EXCERPT #5BQZ6F p. 52 may reduce the time intervals or labour input required for maintenance. Thirty years ago, car maintenance was a far more onerous task than it is today, involving all sorts of checking under the bonnet with gauges and specialised instruments (e.g. to adjust the points gap) whose use had to be learned. Nowadays the demands are minimal by comparison: consumers are encouraged to take their cars to car dealers utilising computer-reliant maintenance technologies rather than to do it themselves. EXCERPT #QKCNZ2 p. 52 The eventual disposal of goods after they have been consumed may also demand work on the part of the consumer, and this is increasingly so as societies become more environmentally aware. Of the various modes of disposal, recycling of household waste, as already suggested, imposes regular and routine demands on consumers if their rubbish is to be collected. Over the last decade, transformation of waste collection and disposal especially in the global North has impacted on routine household activity, requiring consumers to sort and assemble various categories of waste in a particular manner either for kerbside collection or for transfer to recycling centres (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015). This represents a new and expanding form of consumption work and the main focus of this book. EXCERPT #LFEGCA p. 52 These are some of the tasks to be included under the rubric of consumption work. Different stages in the instituted economic process or cycle of production and provision, through distribution and exchange, to consumption, require different kinds of input on the part of consumers: before acquisition, selecting a provider or product and organising the exchange and delivery and, once acquired, preparing goods for use, as well as for their eventual disposal. Virtually all goods require further activity on the part of the consumer after purchase and prior to use in order to render them consumable. Following the final transaction, consumption work converts the product into an object for consumption and defines precisely what is in the end consumed. 2 Work undertaken post-exchange but prior to use has a non-market character: it is not organised or specified by the seller or other market agents but falls to the consumer to accomplish outside of exchange relations. The need for such activity on the part of the consumer remains the case even where the bulk of responsibility for preparatory work lies with the producer rather than consumer, or has moved towards the provider through a process of commoditisation (e.g. food) or public provision (e.g. water). 3 EXCERPT #FA7VBZ p. 52 Delineating the tasks of consumption work as they arise sequentially in relation to particular objects of consumption helps to identify some of its more generic characteristics, four of which we now distinguish. EXCERPT #LKKLLX p. 53 DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #YZ3YS7 Consumption work as an economic activity EXCERPT #P7DX65 p. 53 In most cases, consumers will take for granted the demands made of them as simply the normal way of doing things, without giving them a second thought or thinking of them either as work or as onerous. Yet, from the perspective of economic activity, accomplishment of the tasks is integral to and presupposed for completion and repetition of the process. The fact that they are individualised and become the responsibility of individual consumers or households, that they are undertaken outside of market or formal economy relations and that they are unpaid, should not detract from their role. Moreover, when considered separately in relation to a particular phase of the circuit, or to a particular consumption good, they may not amount to much. However, when considered collectively as the totality of all tasks associated with all the stages of a process, in relation to all consumption goods and services, the picture looks rather different. From this viewpoint, consumption work may be seen as an extensive realm of activity and one that is not normally acknowledged, certainly in theory but often also in practice. Just because the work required of consumers is not usually named, and may not be experienced as such, does not mean that consumption work is insignificant as a form of work, or not amenable to analysis. The aim in grouping together under one heading and naming the disparate range of tasks is to open up a large black box and to highlight a form of labour, which, although necessary, has largely been invisible or ignored. DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #ZUQG3Z Acquisition of appropriate knowledge and skills EXCERPT #WU7XDD p. 53 Consumption work frequently involves acquiring a set of competencies, rather than simply using a product instruction manual or a single skill. Cooking, for example, relies on the prior accumulation of a range of knowledge, which, if not transmitted informally or intergenerationally, has to be formally learned (Leadbeater, 1999). That such knowledge may often be tacit does not detract from its existence. While the presence of such knowledge is taken for granted and unproblematised, the same cannot be said when it is absent. The presumed decline of cooking skills in the United Kingdom occasions periodic soul searching at fairly regular intervals (e.g. Lang and Caraher, 2001). Driving a car also relies on the prior acquisition of definite competencies: learning how to drive, reading maps (though this can be eliminated by satnav) and becoming conversant with the highway code and rules of the road. Indeed, this is legally enforced through the requirement to pass a driving test in order to acquire a license to drive. Thus, one important element of consumption work, in addition to undertaking the tasks themselves preparatory EXCERPT #WEYJU8 p. 54 EXCERPT #X5KUC5 p. 54 to consumption, is acquisition of the skills and knowledge required in order to perform them. 4 SECTION #L5YPGT Coordination EXCERPT #8EQTF7 p. 54 The contours of consumption work look different depending on the lens through which it is approached. Viewed from the perspective of the individual consumer or the consuming household, the issue is one of undertaking the tasks in relation to individual goods or services. But departing from a product-centred view, consumers confront the challenge of coordinating, and creating coherence amongst, the performance of all the tasks associated with the full range of consumption goods and services. At any one time, the consumer is likely to be orchestrating multiple tasks in relation to many objects of consumption, requiring coordination. She or he coordinates what needs to be accomplished with respect to clothing, food, travel, housing, disposal and so on in order to produce coherence and complementarity across the many fields that together are constitutive of social life. Producers and retailers do not script that coherence. Most deal only with a particular range of products, but even hypermarkets do not coordinate either the preparation for or use of products, and nor do they create coherence between the many disparate acts of coordination. While markets for different goods are clearly differentiated, they are also interdependent (e.g. kitchen apparatus and food, sports equipment and clothing), and consumers' work of coordination across products and services is critical to achieving complementarity between market players. EXCERPT #K6MZHA p. 54 Coordination of all consumption work activities therefore adds another dimension above and beyond what is required by each product or service considered individually. It comprises the sum of consumption work activities in relation to all products or services and is an important consumer or household activity in its own right. Rather than being limited to tasks relating to specific goods, the work of consumers involves combining all these activities together, which involves planning as well as coordinating. Consumption work is thus much larger when viewed as a form of consumer or household activity than when considered in relation to specific products or services. Given that much consumption is a social rather than individual activity, it involves coordinating between people (as in the case of commensality) as well as between products and services. The commonly held assumption of the market as the primary coordinating institution for bringing together buyers and sellers neglects the range of coordination tasks required of buyers, as a pre-condition for the market coordination between buyers and sellers. EXCERPT #ZVR7R5 p. 55 DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #UN9LHM Outsourcing of consumption work EXCERPT #CQXWV6 p. 55 Thus far consumption work has been described as undertaken personally by consumers without pay. However, there also exist opportunities for consumers to outsource certain tasks to others for a payment. Many small businesses offer services to assemble furniture or install computer equipment. The large UK supermarkets all offer a home delivery service for Internet shopping. So consumers may either do it themselves or pay for it to be done by others. When tasks are outsourced, they shift across socio-economic boundary from the unpaid labour of the consumer or household to paid employment in the market. When undertaken for a monetary payment by intermediate businesses the labour counts as paid work rather than as consumption work. If consumers employ intermediaries to do the shopping, or install equipment, then the activity is effectively 'sent back' into paid marketised work. However, if consumers do the same tasks themselves, it is consumption work. Supermarket home delivery involves a different range of consumption work tasks from shopping in store. While it presupposes the consumption work of ordering groceries online, the work of selecting, packing and transporting the goods is undertaken on behalf of consumers and reverts to conventional paid work. EXCERPT #ERG253 p. 55 Consumption work can thus be characterised as comprising a large and disparate range of activities required for the purchase, use, reuse and disposal of consumption goods and services, their precise nature dependent on the particular good or service, and its system of provision. The need to acquire appropriate competences and knowledge and to coordinate activities are central to the performance and organisation of consumption work, and are to be included in its characterisation. However, the possibility for consumption work to be outsourced serves as a reminder that the socio-economic relations within which tasks are accomplished are crucial in determining whether or not work activities count as consumption work. EXCERPT #H95KE6 p. 55 In the case of recycling and waste disposal, some of these generic characteristics are more salient than others. Preparing rubbish for collection is clearly to be understood as comprising economic activity, whether or not consumers see it that way themselves. Their work is shaped by and situated within a particular configuration of responsibility and division of labour and forms an integral component of a prevailing economy of waste. Skills and knowledge are required to distinguish between different materials and decide how to prepare them for recycling. Often this relies on following instructions issued by the municipality about how to sort and group different kinds of materials. But recognising the different EXCERPT #V7AMZN p. 56 EXCERPT #42MULH p. 56 kinds of plastic and identifying which can be recycled, or knowing where and how to recycle a TetraPak carton or pizza packaging, is often not so straightforward, as we discovered from our household interviews, which we discuss in detail in Chapter 5. It relies on acquiring the competences to discriminate between specialist materials that often eludes and confuses Swedish consumers as well. Putting out the bins in England represents a clear example of coordination between the consumer and the waste collection. Sorting the waste appropriately and putting it out at the right time or taking it to the bring-bank and presenting it in the correct manner require coordination. However, outsourcing of recycling consumption work is not a common practice. DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #2LDKSC Differentiating consumption work EXCERPT #HM7EHD p. 56 While consumption work may overlap with, or be undifferentiated from other practices, we suggest that it nevertheless comprises an analytically distinctive realm of activity, which is not coterminous with any of them. The attempt to conceptualise consumption work resonates with a number of existing literatures relating to some characteristics or aspects of what is here being brought together under one heading. This section attempts briefly to distinguish consumption work from three well-developed allied fields of scholarly research: consumption, domestic labour and 'co-production'/'prosumption' (the loosely linked group of approaches highlighting the active role of the consumer). SECTION #XQA6FE Consumption EXCERPT #U25ARG p. 56 The characterisation of consumption work and the examples given so far posit a distinction, both real and analytical, between consumption and consumption work. The latter revolves around tasks and activities enabling the consumption of goods and services to take place, facilitating their appreciation and undertaking whatever is required for consumption to endure over time or to be discontinued. Consumption itself, by contrast, relates to the using or using up of goods and services, appreciating or in other ways consuming them. Of course, there are blurry boundaries between the two, with some activities comprising both consumption and consumption work (e.g. window shopping). Although much consumption is predicated on consumption work, the amount of work involved may be quite elastic, rather than being specified in a fixed manner by the consumption goods. Preparing a meal would be an obvious example: the amount of work depends both on the degree of preparedness of the ingredients and the labour required in EXCERPT #5JL4US p. 57 EXCERPT #7N5FTE p. 57 order for them to be made ready to be eaten and also on the many different ways of converting the same ingredients into a meal, from the simplest to the most elaborate. How much work is undertaken will depend on the particular circumstances of the occasion, personal preference and the cook's range of competence. Weekday meals are often simpler and quicker to prepare than those at weekends, and those prepared for guests tend to be more elaborate than those for household members. But this does not undermine the general point. Some people love cooking or engage in it as a form of leisure activity but this does not detract from it also being consumption work. While the expressive, normative and social aspects of cooking might be stressed by consumption theorists (e.g. Kaufman, 2010), there is, in addition to the consumption work, also a material social reproduction aspect to it. So, other important dimensions are present even if the activity is pleasurable. Activities do not have to be one thing only but may be leisure, pleasure, consumption and work all at the same time. Yet, the components remain analytically separable even if they are experienced as an undifferentiated mix. EXCERPT #CU56BV p. 57 The dominant approaches to consumption do not deal explicitly with consumption work, nor make a distinction between consumption and consumption work. Given the vast and disparate sociological literature on consumption that has accumulated over the last half century, it is difficult to generalise. Nevertheless, it is probably safe to say that, while lacking a shared or central definition, most are inclusive and tend to consider all the activities associated with consumption as consumption. Alan Warde provides a succinct and uncontroversial definition with which many would concur, '...I see consumption as a process whereby agents engage in appropriation and appreciation, 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: 137). Work is not mentioned, although it could conceivably be included under the rubric of activities associated with appropriating or appreciating. Much hinges on what is actually meant by 'appropriation', which, given the context, seems to imply 'taking control of' in a social rather than a proprietary sense and that the manner of using or consuming the goods or services is not scripted or pre-written into them. Warde's broader theoretical aim (e.g. Warde, 2010) is to ground consumption and consuming as distinctively social activities to be analysed in their own right, rather than in relation to the economic or political context in which they occur and which may shape them. Thus, the moment of consumption is bracketed off from the moment of production. In this sense, EXCERPT #JR9ZQ6 p. 58 EXCERPT #3N6UCL p. 58 his definition protects a sociological conception of 'appropriation' as opposed to an economic one, even though his analyses always highlight the significance of different modes of provision. An earlier co-authored piece had argued that EXCERPT #C926U5 p. 58 it is important to acknowledge the substantial, but partial, autonomy of consumption behaviour. From the point of view of consumers, utilisation of items, for purposes defined by the logic of their social practices, is at the core of the process of consumption. Consumption is not to be equated with purchase, but is the process of making use – practically and symbolically – of items. EXCERPT #WJ5WS4 p. 58 (Harvey et al., 2001: 52) EXCERPT #U7BGG3 p. 58 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. EXCERPT #HKM5JR p. 58 An earlier, also well-known, 'simple working definition' is that of Colin Campbell, who views consumption 'as involving the selection, purchase, use, maintenance and repair and disposal of any product or service' (1995: 102). This is clearly an extremely broad definition, including, in addition to use, many of the activities referred to here as consumption work. The explicit aim of his definition was to establish a material sociological stance towards consumption to counter the then-dominant postmodern and culturalist approaches whose primary focus was meaning and identity. However, carving out the material and social space of consumption was also problematic for Campbell, because of the perceived intrusion of the economy. He followed his definition with a caveat about the 'continuing influence of economic assumptions' (1995: 119) implicit in the terms 'product and service' with which he felt distinctly uncomfortable. EXCERPT #S2YHPQ p. 58 A wider review of the literature confirms that the study of consumption is characterised by a multiplicity of frameworks, empirical fields and theories, but very few, if any, include consideration of the work required on the part of the consumers in order to consume. Many volumes have been devoted to shopping as a form of consumption, for example, in both its exotic and routine manifestations (Chaney, 1983; Crossick and Jaumain, 1998; Lancaster, 1995; Miller, D., 1998, 2001; EXCERPT #VNJEAW p. 59 EXCERPT #56FHD6 p. 59 Miller, D. et al., 1998; Miller, M. B., 1981). But the prior knowledge and efforts associated with shopping are not often differentiated from the activity of shopping. Once acquired, the way that consumers individualise or personalise consumption goods and endow them with meaning are central foci of interest (Miller, D. et al., 1998; Radner, 1994; Shields, 1992), but the work that may be a necessary part of the preparation to consume does not often feature. However, if shopping is considered through the lens of instituted economic process, the picture alters: it becomes a clear form of consumption work involving research, searching, comparison, a necessary step in the transition of commodities and services into the hands of the consumer. This kind of consumption work has expanded with the extension of self-service into self-scanning and self-check-out, and their web-based counterparts in online shopping, though conversely it may also be reduced by the growth of one-stop shopping. Looked at it in terms of its interdependence with other stages of a system of provision, shopping is seen as work, even though many consumption scholars may view this as the first phase of consumption. EXCERPT #ZSCDEK p. 59 The impression of a black box intervening between the work associated with producing and distributing consumption goods and services on the one hand and their non-work appropriation and appreciation on the other is little challenged by the dominant approaches to both work and consumption. This is the space which consumption work aims to unpack. Our contention is that consumption work determines what is actually consumed. Different people may acquire the same goods, but what they consume will differ depending on the consumption work expended on them. What is bought does not determine what is consumed, and consumption work represents a key bridging activity between acts of purchase and acts of consumption. SECTION #VT776A Domestic labour EXCERPT #5XMP5L p. 59 While consumption work and domestic labour overlap in the sense that certain activities might be considered both as contributing to reproduction or household work as well as to completion of a system of provision (e.g. recycling or food preparation), the two are not coterminous. Not all forms of consumption work may also be understood as domestic labour, or vice versa. Moreover, while many consumption work tasks may actually be undertaken within the home, they could just as well be effected elsewhere. Domestic labour is spatially located, almost by definition, in relation to the household, but the same does not hold for consumption work. Skills acquisition, online transactions and shopping are examples of consumption work that are not in themselves 'household activities' and need not be conducted in domestic space. EXCERPT #UE3ZED p. 60 EXCERPT #5C8TV3 p. 60 Studies of consumption work and of domestic labour are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they approach their subject matter from different analytical perspectives and with a different conceptual lens. These are not necessarily incompatible but ask different questions, have a different focus and so prioritise different aspects even of the same activity. While the consumption work frame is primarily concerned with the division of labour and work necessary for the consumption of commodities, the domestic labour lens is preoccupied with reproduction and the labour undertaken within the home to this effect. EXCERPT #S7KWCT p. 60 Discussions of domestic labour in the 1970s highlighted for the first time not only the significance of work within the home but also its glaring neglect in social and economic theory. The 'discovery' of its importance was predicated on recognition of the historical emergence of 'separate spheres', the domains of 'private' and 'public', home and work with their respective specialisation in reproduction and production, in unpaid work and paid employment. This dichotomy was overlaid and structured by gender division, with men firmly positioned on one side and women on the other. Drawing attention to women's unrecognised domestic labour was at the same time a challenge to male-centred accounts of socio-economy. EXCERPT #DJR4CH p. 60 Two basic approaches characterised the study of domestic labour: a socialist feminist discussion that emerged during the third-wave women's movement of the 1970s and a slightly later but eventually more enduring sociological version that drew on the original but prioritised different concerns. The former concentrated on analysing the household as the sphere for reproduction hitherto neglected by traditional Marxism's overwhelming focus on production and the commodity sphere. A variety of socialist feminist and/or feminist Marxist (depending on their emphasis) formulations countered this omission by stressing the contribution of unpaid domestic labour to both generational and daily reproduction of the species (through childbirth and childrearing and through reproducing the conditions of daily life so that workers could return for the next day's work fed, clothed and clean). Most of this discussion operated within the classical Marxist conception of the commodity circuit and the labour theory of value, which it did not challenge but rather attempted to revise and extend through the inclusion of domestic labour. The appropriation of women's domestic labour was a major preoccupation, revolving around the question of whether men (husbands, fathers, sons) or capital (employers) were the main beneficiaries and the mechanisms through which the value of the labour was transferred to capital (for lucid overviews, see Kaluzynska, 1980; Molyneux, 1979; Zaretsky, 1976). For present purposes, the most EXCERPT #VFC44Q p. 61 EXCERPT #BLSZNM p. 61 problematic aspect of the feminist socialist approach towards domestic labour was its productionist treatment of all work outside of employed labour as ultimately dedicated to the re/production of capital, through re/producing labour for the labour market. The paradigm was based on a rigid home/work, unpaid/paid labour dualism and had no space for consideration of the work necessary for the consumption of commodities, whether or not these contribute to reproduction, and irrespective of where they are undertaken. EXCERPT #4KYZDH p. 61 The more sociological approaches to domestic labour concentrate predominantly on the nature, extent and distribution of work undertaken in the home, the domestic division of labour and especially the disproportionate contribution of women to household and caring tasks. The precise link between performance of these tasks and the market economy is of less concern, except insofar as domestic responsibilities are seen as a barrier excluding women from the wage economy and making them financially dependent on men. Ann Oakley's Housewife (1974) graphically demonstrated the oppressive conditions of her existence and laid down the gauntlet to established sociological approaches to the family and to work. It was the most renowned in a continuing line of research (e.g. Malos, 1980) on gender division within the home. Over the decades, the politics has become muted and the focus shifted to investigation of the relative contribution of men, women and children to household work in terms of both time and labour, their respective areas of specialisation and the questions of convergence between the genders and across socio-economic groups (Kan et al., 2011; Scott et al., 2012; Sullivan, 2006). Again, prevailing household tasks are the prime object of scrutiny, rather than the work required for and by the consumption of commodities, or the connection between such labour and work conducted in other phases of a process of provision or production. EXCERPT #L8E3SW p. 61 Both these approaches define domestic labour in relation to the site in which it is undertaken, while the consumption work framework focuses on the division of labour and shifting boundary between work undertaken in different socio-economic modes. It has different theoretical objectives than the analysis of domestic labour and a different range of empirical subject matter, even if some of these overlap with and may also be interpreted as domestic labour. EXCERPT #B4AL6Y p. 61 In contrast to both approaches towards domestic labour, the prescient work of Pahl on 'self-provisioning' and informal forms of household labour, including DIY (1984) did draw attention to work that could be conducted on different economic bases. Similarly, Gershuny's 'chains of EXCERPT #DUES72 p. 62 EXCERPT #JET56L p. 62 provision' incorporates both paid and unpaid forms of work (2000: 18). Both prefigure the consumption work optic being developed here. EXCERPT #DYPZ7B p. 62 Food preparation work, to take one example, is certainly a form of domestic labour, but it is not defined solely by that feature, nor by its spatial location in the home. The 'consumption work' lens highlights the connection between food preparation work undertaken in the household and work undertaken by others in food manufacture and retail more widely, in production, distribution and exchange. Domestic food work thus completes a process that extends far beyond it (Glucksmann, 2014). While cooking offers a good example of domestic labour that is also consumption work in the sense that it is a prerequisite of consumption, other domestic tasks may not be amenable to such interpretation. Childcare is not consumption work, but finding the best nappies may be. Using a duster or a vacuum cleaner is readily understood as domestic labour insofar as cleaning contributes to reproduction of the household fabric. It might also be seen as a form of consumption (using the cleaning materials). But it would be a big stretch to interpret cleaning as consumption work in the sense of completing a process of production, unless cleaning is also seen as work in preparation for consuming the clean home. EXCERPT #NC29XA p. 62 There will be many grey areas, moot points and fuzzy boundaries, but these are part and parcel of the framework being developed here and do not present a problem. On the contrary, they help to clarify the different perspectives. The aim is not a taxonomy or categorical definition with sharp edges separating consumption work from consumption and domestic labour. What comes into focus depends on the optic. EXCERPT #RKGR68 p. 62 And of course the picture is not static. The spread of new domestic technologies is bound to reconfigure the nature and amount of work undertaken as consumption work and domestic labour, in many cases increasing the former and decreasing the latter. This could be argued for the vacuum cleaner, but perhaps not for the freezer. Searching for the right model of cleaner to buy and its ongoing maintenance are new consumption work tasks (when contrasted with brooms and brushes), but using the vacuum cleaner normally reduces the time and physical effort of cleaning. The freezer also requires searching, installation and maintenance, but may simply be associated with a different technology for food preservation (in contrast, say, to kilner jars) or even an increase rather than a reduction, given the new potential it offers for time-shifting food preparation (Shove and Southerton, 2000; Warde, 1999). EXCERPT #8AN7XX p. 62 Dealing with rubbish is a clear example of a household-based activity that may be understood as domestic labour. But that does not mean it EXCERPT #88VGLS p. 63 EXCERPT #9RCPEN p. 63 is not also a form of consumption work. Certainly it comprises labour undertaken in the home, which is often subject to a gendered division of labour (e.g. Oates and McDonald; and see Chapter 5). But it hardly figured, if at all, in either of the two main approaches towards domestic labour just outlined. Interpreting it only as domestic labour, however, confines its significance to its location and to the internal functioning of the household. This inevitably detracts from its key role in the wider circuit of the waste economy and the interdependence of household recycling activities with work undertaken to complete and repeat a tightly linked process. In the approach we are proposing, disposing of waste represents an integral component of the work associated with acquiring, using and reusing consumption goods. There is no contradiction between this and its interpretation as domestic labour: how it is seen depends on the question being asked. SECTION #PVEUCS Self-service, co-production, prosumption, etc. EXCERPT #K7NQZV p. 63 Over the years, scholars have identified a variety of ways in which work has been transferred to consumers or where changes in production come to incorporate the labour of the consumer as an essential component of the process. Glazer (1993), for example, highlighted managerial practices of 'work transfer' in retailing and health service occupations in the United States in the 1980s where tasks were shifted from paid to unpaid labour. Self-service has been of particular interest to historians of retail, who have explored the spread of new shopping technologies with the switch from counter service to self-service in supermarkets from the 1950s onwards and the co-optation of customers to the new regimes of selling (Alexander et al., 2009; Humphery, 1998). They draw attention to the 'co-creation' of supermarket self-service, the contribution of shoppers being essential to the success of the project. Many examples of McDonaldisation exposed by George Ritzer (2001, 2010, 2012) rely on the consumer's input of labour to complete the process of purchasing at fast-food outlets (including McDonalds itself), at ATMs and in Internet shopping. EXCERPT #M2X79B p. 63 This section briefly characterises the disparate group of approaches that focus variously on self-service, co-production, co-creation or prosumption. Building on Toffler's 'proactive consumers' (1980), most reject a traditional sociological conception of the passive consumer 'dupe', emphasising instead a notion of the active consumer who is more involved in the process of design or customisation of the end product. Little attempt has been made to systematically compare the various approaches (but see Humphreys and Grayson, 2008), possibly because of EXCERPT #GGSGWR p. 64 EXCERPT #PAC9PJ p. 64 their diverse disciplinary identifications and aims, and empirical subject matter, and this is not the place to do so. Superficially, there appear to be similarities with consumption work. However, the framework being developed here differs in important respects from these approaches. EXCERPT #QHBNB5 p. 64 All the ‘co-production’ approaches emphasise the active role of the consumer in the production of goods, value, brands or services. For example, the consumption sociologist Colin Campbell argues for recognition of the ‘craft consumer’ where ‘craft is used to refer to consumption activity in which the “the product” is both “made and designed by the same person” and to which the consumer typically brings skill, knowledge, judgement and passion while being motivated by a desire for self-expression’ (2005: 23). Recent theories of prosumption or co-creation highlight the interactive relation, and feedback loops, between producer and consumer, especially prevalent in new media, such that consumers become co-producers, and the distinction between producer and consumer is blurred. Basing their interpretation largely on the spread of user-generated online content facilitated by Web 2.0, Ritzer (2014) and Ritzer and Jurgenson (2010) go so far as to hail the emergence of ‘prosumer capitalism’, which they see as characterised by distinctive forms of control and exploitation, notably the trend towards unpaid labour, cost-free products and a ‘new abundance’. Zwick et al. (2008) have a quite different take on co-creation as ‘a political form of power aimed at generating particular forms of consumer life at once free and controllable, creative and docile’ (2008: 163) promoted largely by business schools and marketing gurus. Their Foucauldian and neo-Marxist analysis views the discourse of value co-creation as a new way of disciplining consumers, through exploitation of creative and valuable forms of consumer labour. EXCERPT #AXKYES p. 64 It is helpful to distinguish the variety of approaches into two broad camps. The first interprets consumers’ involvement as a broadly positive development which benefits consumers, either through a process of empowerment that enhances and acknowledges their impact, or which values their creative potential by incorporating their input into the design and production of goods and services. While online content co-creation is the dominant example cited by prosumer enthusiasts, others draw attention to its extension to marketing and branding. Frank Cochoy (2008, 2010, 2011) suggests the evolution of self-service into self-marketing, through new market devices including sophisticated bar codes (‘datamatrix’) and smartphones apps, which enable consumers to decide how much information they want to receive about products. This transforms them from passive receivers of noisy information EXCERPT #9MBP7V p. 65 EXCERPT #QUU4EA p. 65 to co-producers of commercial information. Co-production has also become a buzzword in public service provision, where it is heralded as a key innovation to involve citizens and service users in the design of services. A UK Cabinet Office Strategy Unit discussion document (Horne and Shirley, 2009) argues for the acceleration of co-production, defined as a 'partnership between citizens and public services ... [which] empowers citizens to contribute more of their own resources (time, will power, expertise and effort) and have greater control over service decisions and resources'. Co-production is presented positively in contrast with three alternative modes of governance: managerialism, paternalism and voluntarism. A plethora of public and non-governmental organisations echo the empowerment argument, including a comprehensive research report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Boyle et al., 2006) on co-production projects in the public and voluntary sector. EXCERPT #MNF5XZ p. 65 The second camp takes a much more negative view of putting the consumer to work, scholars interpreting co-production as the offloading of tasks from producer to consumer and as part of a process whereby the producer realises and retains the value created out of consumers' work. This complements the 'workshift' (noted above) where work previously undertaken as public services (especially in health and social care) in advanced Western economies is shifted onto communities, households and family members. Examples from the commercial world include the increasing prevalence of customer satisfaction and feedback surveys or online reviews of goods, understood as providing free market research for companies (e.g. Fuller and Smith, 1991; Sherman, 2011). The extension of self-service from its original location in supermarkets to many other spheres is also seen in this light, as is the spread of 'ikeaisation' where consumers complete the final stages of a process that used to be undertaken as part of 'production'. Ritzer's accounts of ATMs and fast-food outlets fall squarely under this negative heading and are symptomatic of the 'disenchantment' he attributes to McDonaldisation. 5 EXCERPT #R95Q27 p. 65 Perhaps the most comprehensive analysis in this vein is that of French sociologist Anne-Marie Dujarier (2008), whose book on the work of consumers was almost a bestseller in France, seemingly speaking to a common perception that consumers were being required to do more than previously. She distinguishes three main ways in which consumers are put to work: first, 'managed or forced self-production' through 'externalisation' of simple tasks from producers to consumers, who have no choice but to undertake them if they want to consume (e.g. petrol stations, supermarkets); second, 'collaborative co-production', primarily EXCERPT #ULL2PN p. 66 EXCERPT #7SRRFA p. 66 deploying interactive web technologies, which is more 'voluntary' and focuses around transactions on eBay, creating a Facebook page or sharing photos through Flickr; and third, 'organisational work', resulting from new marketing techniques that transfer to consumers the task of undertaking product and price comparison, or lead them to buy something they don't really want on a special offer. Dujarier's emphasis is on the co-optation of the consumer by new business strategies to undertake tasks that were previously the responsibility of the producer or seller. Her three forms of consumer work benefit market organisations and turn the notion of the 'sovereign consumer' on its head. EXCERPT #FXSYT2 p. 66 Whether negative or positive, stressing exploitation or empowerment, these various accounts of co-production all differ in significant respects from the analysis of consumption work outlined above, despite some obvious empirical and analytical overlaps. Many remain descriptive, deriving from business and management approaches to advertising, marketing and branding. They are not attempting a broader analysis of the transformation of work, nor of reconfiguration of the division of labour across socio-economic modes or between instituted economic processes. Most operate within a dualistic producer versus consumer paradigm where production is undifferentiated and includes retail and exchange and all other market-based operations in addition to actual production itself, while the consumer is on the other side of a boundary, in the equally unpacked realm of consumption. The focus then is on the shift of work across this boundary. In the positive interpretation, consumers enter the producer camp, doing unpaid labour and dissolving the boundaries between paid and unpaid, and between production and consumption which become conflated. Yet, while the emphasis is on creativity and the positive nature of consumer input, there is little consideration of how power relations are affected. Internet companies continue to determine the contours of consumer-generated data and to make enormous profit from it. In the negative version, work is transferred out of the realm of production and dumped on consumers, but with little attention to the wider reconfiguration of the distribution and organisation of labour throughout the particular economic process. To say, for example, that IKEA transfers the tasks of assembly and distribution of furniture to consumers is true. But this it is only part of a much larger reconfiguration of the division of labour: the final flat-pack product is an entirely different one to traditional manufactured furniture and predicated on transformation of the work associated with design, tooling, manufacture and so on. Most of these analyses lack a historical dimension in their concentration on the present-day shift EXCERPT #4LAB5Q p. 67 EXCERPT #Z3EGAB p. 67 from market to consumer; they tend to ignore the large amounts of consumption work that had to be done in the past (including going from shop to shop) before commoditisation of many household activities. They focus on a one-way shift rather than a moving boundary and thereby also avert attention from domains (such as food production) where the current shift is in the opposite direction. EXCERPT #5G2TQW p. 67 In the case of recycling and waste disposal, it would, of course, be possible to view consumers as engaging in the co-creation or co-production of feedstock, in either a negative (work shift) or positive (benefiting from municipal heating systems) way. But this interpretation would take us only so far. The residue that ends in landfill and comprises an integral part of consumers' sorting work could hardly be seen in this way and would have to be excluded from the picture. More importantly, the tasks performed by the consumer are defined from the outside by regulation and controlled in a way that affords the consumer not many more degrees of freedom than a worker in shop or factory. To develop a co-creation take on recycling would also require situating the contribution of consumers not simply within a producer/consumer dichotomy, but rather within the particular system of waste management and division of responsibilities between state, private sector, not-for-profit organisations and households. And we are then back to the consumption work framework. DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #ANYF33 The consumer as supplier EXCERPT #57LUTH p. 126 For the consumer, the work of household recycling begins when products that have entered the home are unwrapped or used up, leaving empty packaging material to be dealt with. 3 Just as our consumers in England had to discern between recyclable and non-recyclable materials and ran into difficulties in the case of plastics and TetraPaks, the consumers in Sweden also had difficulties deciding what constitutes recyclable material. In Sweden, however, it is the distinction between packaging and non-packaging that is the source of much uncertainty for the consumer (Henriksson et al., 2010). One of Henriksson et al.'s respondents describes the difficulty of distinguishing between materials and packaging as follows: EXCERPT #TF7VRP p. 126 No, plastics are a bit difficult... Because there are many different plastic objects in the household. It can be bowls and pots, and toys – everything. And when one thinks that it is plastic it is down in the plastic recycling. But it's not, I know. But I think one is constantly faced with: What is this? Should it go into the plastic recycling? And then you wonder: Why should this plastic toy not be recycled?... I think that's weird. EXCERPT #HQQZR2 p. 126 (Cited in Henriksson et al., 2010: 2804) EXCERPT #DN4MKY p. 126 The authors also noted how it was common to find plastic toys placed within the waste sorting area in the apartment complex where they conducted their research, indicating that consumers have difficulty supplying the different recycling systems with the correct materials, for example packaging to the Förpacknings- och Tidningsinsamlingen (FTI) stations and bulky waste to the municipal recycling centres. Consumers often found envelopes quite difficult to sort. According to the FTI, these should not be sorted as packaging because 'letters are not commodities' and therefore an envelope cannot be considered a package – as according to legislation, a package must contain, protect or deliver goods. Furthermore, the glue on the envelopes can cause problems for EXCERPT #CGNJJ5 p. 127 EXCERPT #XEED3S p. 127 the processing of other paper in the stream (FTI, 2013c). However, to the consumer unaware of these rules and the consequences of improper sorting, the envelope is just paper. EXCERPT #QHDV3E p. 127 This thing about newspapers, that you shouldn't put envelopes and stuff among them, it happens easily that you put it there anyway. I mean, it's paper, isn't it? EXCERPT #PD5N5W p. 127 (Cited in Henriksson et al., 2010: 2805) EXCERPT #8Y67L5 p. 127 Because consumers have been told that it is good to recycle for the environment, there is no logical justification why only packaging or newspapers should be recycled. The 'structural mismatch between the layman logic and the logic of the waste system' creates uncertainty (Henriksson et al., 2010: 2806), which in turn affects the supply of materials into the recycling system. EXCERPT #7QXKRM p. 127 Once the consumer has decided that the material/packaging they have is recyclable, the next stage in the process is to prepare it so that it is ready to be stored. Washing, squashing and disassembling packaging into its component parts represent key tasks for the consumer to perform at this stage. Consumers in Sweden are perhaps slightly more likely to invest time and effort in this stage because of how the next two stages of recycling consumption work are performed. In England, although most of our consumers did engage with the preparation of material, it was not always considered essential. For example, we saw how Gemma did not bother to wash her recycling because she stored it outside, where it stayed until it was moved by Dave to the kerbside for collection. Consumers in Sweden, on the other hand, tend to store their material in their homes before transporting it, usually by car, to the recycling station. Therefore, washing material and flattening boxes were important factors that shaped whether material ended up being recycled at all. On the one hand, washing material left some consumers to reflect upon the environmental benefits of recycling. EXCERPT #AM8NVU p. 127 If you wash a can made of aluminium, and use hot running water, then you have spent the energy savings you would have acquired if you had walked with it to the station, apart from the fact that a can is made of raw material. Just a thing like that. You should not wash the cans too thoroughly, and with cold water. But who wants to keep containers at home that are not thoroughly cleaned? EXCERPT #US7R3G p. 127 (Regina, aged 41, works as administrator, lives in an apartment, cited in Skill, 2008: 184) EXCERPT #DLCKZ2 p. 128 EXCERPT #BWDTSF p. 128 On the other hand, standards of cleanliness meant that not performing this task was not an option unless the material was placed elsewhere – as Skill highlights, ‘The householders wanted to keep their homes clean, and not store the smelly used containers there; therefore, they threw them away in the regular waste, which was removed more often in a different “system”’ (Skill, 2008: 185). However, it is worth highlighting that in the Swedish system, it is not always viewed as inappropriate to dispose of packages in this way because incineration is understood as a positive alternative to recycling. EXCERPT #JUH8DP p. 128 It does not happen often but sometimes when you are in a hurry you do not have time to like: Yeah right! I throw it in the residual waste. It’s not so bad! EXCERPT #2FHVQH p. 128 (Cited in Ewert et al., 2009: 28) DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #2WFNK3 The consumer provides a warehouse EXCERPT #778L76 p. 128 If the consumer does prepare the material for recycling, she or he needs to find somewhere to store it before transporting it to the collection point. Each household can be thought of as a warehouse for recyclable material, stowing the material in a dry and/or protected space before its transfer to point of distribution. Norms of cleanliness and maintaining a tidy home were key considerations for consumers in both Sweden and England (Jane’s ‘Ikea mega drawer’, for example). In Skill’s research, households tended ‘to store the recyclable goods in the basement, on the balcony, or in the garage, in places that do not need to be tidy and are subject to different standards of cleanliness’ (Skill, 2008: 184). EXCERPT #3SUHA3 p. 128 Storing packaging takes up considerable room within consumers’ homes, and given the characteristics of the Swedish system, it is likely that these storage zones are allowed to become quite full before they are emptied. One of the waste experts we interviewed told of how recyclable materials were stored in her cellar before she made visits to the recycling stations. EXCERPT #MSMT9G p. 128 At home I have under the sink different small bins where I sort my packaging, one for paper, one for plastic, one for glass, and one for metal and for paper we also sort newspapers here in Sweden but since the space under the sink is not very large and I live in a villa so I have a cellar where I can also do sorting so, for instance the newspapers that we have, in Sweden we can have a subscription to a newspaper that comes in the mail box every morning so I read the newspaper at home and therefore I have a lot of newspapers at home, so I cannot EXCERPT #PLLWTC p. 129 EXCERPT #GJY2NH p. 129 store them under the sink. So in the cellar I have a paper packaging, like the one you buy when you go to the shop and buy food, I use those and put all the paper there and also glass bottles, wine bottles and so on, there is not enough room under the sink for those either so I have that in the basement, in the cellar also. But for paper and plastic and metal I can under the sink for well a week or so, and then it gets full and I put it down in the cellar and I start all over. And then going to the recycling station, well I should go once a week but I don't perhaps I go once a month or so but that very much depends on how much packaging you have and so on. EXCERPT #UQM7UH p. 129 The storage of recyclable packages within the home often requires consumers to provide storage containers (in the form of paper bags or cardboard boxes) to house similar packaging materials – for example, all newspapers in one bag and all bottles in another – making the job of distributing these materials to the packaging station easier to manage. The task of distribution is coordinated in relation the amount of space available within the warehouse, with those consumers having more space enabled to make fewer trips to the stations. DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #P7SZDU The consumer as distributor EXCERPT #BQ9A7Z p. 129 The nature of the distribution task differs considerably in the English and Swedish contexts. In England, recyclable material is collected at the kerbside on a designated collection day. Collection day involves a specific assemblage of tasks for consumers, often conducted the night before. First, consumers must be aware what materials need to be left for collection on what day of the week (where there are alternating weekly collections of different recyclable materials). Second, consumers must gather those materials left in storage zones and transfer them to council-provided containers/receptacles. Third, those containers must then be placed at the collection point, outside one's property by a particular time of day. EXCERPT #U6PN7K p. 129 However, in Sweden, once their storage zone (cellar/garage/balcony) has become full, consumers take on the responsibility for transporting their packaging to the bring-stations. Depending on where the consumer lives and their daily routines, this task will be more or less demanding. Those living in apartment blocks may have access to a communal recycling station or garbage room in their building. Those without property-close collection have to travel to the nearest FTI recycling station, which may be a car journey away. The distance that consumers have to travel to access recycling stations has an influence on their willingness to recycle, as one of Skill's respondents explains: EXCERPT #QYENBD p. 130 EXCERPT #XGGVT8 p. 130 In my apartment building they do not have any recycling facilities like they did where I lived before, so I hardly ever recycle anymore. EXCERPT #3HU973 p. 130 (Xiomara, aged 27, works as municipal officer, lives in an apartment cited in Skill, 2008: 182) EXCERPT #23A4WL p. 130 However, not recycling regularly was uncommon amongst the households Skill interviewed. Trips to the recycling station were usually integrated into people's routines, and it was common for people to highlight the zero-sum environmental gain from making special trips to the recycling stations. EXCERPT #XN4ZRN p. 130 Evald: If you have one broken light bulb you are expected to take it to the environmental station situated five kilometres away. No way! EXCERPT #47L89N p. 130 Interviewer: You don't think so? EXCERPT #3M55ES p. 130 Evald: No! One doesn't take one light bulb there. It consumes more resources to take the car there, than to put it in the regular waste. EXCERPT #XLDU6L p. 130 (Evald, aged 51, is an economist, lives in an apartment, cited in Skill, 2008: 183) EXCERPT #JDPBTV p. 130 Making special trips undermines the environmental benefit of recycling and in these cases sending the waste to incineration is viewed as a better option. EXCERPT #43S7M3 p. 130 Once the consumer arrives at the recycling station, their recyclable material has to be transferred to the correct recycling bin – usually glass, newspapers, hard and soft plastic, cardboard or metal. The cleanliness and accessibility of the recycling stations has an important influence on how the consumer deposits their packaging. EXCERPT #3FK7SA p. 130 Desiree: Things like that make me really annoyed, when you get to the recycling station to throw away the stuff, and it is completely full. But what do you do? Am I supposed to carry it back home again? EXCERPT #948WVU p. 130 Interviewer: Would you? EXCERPT #G6HAZS p. 130 Desiree: No! Probably not. I would probably leave it beside [the containers]. And then it blows away all over town, and it is a lot worse than carrying it back home again. Or I would take it back home and throw it in the regular waste, because you get so annoyed. If they don't take care of their responsibility, why should I? EXCERPT #GC6ZGU p. 130 (Desiree, aged 22, student, lives in an apartment, cited in Skill, 2008: 184) EXCERPT #KKAFRL p. 131 EXCERPT #9GRPC8 p. 131 The effort involved in carting packaging to and from the stations when they are full resulted in Desiree either leaving packaging outside the stations, thus creating litter that will need to be cleared by the municipality, or taking the packaging home to be disposed of in the residual waste. EXCERPT #P2R7W7 p. 131 For both English and Swedish consumers, these tasks ultimately result in an act of exchange, whereby ownership of materials is transferred from the household to the local authority or private waste management company (WMC) or FTI or municipal contractors. Whilst the distribution stage is more onerous for Swedish consumers, recycling is understood as an environmental action and they felt 'good about being able to "help out" by doing what is reasonable... when they have time' (Skill, 2008: 251). Indeed, in their study of the influence of norms and convenience, Berglund et al. (2010) asked respondents as to whether they would be willing to pay to have the burden of transportation removed from them and found that only a minority of respondents were willing to do so. Furthermore, they found that those who exhibited strong norm-based motives for recycling (57 percent of respondents) were the least likely to want the responsibility of distribution removed from them because this was something that they 'felt pleased to pursue on their own' (Berglund et al., 2010: 203-4). Environmental morality therefore plays a key role in encouraging consumers to participate in this economy (see Chapter 7), and their collective performance of all three interrelated tasks of recycling consumption work are integral to the maintenance of the system of Swedish waste management. DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #E4JZ2S Modal division of labour EXCERPT #2ZDVR4 p. 134 The modal division of labour refers to the way that work conducted under different socio-economic modes (public, private, not-for-profit, voluntary) interdepend. Therefore, what is of interest here is how the voluntary work of consumers who supply, store and distribute recyclable material interacts with work conducted by actors employed under different socio-economic modes. The most apparent example of this has already been highlighted when discussing whether consumers choose to recycle their material. The 'supply' stage of recycling consumption work can transform the same material into the responsibility of a different waste management organisation. In England, the division of responsibility between socio-economic actors for recyclable material and regular waste is quite complex. This means that the consumer's decision to place material into the regular waste could transform the responsibility for that material from the local collection authority to the disposal authority, or from a unitary local authority to a WMC, or some variant between these different actors. In Sweden, on the other hand, the situation is clearer. If consumers decide to supply their material to the producer-managed recycling station, this waste is transformed into a producer responsibility, whereas if they decide to put the material into the regular waste, it becomes a municipal responsibility. In all cases, the supply stage shapes whether a public, private or not-for-profit organisation is responsible for the material as it continues on its journey along the waste processing chain, after it leaves the hands of the consumer. In turn, the public, private or not-for-profit institution[s], with the responsibility for informing the consumer how to recycle and providing the infrastructure to enable this, also influence how competently the consumer performs their recycling consumption work. EXCERPT #7D3SGM p. 134 In England, the responsibility for informing the household about the recycling system usually falls on the local authority, but complex divisions of labour – within and between the public sector and private waste management companies – can influence how well the consumer EXCERPT #LBETLG p. 135 EXCERPT #NZFEBP p. 135 accomplishes recycling tasks. For example, in Shropshire it is the WMC that has the responsibility to tell the consumer what can be recycled and how to present their waste in the various boxes and bags at the kerbside. These sorting requirements changed considerably across the county when Veolia was contracted to provide waste services to the area. However, in practice, the local authority still plays a crucial role because consumers expect the local authority to have the responsibility as they did before the modal division of labour changed. EXCERPT #PQFBQP p. 135 I'd say probably the area where there is the greatest blurring of responsibilities is on our communications side where it is by the letter of the contract pretty much Veolia's responsibility to produce the communications, get them out to the public and ensure that they work. Shropshire council are probably more involved with that aspect of work still than perhaps Veolia would like and perhaps we ought to be. It carries Shropshire council's logo on there and if it's wrong or the public don't understand it or members don't understand it, or members feel the heat from the public who don't understand it, and don't follow it, then that criticism falls back on the client team here rather than on Veolia. So we still get very heavily involved in the communications work to the extent that we'll probably receive a first draft of a new document from Veolia and we will top and tail it and put it into Shropshire Council speak. EXCERPT #7KEPT3 p. 135 (Representative from Shropshire Council) EXCERPT #C6WWBW p. 135 In this way, we see how the expectations placed onto consumers about how to recycle interact with a new modal division of labour between the local authority and the WMC. Given the increasingly private nature of waste management in England, it is likely this will continue to be an issue influencing the performance of consumer recycling. EXCERPT #SLPWHC p. 135 If the consumer incorrectly interprets the information provided by either the local authority or WMC and supplies/distributes the incorrect materials, then those employed in the recycling industries can provide feedback to improve their work performance at the point of distribution. EXCERPT #3H5GLM p. 135 We have certain little flyers or stickers that we put on their green boxes saying your particular material wasn't collect today because you didn't put it out before 7 o'clock, or they have contaminated it (which is the official term) where they put one material, say paper or cardboard, where they shouldn't have done then we will also notify them of that. The crew might take the material out and they'd leave EXCERPT #K5VX68 p. 136 EXCERPT #MN6XKJ p. 136 it for the home occupier and then they'd give them the flyer and just say look, you left this out with this, and you can't really be doing that. EXCERPT #CFVC3J p. 136 (Local authority representative) EXCERPT #D2LAVK p. 136 Part of the waste collector's job, whether employed by the local authority or a WMC, is to educate consumers about what can and cannot be deposited into the system. If consumers consistently supply incorrect materials, they may be visited by waste officers or provided with educational leaflets to improve their work performance. Thus, we see the interactions and interdependencies between work performed under different socio-economic bases, with paid employment tasks (in the public/private sectors) being shaped by the unpaid work of consumers. EXCERPT #2KHVKK p. 136 In Sweden, on the other hand, it is the municipality that has the job of informing the consumer what can and cannot be recycled; however, they neither determine what can and cannot be recycled nor collect the material. 4 According to the FTI, EXCERPT #HD9MWZ p. 136 it's in their [the municipalities] interest to inform their inhabitants that they should sort out packaging because then the cost is for us to collect it. EXCERPT #YJDNXC p. 136 However, as highlighted in Chapter 3, the relationship between municipalities and producers has not always been good and giving the consumer the correct information depends on good working relations between municipalities and the producer organisation. Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) helps to coordinate these working relationships through the Waste Council, introducing another public actor into the modal division, as the representative from SEPA explained, EXCERPT #4VN7AQ p. 136 the producers are supposed to have some kind of additional consultative meeting, I think you call it, with the municipalities on how to design and implement their collection systems to adapt them to each other and it says somewhere in the Swedish legislation that they should be seen as one, by the households. EXCERPT #UTFEVE p. 136 In addition to ensuring consumers get the right information, the location of the recycling stations – and therefore the ease with which consumers can distribute their material – has to be negotiated between producers and municipalities because producers do not own any land. EXCERPT #NCD95E p. 137 EXCERPT #GVVCBW p. 137 As Desiree (a respondent in Skill's research) revealed above, the condition of the packaging stations also impacts upon the consumer's ability to successfully accomplish the distribution stage of recycling consumption work. If the packaging stations are too full or are unpleasant, consumers can leave the material outside the packaging container or bring it back home with them to deposit in the regular waste, in both cases turning this material into a municipal responsibility. Cleaning litter away from the stations is a particular problem: EXCERPT #AC338E p. 137 There's always problems with who should clean, how often should they be cleaned these sites because usually they can fill up quite fast, and if it's full then people put bags outside the bin and then it looks really messy and it could attract rats and once messy always messy, it's hard to keep it clean and tidy. So for example they empty the bins and then the next day it's already full and they can't empty it you know in another 4 days, let's say, and it's all messy and then people react and they start calling the municipality because they think that's their system and what should the municipality do. Should they say, no it's not our responsibility, we won't clean it, they usually do say that, they think 'ah, it's not good enough, it's a bad service', then they start cleaning because people think it's theirs, they want to have it nice in their town, so they actually take the cost that isn't their cost. (Swedish waste expert) EXCERPT #FWJD8D p. 137 We therefore see then how the work of the consumer interacts and interdepends with work conducted under different socio-economic modes, with those employed in the public sector or those contracted out in the private sector having to clear up litter or pick up extra residual waste as a result of the distribution tasks conducted by the consumer. EXCERPT #MREQ76 p. 137 Controversies surrounding the modal division of labour in Sweden have generated some discussions about changes to the system. In many ways, these have been sparked by the problems that consumers face when it comes to sorting their waste for recycling. The difficulty of distinguishing packaging from material, identified in Henriksson et al. (2010) research, for example, has started a debate about whether the system ought to be changed so that recycling is collected by material. It seems unlikely at present as questions remain regarding who would fund such a system, given that the FTI currently operates with the funding they receive from producers and a new system would require huge investment in infrastructure to make the bring-stations suitable for materials recycling. Additionally, problems with untidy recycling stations and consumers finding it difficult to distribute their material EXCERPT #BFEKVN p. 138 EXCERPT #CH2MHS p. 138 have led to the development of kerbside collection infrastructures in some parts of Sweden (as in Lund) and a new type of modal division between municipalities and producers, which in turn influences how the consumer performs the three stages of recycling consumption work. DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #V9VWQE Processual division of labour EXCERPT #JERALK p. 138 The processual division of labour refers to interactions between the work of consumers and the work conducted at the various different stages of the overall instituted economic process of waste management. Work done at any one phase of the labour process presupposes and is shaped by work undertaken at others. Therefore, what is of interest here is how the three stages of recycling consumption work influence and are shaped by the work that is done to this material as it is processed along the waste management chain. How well the consumers sort different fractions of recyclable material and whether they wash those materials does have implication for the processing stages that follow. As we have seen, consumers in both countries sometimes struggle to understand what items are recyclable. In England, the types of material that local authorities collect depend upon their access to sorting infrastructure, such as MRFs, and collection vehicles, as well as the end markets for materials. In Sweden, on the other hand, the types of material collected depend upon the distinction between packaging and non-packaging, which relates to definitions laid down by FTI and their members (the producers that own that packaging). Thus, the expectations placed upon and the skills required of consumers to discern between materials are directly shaped by the system of provision and division of labour along the waste processing chain. Let us look more closely, in turn, at these interconnections and implications of the performance of recycling consumption work in England and Sweden. EXCERPT #SA67HD p. 138 In England, the provision of information and household sorting infrastructure (the boxes/bags/bins for recyclable material) relates to journey that this waste material will travel after it has left the consumer's home. This means that if consumers incorrectly sort their materials, this has consequences for subsequent labour processes, as one expert told us. EXCERPT #3L6YEL p. 138 Some Authorities collect plastic bottles, but they don't collect other forms of plastic packaging, so they don't collect the yoghurt pots and the margarine tubs. But people just see plastic, and lob everything in, so you get quite high levels of contamination, so when that material goes to the MRF, then often the reject rate is quite high, because the MRF is not designed to cope with some of these materials, EXCERPT #PJJZST p. 139 EXCERPT #PN993L p. 139 or the contract with the MRF operator doesn't require them to sort them out. EXCERPT #8V6V8Z p. 139 (UK waste expert) EXCERPT #V45DPW p. 139 If processing infrastructure is unable to deal with mixed plastics supplied by consumers, this material is unlikely to be recycled, resulting in decreasing feedstock for processing and potentially high costs when disposing of this material on landfill. In one local authority area, an awareness that consumers struggled to distinguish between different types of plastic led them to search for an alternative MRF provider who could deal with mixed plastics as it was felt this was easier and more cost-effective than educating the consumer. EXCERPT #E66U7U p. 139 We have argued that the preparation (washing) and storage of recyclable material is an important part of the work consumers must perform. There are several important consequences if certain materials are not cleaned prior to their distribution. First, if we think of the journey that recyclable materials travel, it is not hard to imagine how dirty packaging might impact upon the job that waste collectors and material processors perform. EXCERPT #UFFH5P p. 139 If you've had cat food or something like that then you really have got to make sure they're clean. I mean I guess once they go into a furnace to be melted down, it's probably not the end of the world if there's a bit of baked bean juice on one, but it's the before that – the crews have got to physically pick them up, put them in a vehicle, get driven back to the depot, bulked up for maybe as much as 2–3 weeks before there's sufficient quantity to fill a lorry's load and send it off down to the smelter and even then, they might go through other processes like baling and separating and stuff so you know if there's trails of food waste all the way in that journey, it's not really very pleasant for anyone is it? EXCERPT #MC3J25 p. 139 (Local authority representative) EXCERPT #2U7TBC p. 139 Whilst not washing some materials may not affect the ability to recycle those materials, it does affect the working conditions of those handling them (e.g. health and safety regulations). On the other hand, there are certain materials where cleanliness does matter. EXCERPT #XDDMWU p. 139 For certain industries, the cleanliness of the product is quite important, glass manufacturers and paper being the two most important because if you think about it, if you've got a small contaminant in EXCERPT #3C6ZX2 p. 140 EXCERPT #3KGRYM p. 140 glass once you've gone through all the smashing up so it's sand, if you've got a stone in there that suddenly becomes a thousand, each one of those little grains of non-glass will affect a thousand bottles so that's why they're quite keen about it. EXCERPT #MC5FB5 p. 140 (Independent waste consultant) EXCERPT #HLZWDG p. 140 Thus, the condition in which consumers supply certain materials can impact upon the potential profits from the sale of materials. EXCERPT #TK9J2U p. 140 Possibly the best example of the interdependence between the work of consumers and other processual divisions of labour within the recycling chain is illustrated through the different phases that co-mingled and source-separated materials pass. Materials separated at source by consumers are usually collected by multiple vehicles (or specially designed vehicles) and then delivered directly to reprocessing companies, possibly via a warehouse for baling. Co-mingled recyclables, on the other hand, are collected by one vehicle and taken to a WMC-owned MRF to be separated by manual and technological labour, from which they are baled and sent to a processing company, or, as is argued by groups such as 'The Campaign for Real Recycling', exported to Asia where they are further sorted/landfilled. There is an ongoing debate in England regarding the relative merits of co-mingled versus source-separated systems, with kerbside sorts offering an alternative between the two (where consumers perform a rudimentary sort, which is then further sorted at the kerbside by a collection operative, thus reducing levels of contamination and reliance upon MRFs). This debate looks set to continue as technology and labour processes interact with the work of consumers. EXCERPT #FEG7YT p. 140 Co-mingled systems make things much easier for the household and there the division of labour shifts to the technology, it shifts to the industry to say we're going to do less at this end, so you need to do more. The labour just shifts down the supply chain, and yes that's exactly where the influx of technology does make things easier for the householder, whether that's the best way to go or not there's a debate to be had and is had at waste management conferences from month to month but the reality of it is that it's about divisions of labour. The collection system you use is about divisions of labour between the household and the industry and the product design. EXCERPT #E9PBFB p. 140 (Sher, 2011) EXCERPT #AM5FKN p. 140 In England, producers have no role in organising collection systems, so whilst voluntary targets for reducing packaging and making its design EXCERPT #93UM37 p. 141 EXCERPT #NJFAH2 p. 141 more ecologically friendly are in operation, this feature is not integrated in the same way as it is in our Swedish case study. EXCERPT #BJE564 p. 141 In Sweden, producer responsibility means that the life cycle of the material is embedded into the system of collection and reprocessing. Producer responsibility operates on a closed-loop system, meaning that once the consumer purchases a product and recycles its package, the packaging is returned to the organisation that made it so that it can be reused by that organisation to construct a new package for the consumer to purchase, repeating the cycle. But as in England, how the consumer supplies that package influences whether this closed-loop system can operate. An important difference between England and Sweden is that there are limited after-sorting processes, such as MRFs, so the system really relies upon and assumes that the consumer will perform a proficient sort. EXCERPT #DY7CEC p. 141 Respondent: No they [MRFs] don't exist in Sweden because the argument is that it's not economically feasible, the country is too big and the population is too small then there's perhaps, we've done some research on it and there could be room for 1 or at most 2 in Sweden, 1 around Stockholm and 1 on the West Coast. But then you have to deliver packaging from quite a big geographical area and perhaps the environmental benefit would be too little with all that transportation, and the cost will be too great, the investment costs. But it makes sense in big urban areas like London or Holland or big cities in Germany because you have a lot of people in a small area. EXCERPT #9L5FQP p. 141 Interviewer: So it becomes even more important that they sort it properly here? EXCERPT #Q6TF87 p. 141 Respondent: In our system yes, because in your system it's quite easy because it's sorted afterwards, but in our system it really comes down to the local consumer and the people are good on paper and glass, very good, and metal but then plastic and paper packaging is much worse, especially plastic. EXCERPT #C5G5V8 p. 141 (Representative from Avfall Sverige ) EXCERPT #K87Y6D p. 141 In addition to MRFs being economically unviable in terms of their location across vast Sweden, the assumption amongst most Swedish experts was that the quality of material that comes from a MRF sort is not as good as the quality from a consumer sort. EXCERPT #8CQARZ p. 141 Interviewer: We use MRFs in the UK. EXCERPT #ESKZA2 p. 141 Respondent: Yes I know, but I also know that the quality of the material that you get out is very low, very low quality. In Sweden we have EXCERPT #QYVCW9 p. 142 EXCERPT #MJ3HCN p. 142 very high quality of the material so we can use it for new products very well, but the English system is a very low quality. EXCERPT #PCBZFW p. 142 Consumers are considered the most effective sorters of recyclable packaging material, and the system relies upon them doing this proficiently in order to turn the material into new products. EXCERPT #AUQ2V2 p. 142 However, as the data from Swedish consumers highlighted, consumers are not always sure what can and cannot be recycled and, if they do supply the incorrect material, this matters for its journey along the chain. As one expert pointed out, EXCERPT #67VJQY p. 142 if there's something big we discover we have to take it out, but if you put small things perhaps it's not. So depending on what type of thing you put there, it could destroy the recycling process of course. EXCERPT #Z3V6RS p. 142 As in the England, there are different types of material where contamination or incorrect sorting really affects the recycling process: EXCERPT #VYXM4D p. 142 I mean with metal it's easy because it won't affect the metal material because it will be incinerated, paper or plastic will disappear once it's incinerated or melted down, the metal heap, but in other terms, for example plastic, which in itself is very complicated to recycle because you have all these different plastic qualities. If you get light bulbs or your paint in that system it's really, that can ruin a lot, and glass for example if you get packaging glass, if you get light-bulbs or fuse in there, that could ruin the whole lot because in the melting process of the glass, if you have a fuse, it's ruined. Then you need to sort that out before it goes into recycling. And light bulbs too because that contains a lot of heavy metals and then you can't, if it's recycled over years and you get more and more light-bulbs in the system, at the end you have too high levels of lead, err heavy metal and then you can't use it for food or drink to be sold to the public. So you can't use it for food packaging, then you have to get rid of the whole lot in landfill. EXCERPT #VYZ3AT p. 142 (Representative from Avfall Sverige ) EXCERPT #PDUGV6 p. 142 But unlike England, because of the style of collection system, there are few opportunities to identify who is sorting incorrectly and provide them with information/training about how to sort more efficiently. It is perhaps for this reason that so much is invested in educating young children about recycling in Sweden (see Chapter 7). The system has been developed in such a way that it relies on the consumer doing a good job EXCERPT #GFQT2A p. 143 EXCERPT #W36TCH p. 143 of sorting, preparing and distributing their recyclable material to the recycling station which enables successful processing of this material into new products along the chain. DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #PAS94J Moral economies compared EXCERPT #ZBLTMY p. 175 Table 7.1 compares key elements of the recycling/waste management systems that together interact to generate distinctive moral economies of recycling in Sweden and England. EXCERPT #C6AWM6 p. 175 The case of recycling in Sweden and England has demonstrated how important it is to explore moral economies using a holistic analytical framework. By applying a framework that can encompass institutional systems of provision and state policies, with collective customs and EXCERPT #GMXJQB p. 176 EXCERPT #QQUSY8 p. 176 Table 7.1 Key elements of moral economies of recycling in Sweden and England EXCERPT #SV9Z26 p. 176 Sweden England Institutional system of provision State intervenes to protect the environment Public, not-for-profit organisation and producer responsibility Municipal-owned incineration plants generates cheap heat/electricity for households One common system across Sweden State has not been proactive on environmental issues Private sector dominance with recyclable materials open on the market to be sold Privately managed landfill disposal, which is environmentally damaging and costly because of legislation Much variation in systems of waste management provision across England Austerity measures shaping waste management provision Collective customs and legitimacy Third sector does not challenge practices of the state Education of young children to protect nature, established collective tradition of care for environment/public spaces No debate about environmental impact of incineration as citizens trust the state Environmental movement and citizens active in placing recycling onto political agenda and defending public rights to environmentally sound disposal systems. Citizens nudged to recycle through infrastructural changes, fines and incentives Public debates around weekly collections defended according to costs for the state Lay normativities Recycle to protect environment for future generations Some doubts around environmental gains of this practice but most still participate, even if this means incinerating waste Proud of identity as leading recycling nation and the 'irresponsible other' undermines collective spirit of participation (immigrants) Recycle because of values of thrift and to protect environment from landfill Infrastructural changes are generally positively received but can cause problems when they violate norms of cleanliness and care, and are experienced as unfair. Less trust between state and citizens and recycling is not understood as a source of national pride or collective gain. EXCERPT #HCUXCU p. 177 EXCERPT #5VZRQH p. 177 individual lay normativities, we learn a great deal about the interplay and co-constitution of morals and markets. The state plays an important role in securing citizens' participation to these moral economies and the perceived legitimacy of their intervention is shaped through existing collective norms (often promoted through third-sector/grass-roots movements) and the everyday evaluations of recycling practices by consumers. By looking at the division of labour within waste management, we learn how reciprocal relations are established within economic processes which in turn influence how the benefits of recycling are shared within society. Collective responsibility and collective gain characterise the Swedish moral economy of recycling, which perhaps explains its success amongst citizen-consumers compared to the English system where the beneficiaries are not necessarily those that participate in the system. Levels of trust between the state and its citizens are also crucial for the success of moral economies, suggesting that government's actions across a whole range of issues influence citizens' expectations and beliefs about the benefits their actions might bring. Consumers operating in different socio-economic and political contexts are differentially enrolled into moral economies of recycling, and this shapes their everyday understandings and interactions with their waste. How consumers reflect upon and debate the value of recycling varies by social context, revealing the importance of paying attention to all three levels of the moral economy framework if we want to understand how and why they are compelled to participate. DOCUMENT #4LST57 Household Recycling and Consumption Work SECTION #ZN3G2A Waste, value and morality EXCERPT #4V79A2 p. 212 Throughout the book, we have drawn attention to the different ways that waste is valued within different societies and at different historical periods. Practices of waste handling in the pre-industrial period and within the global South indicate how waste materials can be valued as a source of income. With industrialisation, rising affluence and the increased disposability of everyday goods, the value of waste in Sweden and England has changed. Although waste remains a source of economic value implicated in the flows of markets, its careful handling is also valued in non-economic ways as a source of collective pride or environmental consciousness or thrifty living. The norms that people attach to the practice of wasting in these countries do not exist in isolation from the wider political economy of waste. Formal attempts at instruction often aimed at children and young people provide one of the clearest ways of illustrating how these moral values drive and sustain the economy of waste management. In this section, we focus specifically on the role of children within the promotion of recycling in Sweden and England as a way of drawing out our broader claims about the co-constitution of morals, value and markets. EXCERPT #GC2UP8 p. 212 Throughout our study, we have noted how children have been explicitly targeted through educational campaigns in the hope that they will teach their parents/household how and why to recycle, as well as to take forward these practices into their future lives. Promoting recycling involves both practical and normative elements which must be successfully imparted if consumers are to effectively and willingly perform recycling consumption work tasks. Learning what is and is not recyclable is crucial for the functioning of the system, but, as we have seen, it is not always self-evident or entirely logical. Turning sorting into a fun game for children works to formally teach some intricacies of the system, as well as to highlight the potential value of certain materials. The popular Swedish character, Bamse, explains the rules of the Förpacknings- och Tidningsinsamlingen (FTI) recycling system to make clear that waste 'is not junk' but that certain types of waste (like envelopes 1 ) damage the recycling process so should be placed into the regular trash to 'keep us warm' (referring to their eventual destination EXCERPT #3TYLTN p. 213 EXCERPT #S77SVC p. 213 within incineration plants that are linked to district heating systems). The agencies responsible for delivering such educational messages have a financial stake in the outcome, particularly evident in England where multinational companies (like Veolia and SITA) offer waste education as part of their contracted services. Such companies are allowed into the classroom (where many others would not be) because their practical lessons carry a broader normative remit that elides the distinction between commercial and moral values. But such lessons also directly relate to the local system of collection and are thus inseparable from the politically instituted market that they feed. EXCERPT #72UWSJ p. 213 Emotive stories are frequently used to convey these normative elements, and children are explicitly encouraged to connect their responsible handling of waste with the preservation of the environment and the care of animals. Stories like the Mofflor (HSR, 2008) encourage children to take individual responsibility for the consequences of their actions, interacting with established societal customs, like the Swedish 'right to roam', linking together different responsible and valued practices. In Sweden, emphasis is generally placed on maintaining a good environment, whilst in England the narratives usually invoke the need to step in and protect the environment from landfill (or to stop an evil force, 'Land Phil', from destroying the land 2 ). The 'saving public money' message is still quite new in England so the environment is invariably the dominant narrative within the educational material (although in-school textile collections may be promoted as a way of making money for the school). Whole school approaches in both countries – like the Eco Schools and Green Flag (see Chapter 7) – aim to integrate a range of environmental actions together within the school community, establishing recycling routines that can be transferred back to the home, as well as providing a good example for children to follow. Such schemes work to embed principles of individual responsibility within a collective community, reflecting the wider expectations surrounding participation in recycling schemes. As with the practical element, the promoters of these normative messages tend to have a stake – whether economic, as in the case of waste or producer companies, or socio-political, as in the case of environmental movements – in encouraging greater levels of recycling within the market, but any wider agenda is obscured by the moral value of recycling. EXCERPT #5DT2LE p. 213 The moral value of recycling articulated through such educational resources and programmes is meant to be self-evident. We saw in Chapter 7 how adults in both countries often express concerns about the value of recycling in environmental or economic terms, yet such EXCERPT #G84SUZ p. 214 EXCERPT #BJ5PHX p. 214 questions and critical comments do not form an explicit part of these resources, especially when aimed at young children. Instead, children are effectively put to work as 'moral champions' within their families to promote a particular version of why and how it is good to recycle. The model that drives such an approach relies on the idea of social connection to foster behavioural change and operates with a concept of the child as both powerful persuader and vulnerable to persuasion. In the field of sustainable consumption policy, it is common to see children targeted in this way (see e.g. BIO Intelligence Service, 2012; SCR, 2007). Yet, children are just as capable of questioning and challenging moral messages as their elders, and there is limited research evidence detailing how they actually act upon and engage with such moral messages. EXCERPT #7VBT94 p. 214 The types of moral message may vary between the two countries, shaped as they are by systems of provision, collective customs and people's everyday reflections, but what is common is an appeal to the collective enterprise of recycling that communicates the worth of the materials for upholding moral principles that each society values. The practical and normative elements of this formal education are often provided by those that have a financial stake in promoting recycling, and paying attention to this has revealed how waste work, values and morality operate together within a tightly integrated nexus, shaping the character of recycling economies. Those that benefit economically from recycling consumption work do so because of the values and morality underpinning this enterprise, which in turn are shaped in relation to the politically instituted markets they are practised within. ### 11. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 50 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Matching excerpt #T32NX9: The work of consumers includes a whole range of activities both prior to, during and after acquisition of goods or services that are a precondition of using or appreciating them. Hence, our working definition of consumption work is as ' all work necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services '. Each good or service comes with its own specific range of consumption work tasks. These will be introduced sequentially with reference to everyday examples before more formally identifying certain generic characteristics of consumption work. 2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 41 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Matching excerpt #5YBMYM: This chapter develops the analytical approach underpinning our contention that consumers in England and Sweden perform a key role in the division of labour of waste management and our interpretation of recycling as a form of unpaid work. We introduce the notion of consumption work as a more general concept for recognising the work of consumers as a significant and growing field. And we propose a conceptual framework for understanding such work as an integral part of the division of labour which rests on reformulation and expansion of traditional approaches. The labour associated with consumption is not new, but it has been rapidly expanding in recent years as a consequence of socio-economic change and technical innovation. The requirement to sort and recycle household waste, introduced by national and local states, represents one instance of such developments. We are all familiar with self-service in supermarkets, with online checking-in and with self-assembly equipment. Not only is an increasing range of tasks transferred from producers and retailers to consumers, but emergent forms of leisure activity, travel arrangements, financial management that are often Internet dependent introduce new kinds of work for consumers that were previously unknown. Few goods or services are delivered 'complete' to consumers in the sense that they are ready for use without further activity. On the contrary, work is normally required before they can be consumed and, also, with the extension of recycling, after they have been used but before they can be thrown away. Recognition of the interdependence between the work undertaken prior to and after the purchase of goods and services and before their disposal problematises any assumption that post-purchase activity comprises only 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 55 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #UN9LHM Outsourcing of consumption work Matching excerpt #ERG253: Consumption work can thus be characterised as comprising a large and disparate range of activities required for the purchase, use, reuse and disposal of consumption goods and services, their precise nature dependent on the particular good or service, and its system of provision. The need to acquire appropriate competences and knowledge and to coordinate activities are central to the performance and organisation of consumption work, and are to be included in its characterisation. However, the possibility for consumption work to be outsourced serves as a reminder that the socio-economic relations within which tasks are accomplished are crucial in determining whether or not work activities count as consumption work. 4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 44 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Matching excerpt #BNWWWF: to the many kinds of domestic, leisure and personal equipment that our routine lives increasingly rely on. Work is necessary not only in order for the consumption of goods and services to take place, but many forms of consumption also create work as a consequence of use (e.g. disposal of the washing machines). And since many forms of consumption work presuppose particular competencies or knowledge, its relation to learning and skills acquisition is also an important area for consideration. Coordination represents a further significant aspect of consumption work: over and above the tasks linked with specific goods are those required both to coordinate a range of products that are used in combination and also to coordinate between consumers where consumption is a collective or social activity. Examples involving both these dimensions might include commensality (coordinating the various elements of the meal and the people eating it) or a camping trip (researching the location, getting together the equipment, means of transport, participants). These and other distinctive characteristics of consumption work will be developed below. 5. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 52 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Matching excerpt #LFEGCA: These are some of the tasks to be included under the rubric of consumption work. Different stages in the instituted economic process or cycle of production and provision, through distribution and exchange, to consumption, require different kinds of input on the part of consumers: before acquisition, selecting a provider or product and organising the exchange and delivery and, once acquired, preparing goods for use, as well as for their eventual disposal. Virtually all goods require further activity on the part of the consumer after purchase and prior to use in order to render them consumable. Following the final transaction, consumption work converts the product into an object for consumption and defines precisely what is in the end consumed. 2 Work undertaken post-exchange but prior to use has a non-market character: it is not organised or specified by the seller or other market agents but falls to the consumer to accomplish outside of exchange relations. The need for such activity on the part of the consumer remains the case even where the bulk of responsibility for preparatory work lies with the producer rather than consumer, or has moved towards the provider through a process of commoditisation (e.g. food) or public provision (e.g. water). 3 6. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 54 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #ZUQG3Z Acquisition of appropriate knowledge and skills #L5YPGT Coordination Matching excerpt #8EQTF7: The contours of consumption work look different depending on the lens through which it is approached. Viewed from the perspective of the individual consumer or the consuming household, the issue is one of undertaking the tasks in relation to individual goods or services. But departing from a product-centred view, consumers confront the challenge of coordinating, and creating coherence amongst, the performance of all the tasks associated with the full range of consumption goods and services. At any one time, the consumer is likely to be orchestrating multiple tasks in relation to many objects of consumption, requiring coordination. She or he coordinates what needs to be accomplished with respect to clothing, food, travel, housing, disposal and so on in order to produce coherence and complementarity across the many fields that together are constitutive of social life. Producers and retailers do not script that coherence. Most deal only with a particular range of products, but even hypermarkets do not coordinate either the preparation for or use of products, and nor do they create coherence between the many disparate acts of coordination. While markets for different goods are clearly differentiated, they are also interdependent (e.g. kitchen apparatus and food, sports equipment and clothing), and consumers' work of coordination across products and services is critical to achieving complementarity between market players. 7. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 43 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Matching excerpt #6TEQ2U: In the second example of a washing machine, the range of work activities undertaken by the consumer to support consumption is again fairly self-evident. When buying a new machine, the consumer will need to research the range of possible models to choose between, the retail options and which outlet sells what, and then order online, by phone or in store, and arrange for delivery. Plumbing alterations may be required prior to installation, so any necessary arrangements have to be made for these, normally by acquiring the paid services of a plumber. On delivery, the machine has to be unpacked, then installed, either by the consumer herself or himself or by paying for this to be done. She or he will also need to study the instructions, become familiar with the machine's functions and learn how to use it, undertake periodic maintenance and, at the end of its life, arrange for its disposal and recycling. All these tasks are distinct from the actual act of consuming or using the machine to wash and cannot be simply subsumed as domestic labour. 8. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 53 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #YZ3YS7 Consumption work as an economic activity Matching excerpt #P7DX65: In most cases, consumers will take for granted the demands made of them as simply the normal way of doing things, without giving them a second thought or thinking of them either as work or as onerous. Yet, from the perspective of economic activity, accomplishment of the tasks is integral to and presupposed for completion and repetition of the process. The fact that they are individualised and become the responsibility of individual consumers or households, that they are undertaken outside of market or formal economy relations and that they are unpaid, should not detract from their role. Moreover, when considered separately in relation to a particular phase of the circuit, or to a particular consumption good, they may not amount to much. However, when considered collectively as the totality of all tasks associated with all the stages of a process, in relation to all consumption goods and services, the picture looks rather different. From this viewpoint, consumption work may be seen as an extensive realm of activity and one that is not normally acknowledged, certainly in theory but often also in practice. Just because the work required of consumers is not usually named, and may not be experienced as such, does not mean that consumption work is insignificant as a form of work, or not amenable to analysis. The aim in grouping together under one heading and naming the disparate range of tasks is to open up a large black box and to highlight a form of labour, which, although necessary, has largely been invisible or ignored. 9. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 39 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #52KHCY Research design and structure of the book Matching excerpt #5AWH7S: to take account of the work that consumers perform in order to use, reuse and dispose of goods and services. This project explored 'consumption work' across three domains: food preparation, domestic broadband installation and household recycling. A range of research techniques was used to learn about recycling and waste management in England and Sweden – expert interviews, observation, household interviews and analysis of secondary sources, including policy documents, websites, statistics and educational or promotional materials which sought to encourage consumers to recycle. Our research is focused on England rather than the United Kingdom or Great Britain because waste management is a devolved issue, meaning each of the countries within the United Kingdom organises their waste management slightly differently. Importantly for this research, the privatisation of waste disposal services occurred much earlier in England than in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. 10. 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 #7QXXLD: The interaction and interdependencies between work undertaken on different socio-economic bases is readily apparent from our research (dimension 2). The unpaid work of consumers articulates with the paid work of those employed by the public (usually municipal) sector and the private market sector, as well as the not-for-profit sector. While virtually all local authorities in England use private waste management companies to dispose of their waste and to sell on recyclables, and some also contract with them for collection services, others undertake collection themselves using directly employed council workers. Thus, the involvement of profit-making firms varies between councils, and so too does the precise relation between public and private. In Sweden, municipal authorities generally dominate over waste management companies in terms of the range of collection and disposal activities they undertake, especially when power generation through municipal incineration is taken into account. But it is important also to highlight the very significant role of the not-for-profit FTI in the disposal and recycling of packaging. In Sweden, the producer offers the collection services for recyclable packaging materials, and this system is conducted on a Approximate matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 50 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Score: 0.704 Related excerpt #T32NX9: The work of consumers includes a whole range of activities both prior to, during and after acquisition of goods or services that are a precondition of using or appreciating them. Hence, our working definition of consumption work is as ' all work necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services '. Each good or service comes with its own specific range of consumption work tasks. These will be introduced sequentially with reference to everyday examples before more formally identifying certain generic characteristics of consumption work. 2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 55 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #UN9LHM Outsourcing of consumption work Score: 0.698 Related excerpt #ERG253: Consumption work can thus be characterised as comprising a large and disparate range of activities required for the purchase, use, reuse and disposal of consumption goods and services, their precise nature dependent on the particular good or service, and its system of provision. The need to acquire appropriate competences and knowledge and to coordinate activities are central to the performance and organisation of consumption work, and are to be included in its characterisation. However, the possibility for consumption work to be outsourced serves as a reminder that the socio-economic relations within which tasks are accomplished are crucial in determining whether or not work activities count as consumption work. 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 52 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Score: 0.676 Related excerpt #LFEGCA: These are some of the tasks to be included under the rubric of consumption work. Different stages in the instituted economic process or cycle of production and provision, through distribution and exchange, to consumption, require different kinds of input on the part of consumers: before acquisition, selecting a provider or product and organising the exchange and delivery and, once acquired, preparing goods for use, as well as for their eventual disposal. Virtually all goods require further activity on the part of the consumer after purchase and prior to use in order to render them consumable. Following the final transaction, consumption work converts the product into an object for consumption and defines precisely what is in the end consumed. 2 Work undertaken post-exchange but prior to use has a non-market character: it is not organised or specified by the seller or other market agents but falls to the consumer to accomplish outside of exchange relations. The need for such activity on the part of the consumer remains the case even where the bulk of responsibility for preparatory work lies with the producer rather than consumer, or has moved towards the provider through a process of commoditisation (e.g. food) or public provision (e.g. water). 3 4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 51 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Score: 0.649 Related excerpt #DJ8GS5: Maintaining goods and services may be required for their continuing reuse, the nature and frequency of such consumption work varying with the goods in question. Regular servicing, updating software, renewing contracts and coping with breakdowns all require attention which is the consumer's responsibility to organise or effect. Over time, technological developments, including the emergence of more user-friendly systems, 5. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 44 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Score: 0.636 Related excerpt #BNWWWF: to the many kinds of domestic, leisure and personal equipment that our routine lives increasingly rely on. Work is necessary not only in order for the consumption of goods and services to take place, but many forms of consumption also create work as a consequence of use (e.g. disposal of the washing machines). And since many forms of consumption work presuppose particular competencies or knowledge, its relation to learning and skills acquisition is also an important area for consideration. Coordination represents a further significant aspect of consumption work: over and above the tasks linked with specific goods are those required both to coordinate a range of products that are used in combination and also to coordinate between consumers where consumption is a collective or social activity. Examples involving both these dimensions might include commensality (coordinating the various elements of the meal and the people eating it) or a camping trip (researching the location, getting together the equipment, means of transport, participants). These and other distinctive characteristics of consumption work will be developed below. 6. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 52 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Score: 0.629 Related excerpt #QKCNZ2: The eventual disposal of goods after they have been consumed may also demand work on the part of the consumer, and this is increasingly so as societies become more environmentally aware. Of the various modes of disposal, recycling of household waste, as already suggested, imposes regular and routine demands on consumers if their rubbish is to be collected. Over the last decade, transformation of waste collection and disposal especially in the global North has impacted on routine household activity, requiring consumers to sort and assemble various categories of waste in a particular manner either for kerbside collection or for transfer to recycling centres (Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015). This represents a new and expanding form of consumption work and the main focus of this book. 7. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 54 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #ZUQG3Z Acquisition of appropriate knowledge and skills #L5YPGT Coordination Score: 0.617 Related excerpt #K6MZHA: Coordination of all consumption work activities therefore adds another dimension above and beyond what is required by each product or service considered individually. It comprises the sum of consumption work activities in relation to all products or services and is an important consumer or household activity in its own right. Rather than being limited to tasks relating to specific goods, the work of consumers involves combining all these activities together, which involves planning as well as coordinating. Consumption work is thus much larger when viewed as a form of consumer or household activity than when considered in relation to specific products or services. Given that much consumption is a social rather than individual activity, it involves coordinating between people (as in the case of commensality) as well as between products and services. The commonly held assumption of the market as the primary coordinating institution for bringing together buyers and sellers neglects the range of coordination tasks required of buyers, as a pre-condition for the market coordination between buyers and sellers. 8. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 15 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish Score: 0.612 Related excerpt #LZ4J8H: because the completion of a process of production/service provision is often predicated on consumers undertaking work before or after they consume, analysis of the division of labour would be incomplete without their inclusion. In the case of household recycling, consumers are now asked to carry out a number of related tasks which effectively initiates a new economic process (insofar as they generate feedstock which in turn creates jobs and profits within the recycling, processing and manufacturing industries), as well as reconfiguring public and private sector responsibilities for the handling of household waste. 9. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 56 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #2LDKSC Differentiating consumption work #XQA6FE Consumption Score: 0.605 Related excerpt #U25ARG: The characterisation of consumption work and the examples given so far posit a distinction, both real and analytical, between consumption and consumption work. The latter revolves around tasks and activities enabling the consumption of goods and services to take place, facilitating their appreciation and undertaking whatever is required for consumption to endure over time or to be discontinued. Consumption itself, by contrast, relates to the using or using up of goods and services, appreciating or in other ways consuming them. Of course, there are blurry boundaries between the two, with some activities comprising both consumption and consumption work (e.g. window shopping). Although much consumption is predicated on consumption work, the amount of work involved may be quite elastic, rather than being specified in a fixed manner by the consumption goods. Preparing a meal would be an obvious example: the amount of work depends both on the degree of preparedness of the ingredients and the labour required in 10. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 90 Context: #TWZCKJ Environmentally Regimented Rubbish: Recycling Systems in Sweden #WDSBDX The consumer's role in the division of responsibility for waste management Score: 0.6 Related excerpt #BLASPX: In sum, the consumer performs three key consumption work tasks when they handle their recyclable waste – they supply this material, they store or warehouse this material and they distribute the material to the appropriate collection point. The supply, warehousing and distribution of recyclable material are tasks that form an integral component within the division of labour and responsibility for waste management. Without the consumer's input and performance of these three tasks, the waste management system would be unable to function. As such, the work of consumers is essential for the maintenance of the producers' system and supports the continued work of municipalities and private WMCs. Just because this work is unpaid and conducted outside of the formal or market economy does not make it any less important. In Chapter 6, we shall be returning to these three consumption work tasks and exploring how consumers in both Sweden and England perform and understand them within their own systems of provision. ### 12. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption Matching 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. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #W8HHQV Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #LMKLTZ Consumption Work Matching 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. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work #GGGPNV Conclusion Matching 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. 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction Matching paragraph #6G862E: This thesis extends the consumption work framework in two directions. First, it examines consumption work at a semi-public site rather than within the domestic sphere. In discussion of research agenda for circular economies Hobson et al. (2021) call explicitly for research that moves beyond the household to examine how consumption work is organised and distributed in community and public initiatives. Brīvbode is such a space: a site where the ordinarily private labour of divestment and acquisition becomes briefly visible and socially acknowledged, and a site where also public volunteer labor – sorting, curating, maintaining quality standards, managing social dynamics – sustains a service, itself a form of consumption work that is continuous with the domestic labour it serves. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work Matching 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. 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction Matching paragraph #FYJU8R: As Hobson et al. (2021) argue, research should examine non-domestic spaces where individuals come together around circular practices – regardless of whether these activities are explicitly labeled as “circular economy”. Other authors have reinforced this call for studies of community based dimensions of circular consumption (Luukkonen et al., 2024, Mesiranta et al., 2025). Brīvbode is such a space: a site where the ordinarily private labour of divestment and acquisition can become visible and socially acknowledged, and where volunteer labour sustains infrastructure continuous with the domestic labour it serves. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work #GGGPNV Conclusion Matching paragraph #T5LNZ9: Circular consumption requires substantial labour, and that labour is unevenly distributed. Sustainability of initiatives like Brīvbode depends on a structural condition – the sufficiency-oriented, time-rich, predominantly female volunteer and participant base that circular economy policy rarely names or supports (Hobson et al., 2021). Some of this labour is unreflexive and habituated – Aiga's inner feeling that prevents easy disposal, Marija's building logistics naturalised into her social role. Some is deliberate and effortful – Kristīne's category-by-category method, Madara working on her impulse-acquiring. Both are labour, but they are differently visible, and the unreflexive forms are the hardest to see and the hardest for policy to reach. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work #GGGPNV Conclusion Matching 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. 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #L5PE5X Valuation work without the context of price Matching 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. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #W8HHQV Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #Q3A3ZZ Conclusion Matching 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. 11. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #CHZ8HG The structure of the thesis Matching paragraph #L4Y7RQ: The thesis is organised as follows: Chapter Two reviews the relevant literature, situating the study within debates on practice theory and sustainable consumption and consumption work. Chapter Three describes the methodology, including the fieldwork context, interview approach, and analytical framework. Chapter Four, the first empirical chapter, examines Brīvbode as a site of freecycling practice: the materials flowing through it, the plural meanings and competencies that sustain giving and taking, and the non-monetary context that shapes the flows. Chapter Five turns more closely to the labour that sustains the flows described in Chapter Four, applying Wheeler and Glucksmann's consumption work framework to analyse the work performed by volunteers, participants, and the extended divestment networks that connect Brīvbode to surrounding households. The thesis concludes by drawing together the empirical findings and reflecting on what Brīvbode reveals about the conditions under which circular consumption practices can be sustained in everyday life. 12. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #A43655 Modal labour across socioeconomic modes Matching 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. 13. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #A43655 Modal labour across socioeconomic modes Matching 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. 14. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption Matching 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. 15. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #KWZ8DM Volunteer labour and sufficiency lifestyle Matching 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. 16. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #A43655 Modal labour across socioeconomic modes Matching 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. 17. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption Matching 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. 18. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #A43655 Modal labour across socioeconomic modes Matching 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. 19. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction Matching paragraph #5KSKRV: This thesis is an ethnographic study of freecycling – the circulation of things within a non-monetary context – in Brīvbode, a volunteer-run swapshop1 in Riga. It examines how freecycling is organised and sustained as a social practice and what work it requires from its participants. Freecycling is viewed as a socially embedded, materially organized practice, and in this thesis it is situated within broader debates on sustainable consumption practices and the work that goes into sustaining them. 20. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #L5PE5X Valuation work without the context of price Matching 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. Approximate matches 1. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #P4YU8Y CONCLUSION Score: 0.643 Related paragraph #NCLNKD: Participation in Brīvbode is a form of consumption work, and understanding it as such reveals both what the swapshop enables and what it demands. Consumption work in the context of the swapshop: the effort of finding, sorting, or repurposing items, as well as the broader social practices around bringing and taking items from Brīvbode – decluttering, home organising, dealing with the needs of family members. 2. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #A43655 Modal labour across socioeconomic modes Score: 0.61 Related paragraph #4PNKDC: Brīvbode brings together different forms of work – unpaid volunteering, household management, neighbourly help, care work, and informal exchange – in ways that blur distinctions between market and non-market activity and make the labour difficult to recognise as work at all, even though the system depends on it. As Mesiranta et al. (2025) describe, community-based circular consumption initiatives perform care work that more marketised arrangements cannot. Sequential reuse, as Hobson (2020) argues, depends not on material availability alone but on the social circularities – the relational labour – that keep things moving between people. 3. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #L2U838 Latvian context and background Score: 0.609 Related paragraph #VHLSGN: [Although, for participants this aspect is not always important, Brīvbode sustains domestic reuse, without sending things to countries (although leftovers are absorbed by the textile collection system]. – Brīvbode operates with everyday goods.] 4. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #P4YU8Y CONCLUSION Score: 0.608 Related paragraph #94B3ZE: Brīvbode operates within the conditions of overproduction, where the circulation of goods is shaped as much by excess as by need. While it enables reuse and access, it also absorbs the material overflow generated elsewhere. The labor of managing excess – the sorting, the deciding, the transporting, the emotional work of letting go – falls unevenly on people, is often invisible, and that becomes especially evident in circular economy contexts where more participation is needed. While some consumption work is alleviated in Brīvbode, it is replaced by other types. 5. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work #GGGPNV Conclusion Score: 0.604 Related paragraph #ANCRJA: Transactions of consumption work: “Rasa saka, ka darbs Brīvbodē dažreiz ļauj viņai nejusties vainīgai par to, ka viņa nesašķiro atkritumus.” 6. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #W8HHQV Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #Q3A3ZZ Conclusion Score: 0.595 Related 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. 7. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #P4YU8Y CONCLUSION Score: 0.588 Related paragraph #JBQ92J: While alternative, they simultaneously overlap with some of the meanings present in capitalist consumption –... Brīvbode is at once an answer to a household problem and an arena where people work out possibly alternative relations to things. 8. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #KWZ8DM Volunteer labour and sufficiency lifestyle Score: 0.586 Related 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.” 9. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction Score: 0.586 Related paragraph #6G862E: This thesis extends the consumption work framework in two directions. First, it examines consumption work at a semi-public site rather than within the domestic sphere. In discussion of research agenda for circular economies Hobson et al. (2021) call explicitly for research that moves beyond the household to examine how consumption work is organised and distributed in community and public initiatives. Brīvbode is such a space: a site where the ordinarily private labour of divestment and acquisition becomes briefly visible and socially acknowledged, and a site where also public volunteer labor – sorting, curating, maintaining quality standards, managing social dynamics – sustains a service, itself a form of consumption work that is continuous with the domestic labour it serves. 10. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #A43655 Modal labour across socioeconomic modes Score: 0.583 Related 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. 11. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work #GGGPNV Conclusion Score: 0.577 Related 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. 12. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #L2U838 Latvian context and background Score: 0.573 Related paragraph #TQFGXU: Various exchange, divestment and second hand alternatives are currently available and are routinely used by people in Riga – online groups, charity shops and textile collection containers – but what sets Brīvbode apart is the operation on a physical site, the exchange without regulated monetary transaction, and a sustained volunteer infrastructure that makes repeated visits possible and socially meaningful. It is open every week, year-round, and this regularity is central to what it offers – a route for acquisition and divestment, but also a predictable rhythm that participants can build into their everyday routines. 13. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #L5PE5X Valuation work without the context of price Score: 0.573 Related 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. 14. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption #38335C Processual labour: exchange networks and gendered work #GGGPNV Conclusion Score: 0.572 Related 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. 15. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #W8HHQV Circulation, Practice, and Consumption Work: A Theoretical Framework #UF33B6 Consumption practices Score: 0.542 Related 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. 16. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #QXGS6P Policies Score: 0.542 Related paragraph #H59VTK: The bulk of things circulating in Brīvbode are textiles – mostly clothing, but also home textile. Textiles have been identified as a priority sector in the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission, 2020), and concrete regulatory frameworks, including the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles promote mandatory separate collection of textile waste and extend producer responsibility schemes. 17. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #F2943E The Work of Circular Consumption Score: 0.537 Related 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. 18. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #L2U838 Latvian context and background Score: 0.536 Related paragraph #LARHJE: In recent years, a range of initiatives for circulation and reuse of everyday goods have emerged in Latvia, indicating a growing and also increasingly institutionalised diversification of non-market and low-cost access practices. [Different modes – institutional, informal initiatives – that are also based on different types of work?] 19. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction #PESH7N Research questions Score: 0.535 Related paragraph #KK7JMG: What work does freecycling in Brīvbode require from participants, and how is that work currently distributed? 20. Source: Practices of Divestment, Acquisition and Circulation of Things in a Swapshop in Riga, Latvia (#FYG32U), Ieva Lange Context: #SVS6HK Introduction Score: 0.532 Related paragraph #VQQ25N: Practices of divestment are changing, shaped by new infrastructure and policy developments – Latvia introduced mandatory textile collection in 2023, and new secondhand platforms and practices are expanding the routes available for household goods. A study of Brīvbode contributes to understanding this changing practice landscape by offering an empirical account of one specific site where divestment, acquisition, and non-monetary exchange come together, at a particular moment in the development of circular consumption practices in Latvia. ### 13. Assistant One possible issue already: the draft says Wheeler & Glucksmann “contend that secondhand markets involve consumption work.” Their book does define consumption work broadly enough to include acquisition/re-use/disposal, but empirically it is mostly household recycling and waste systems. I’m checking whether they actually discuss secondhand markets/reuse directly, so the citation can be tightened rather than overclaimed. #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4LST57", "limit": 20, "query": "second hand markets secondhand charity shop reuse repair sorting cleaning repairing" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4LST57", "limit": 20, "query": "reuse re-use used goods charity Oxfam second-hand" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4LST57", "limit": 10, "query": "supply warehouse distributor supplier store distribute three stages recycling consumption work" } ``` #### Tool call: `search_text` ```json { "document_id": "4LST57", "limit": 10, "query": "market non-market paid unpaid formal informal consumption work" } ``` ### 14. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 27 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Matching excerpt #73YW3A: Historical changes in ways of dealing with worn-out goods problematise what we mean by waste, at what stage in their life cycle material objects are designated as waste and what counts as rubbish. Many objects were mended or used for purposes other than the original one and so enjoyed a second life (e.g. quilts or rag rugs made from worn-out clothes and linen and fat, soaps or candles from rendered bones). Less residue was left as trash and considered useless than in later epochs. 6 But does this mean that towels already constitute waste material when they are torn up to be used as cleaning rags, or only when they are burned or put in the dustbin? 'Waste paper' may both be considered waste and have a use as fuel or firelighter. And what is disposed of as of no further use, or divested as no longer wanted by some, may well be used and wanted by others. Gregson and Crewe's (2003) and Gregson's (2007) investigations reveal the vibrancy and expanding modalities of second-hand cultures in the United Kingdom through charity shops, jumble sales, car boot sales and eBay. They also point to the care taken in the 'ridding' of goods and to the survival – perhaps revival – of a gift 2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 199 Context: #RKL76Z Living Off Tips: Waste and Recycling in Brazil and India #79KXQZ Recycling: The hierarchy of 'informality' Matching excerpt #CSXFSS: She goes on to explain that her maid 'enjoys' haggling with the scrap iron collector, while she herself does not have the time or inclination to do so. The hawkers, on the other hand, preferred to buy from the women of the household because they were 'more interested in cleaning their houses for a little return, than in adding a second crust to their livelihoods', rather than from the servants who 'haggled assiduously over rates' since they relied heavily on the extras they earned this way (Beall, 1997: 8). 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 112 Context: #NAF2QB Market and State Heterogeneity: Recycling Systems in England #T5VUGU Division of responsibility for waste management #EEAZMR Recyclable materials Matching excerpt #WGGK7H: The degree to which the consumer sorts their waste influences its onward journey along the waste processing chain. Collection systems that expect the consumer to sort his/her waste into multiple fractions (as in Chelmsford) can be delivered to the material processors directly. Co-mingled recycling collections, on the other hand, require a technological solution in order to separate materials for their onward processing. MRFs provide such a solution – these facilities ‘separate clean, dry co-mingled materials into individual material streams and prepare them for sale to commodity markets’ (WRAP, 2007: 4). Sorting processes are primarily conducted by machinery; however, some people are also employed to perform hand sorting. MRFs deal with around 2.5 million tonnes of material per annum. WRAP carries details of 69 MRFs that handle municipal waste within England, and the majority of these are owned by private WMCs who charge a gate fee per tonne of material (WRAP, 2013). The Campaign for Real Recycling (founded by FOE) argues that the material sorted at MRFs is not of as high quality as that sorted by consumers in their homes, leading to higher incidence of landfilling and lower profits from the reprocessing of materials. This claim is hotly debated and set to continue, highlighting the key role that the consumer’s labour plays in the generation of value from recyclable material and the economic processes of waste management. It is to the consumer that we now turn. 4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 28 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Matching excerpt #S5UQYZ: economy with respect to charity shops and informal ways of trading in car boot sales. These are usually based on principles of exchange normally absent from first-hand purchase and sale, including negotiations over the utility and transformation of goods. 5. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 138 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #V9VWQE Processual division of labour Matching excerpt #JERALK: The processual division of labour refers to interactions between the work of consumers and the work conducted at the various different stages of the overall instituted economic process of waste management. Work done at any one phase of the labour process presupposes and is shaped by work undertaken at others. Therefore, what is of interest here is how the three stages of recycling consumption work influence and are shaped by the work that is done to this material as it is processed along the waste management chain. How well the consumers sort different fractions of recyclable material and whether they wash those materials does have implication for the processing stages that follow. As we have seen, consumers in both countries sometimes struggle to understand what items are recyclable. In England, the types of material that local authorities collect depend upon their access to sorting infrastructure, such as MRFs, and collection vehicles, as well as the end markets for materials. In Sweden, on the other hand, the types of material collected depend upon the distinction between packaging and non-packaging, which relates to definitions laid down by FTI and their members (the producers that own that packaging). Thus, the expectations placed upon and the skills required of consumers to discern between materials are directly shaped by the system of provision and division of labour along the waste processing chain. Let us look more closely, in turn, at these interconnections and implications of the performance of recycling consumption work in England and Sweden. 6. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 181 Context: #RKL76Z Living Off Tips: Waste and Recycling in Brazil and India #26YLBU Waste and recycling: Provision and policy Matching excerpt #PP9VWZ: The dominant technology employed to deal with waste remains the dump. There are no Material Recovery Facilities in Brazil as in England, and the only sorting of commingled waste is by hand by waste pickers. Unlike Sweden, incineration occurs on a tiny scale, and there is minimal recapture for energy. Of the 188.8 tons of solid waste collected daily throughout the country, over 50 percent ends up in open-air rubbish 7. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 26 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Matching excerpt #5BWARX: By 1900, this form of recycling had declined. Urbanisation, industrialisation and the spread of paid employment outside the home dramatically reduced the scope to transform and remake materials at home. At the same time, municipal waste disposal systems including street cleaning and household collection were developed to cope with the expanding volume of urban waste, stimulated in the first instance by concerns for public health (Melosi, 2005), and tips/landfill and incineration became the predominant means for the large-scale disposal of waste. If a greater proportion of domestic waste was now rejected as rubbish, the reason was in large part attributable to people no longer living in circumstances where reuse and remaking were viable, rather than simply to expanding wealth or the advent of a consumer society. 8. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 1 Context: #W238BY Front Matter #E5XDK4 HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING AND CONSUMPTION WORK Matching excerpt #4DB2S8: 'This rich and impressive study challenges the idea of recycling as a straightforward process of converting waste into resources. By focusing on the consumption work of householders, their labour sorting and classifying, Kathryn Wheeler and Miriam Glucksmann show how moral and economic values are thoroughly interconnected. Through detailed investigations of England, Sweden, India and Brazil, "recycling" emerges as a complex and very variable field of waste management practices. After reading this book it is impossible to consider waste as the end of value. Instead, it emerges as a site where the relations between consumption, markets and disposal emerge as potent and problematic. Putting out the garbage will never be the same again!' 9. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 177 Context: #XBXPMG Moral Economies of Recycling #FQFQWF Conclusion Matching excerpt #BC6PSR: The consumer occupies an important role within the global economy of materials reuse through their performance of routine, unpaid consumption work. This chapter has explored how consumers are encouraged to voluntarily perform recycling consumption work through the articulation of distinctive moral economies of recycling. The data presented have shown how different systems of waste management provision interact with moral principles to form distinct moral economies of recycling in Sweden and England. Rather than morals and markets being separate, the moral sphere is shaped by and influences the nationally varying systems of waste management. 10. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 30 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #54PR7R Capturing value Matching excerpt #F78HVF: That the realisation of market value from waste relies on the existence of markets and their underpinning system of provision, distribution and exchange holds as true in the global South today as in wartime Europe. While the sorting activities of waste pickers on the rubbish tips of Lagos, Jakarta or Rio are crucial to the overall process, they comprise just the preliminary stage in an often-elaborate hierarchy of intermediate businesses and final reprocessors. Without these, waste picking would not be a viable money-making occupation except for personal use or informal selling. We will be looking in Chapter 8 at waste pickers, how they ‘revalue’ discarded goods and their role in a distinctive economy of waste. 11. 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). 12. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 118 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #ST7AMV Consumer case studies in England Matching excerpt #3D2V52: In this section, we introduce you to 4 of the 30 households that participated in our qualitative research study. These case studies were selected because they reveal the diversity of recycling practices in our study, with consumers operating in different parts of the country and therefore dealing with different recycling systems and sorting requirements. Interviews with consumers lasted 45–120 minutes, and our questions sought to uncover how they coordinated their recycling with other household activities (such as cooking and cleaning), whether recycling tasks were assigned to different household members and any skills that were required in order to successfully accomplish this work. Participants were shown a selection of sample packaging materials and asked to describe how they would prepare these items for recycling in their system, 1 revealing wide variations in practices even within the same household. In presenting these in-depth case studies, we illustrate how the three stages of recycling consumption work are incorporated in households' everyday routines and practices. 13. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 186 Context: #RKL76Z Living Off Tips: Waste and Recycling in Brazil and India #9KR3DV Division of responsibility for waste management #LZHUEY Waste pickers, cooperatives and the third sector Matching excerpt #XR7AZY: The growing significance of cooperatives and associations directly reflects the incorporation of previously informal or a-legal activities into the formal economy. A project initiated in Belo Horizonte, for example, successfully integrated waste picker cooperatives into municipal cleaning services to the benefit of both parties. Concern for the estimated 45,000 children working in solid waste collection had been a stimulus for this project, whose success led to the formation of a national 'Forum on Waste and Citizenship' campaigning to eradicate both child labour and open-air dumps, and to create income for families from the recovery of areas ruined by waste dumps. 5 Two cooperatives in the municipality of Diadema in greater São Paulo provide a further example of integration. Here, a private contractor collects the recyclables and delivers them to the cooperatives for sorting, pressing and baling. An average of 350/400 tonnes is processed per month, paid by the municipality at the same per tonne of recyclables as a private sector company. 14. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 67 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #2LDKSC Differentiating consumption work #PVEUCS Self-service, co-production, prosumption, etc. Matching excerpt #5G2TQW: In the case of recycling and waste disposal, it would, of course, be possible to view consumers as engaging in the co-creation or co-production of feedstock, in either a negative (work shift) or positive (benefiting from municipal heating systems) way. But this interpretation would take us only so far. The residue that ends in landfill and comprises an integral part of consumers' sorting work could hardly be seen in this way and would have to be excluded from the picture. More importantly, the tasks performed by the consumer are defined from the outside by regulation and controlled in a way that affords the consumer not many more degrees of freedom than a worker in shop or factory. To develop a co-creation take on recycling would also require situating the contribution of consumers not simply within a producer/consumer dichotomy, but rather within the particular system of waste management and division of responsibilities between state, private sector, not-for-profit organisations and households. And we are then back to the consumption work framework. 15. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 205 Context: #RKL76Z Living Off Tips: Waste and Recycling in Brazil and India #N2VHT2 Consumers and socio-economic formations of recycling labour in India Matching excerpt #JCQWE8: The third processual dimension constitutive of SEFL, the IEPL, or instituted economic process of labour, is concerned with connections of labour along the various stages of a process. Successful completion of the cycle of reprocessing from collection, through successive stages of sorting, to eventual resale or reuse of recycled materials presupposes effective exchanges and connections linking those working at earlier and later stages of the process. Interdependence between people and firms working at different stages is quite evident from the various accounts of recycling reviewed here. But it is not planned, and there is no overall coordination from above or below. The links in the chain 'work' at any given time, but given the absence of coordination guiding the process as a whole, they are prone to disruption. The impact of changes introduced at one stage may not be easily accommodated by other stages in the chain, so threatening their viability. 16. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 180 Context: #RKL76Z Living Off Tips: Waste and Recycling in Brazil and India #Q45AD2 Brazil1 Matching excerpt #2RSBR7: The Brazilian waste economy is characterised by a division of labour and responsibilities that contrasts markedly with those of Sweden and England. Minimal demands are placed on consumers to sort or recycle their waste, and consequently consumption work is not currently a central feature. Rather the work of sorting and preparation for recycling is largely undertaken by waste pickers, or catadores , operating on the main landfill sites and by direct collection from households, in a complex mix of informal and formal economic relations involving municipal authorities on the one hand and commercial middlemen and reprocessors on the other. Before turning to the societal division of responsibilities for recycling, we summarise the development of domestic waste services in Brazil. 17. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 25 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #F9BQ54 Narrating rubbish historically #Y8P6AX Ulrika's recollections from Sweden Matching excerpt #26WGHJ: These accounts offer interesting insights into how the practices associated with the sorting, storing and collection of household waste have changed over the past 60 years. Although operating in different national systems of waste management, there are significant similarities between the two sets of memories, with both women revealing how recycling has become a dominant feature of the way they handle their household waste at the same time as other practices of reuse have become less prominent. In what follows, we pick out and discuss four key themes illustrated by these recollections as a way of introducing the diverse historical literature on waste and recycling. The four themes are as follows: changing practices of reuse and recycling and their shaping by new modes of urban living and emergent regimes of municipal waste collection; the varied values of waste and the economic, technical and organisational preconditions for its realisation; the work and divisions of labour and responsibility associated with disposing of waste from the household to its eventual destination; and the norms and ethics attached to waste and its treatment, both lay and official, and the historical circumstances connected with changing dominant tropes. As we shall see, the historical literature on new approaches to waste disposal is accompanied also by a shift in language, with the consumer superseding the household as the dominant figure for analysis. This reflects the advent of mass production and consequent constitution of the household primarily as a unit of consumption, rather than of production and consumption. During this process, the household became more tightly connected into the formal economy, through wages and goods, than had previously been the case (Glucksmann, 1990). 18. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 29 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #54PR7R Capturing value Matching excerpt #KY7QNC: There is a long history of salvage which demonstrates just how far its viability is conditioned by the existence of an infrastructure. Markets evidently do not exist in isolation from the wider system that feeds them – the linked processes of production, distribution, exchange and consumption. (This perspective is developed in Chapter 2.) Examples from the period of the Second World War in Europe reveal what happens when these preconditions for capturing value are absent or are disrupted. In Nazi-occupied France, for example, the institution of Nazi salvage and recycling drives was linked with a policy of ‘Aryanisation’ of 19. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 28 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Matching excerpt #W7KT97: Some objects considered beyond use by consumers in the global North are still valuable to much poorer people in the global South, for example the flip-flop sandal whose lengthy global journey Caroline Knowles (2014) traces to its eventual destination in an Ethiopian rubbish landfill site. Even this may not be the end of its life: if it has any use left, it will be collected and used or traded. The mountain of used clothes donated to charities or deposited in municipal bring-banks in Europe and North America normally have a second life in poorer regions of Africa and Asia. Even if we reject the notion of a throwaway culture in advanced countries, the second and third lives of rubbish in the global South point to global inequalities of income and possessions. Similar patterns of reuse are now also emerging in India (Norris, 2010) and other rapidly developing countries, where garments no longer used or wanted by their relatively wealthy middle-class owners are recycled through a variety of chains. 20. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 27 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Matching excerpt #TML62L: Problems arise in any serious attempt to quantify the growth of waste, as there are so many different bases for calculation which change over time, making it virtually impossible to produce reliable figures. Urban growth, new forms of housing and prohibitions on burning at home mean that what might previously have been reused or burned, even in Ruth and Ulrika's childhoods in the 1950s and 1960s, is now collected. When recycling took off again in the second half of the twentieth century in England, it was no longer predicated on the expectation of a financial return, as Ulrika makes clear in the case of bottles in Sweden; rather 'households just put stuff out on the curb, expecting nothing tangible back' (Strasser, 1999: 286). Sorting and recycling practices are very different across the world today, and so too are the relationships, meanings and motivations associated with them which we shall be exploring in depth. Approximate matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 28 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Score: 0.64 Related excerpt #S5UQYZ: economy with respect to charity shops and informal ways of trading in car boot sales. These are usually based on principles of exchange normally absent from first-hand purchase and sale, including negotiations over the utility and transformation of goods. 2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 27 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Score: 0.617 Related excerpt #73YW3A: Historical changes in ways of dealing with worn-out goods problematise what we mean by waste, at what stage in their life cycle material objects are designated as waste and what counts as rubbish. Many objects were mended or used for purposes other than the original one and so enjoyed a second life (e.g. quilts or rag rugs made from worn-out clothes and linen and fat, soaps or candles from rendered bones). Less residue was left as trash and considered useless than in later epochs. 6 But does this mean that towels already constitute waste material when they are torn up to be used as cleaning rags, or only when they are burned or put in the dustbin? 'Waste paper' may both be considered waste and have a use as fuel or firelighter. And what is disposed of as of no further use, or divested as no longer wanted by some, may well be used and wanted by others. Gregson and Crewe's (2003) and Gregson's (2007) investigations reveal the vibrancy and expanding modalities of second-hand cultures in the United Kingdom through charity shops, jumble sales, car boot sales and eBay. They also point to the care taken in the 'ridding' of goods and to the survival – perhaps revival – of a gift 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 204 Context: #RKL76Z Living Off Tips: Waste and Recycling in Brazil and India #N2VHT2 Consumers and socio-economic formations of recycling labour in India Score: 0.562 Related excerpt #7FHLA5: waste, and sort and sell it, this is at their own initiative to supplement wages. The recycling process is not a formalised state undertaking; consumer behaviour is not prescribed; nor is their labour presupposed. In theory, this could change as consumer groups set up their own recycling ventures and more municipalities introduce source separation. However, the inertia of national and local government in overhauling waste management may well be reinforced by consumer reluctance to change the system. As noted above, not only are new sanitary landfill sites opposed by residents, but a majority of consumers are unwilling to undertake sorting of waste themselves, despite supporting it in principle. 4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 28 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #54PR7R Capturing value Score: 0.546 Related excerpt #2LZ26F: While it is a truism to say that waste is valuable – both historically (as in the words of the traditional English saying ‘ Where there’s muck, there’s brass ’) and in the present day – capturing or realising that value is not so straightforward. When goods are transformed and reused within the household, they retain a use value for their owners, a value that remains within rather than leaving the household economy. Before the advent of municipal collection, such household economies of waste coexisted with others: the scrap merchant, the rag-and-bone man or other commercial operations which acted as intermediaries in the recapture of value through recycling. While the source material originated from households that sold it or gave it, they did not work on it, and to gain value it entered a wider and monetised economy of waste. In classic terminology, such waste took on exchange value as a commodity unlike the use value of materials reused in and by the household. But to do so presupposed the existence of functioning markets for waste, and the existence and nature of markets in turn depend on societal and historical context – as our English and Swedish case studies will demonstrate. 5. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 28 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Score: 0.544 Related excerpt #W7KT97: Some objects considered beyond use by consumers in the global North are still valuable to much poorer people in the global South, for example the flip-flop sandal whose lengthy global journey Caroline Knowles (2014) traces to its eventual destination in an Ethiopian rubbish landfill site. Even this may not be the end of its life: if it has any use left, it will be collected and used or traded. The mountain of used clothes donated to charities or deposited in municipal bring-banks in Europe and North America normally have a second life in poorer regions of Africa and Asia. Even if we reject the notion of a throwaway culture in advanced countries, the second and third lives of rubbish in the global South point to global inequalities of income and possessions. Similar patterns of reuse are now also emerging in India (Norris, 2010) and other rapidly developing countries, where garments no longer used or wanted by their relatively wealthy middle-class owners are recycled through a variety of chains. 6. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 38 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #BZVVQK Household recycling and consumption work Score: 0.536 Related excerpt #UVZCZP: These four issues concerning reuse and recycling, the capture of value, the work required to process waste and the norms and moral codes surrounding waste and its disposal form a tightly linked nexus. It is difficult to separate one from another even analytically, let alone in real life practice. At any given time and place, whether and how worn-out or used-up goods are reused or recycled depends on the means available for extracting value from them, which in turn presupposes an integrated infrastructure in order to be a viable enterprise. Different regimes of waste and means of extracting value involve consumers in undertaking a different range of activities to dispose of their waste, to which they attach particular norms and moral ideas. Households and consumers express and imbibe a variety of ethical and normative values about waste and 'wasting' shaped in relation, and complementary, to prevailing waste regimes that guide and sustain their practical activity. All disposal methods involve work, but the tasks, nature of the workforce and who does what differ according to the wider system of disposal. This integrated nexus of waste, value, work and morals was evident from Ruth's and Ulrika's narratives, and is closely linked to the overarching aims of the book to analyse the varying work of consumers in household recycling in different times and places. 7. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 204 Context: #RKL76Z Living Off Tips: Waste and Recycling in Brazil and India #N2VHT2 Consumers and socio-economic formations of recycling labour in India Score: 0.531 Related excerpt #2L5DAP: The private market and the household stand out as central players in the second dimension of socio-economic formations of labour (SEFL) focusing on the interaction and interdependence between different socio-economic modes of work (TSOL). Households with sufficient resources to produce recyclable waste that they do not themselves reuse provide the feedstock, which they distribute in the minimal sense of removing it from the house. While this activity does not resemble the labour of consumers in Sweden or England, and can hardly be considered 'work', there is nevertheless an economic tie between such consumers as suppliers of the raw materials and the various market players involved in its reprocessing. Household practices appear to be driven more by monetary than other concerns, in contrast to northern Europe. The market which consumers interact with is not only 'private' but also predominantly informal and a-legal, comprising businesses operating outside of the legal frameworks governing financial transactions and employment. Firms vary in size from one person working alone, through those employing small numbers of collectors, right up to quite extensive enterprises. The informal and a-legal nature of work in recycling does not detract from its economic character or significance. There is little interaction or similarity between this recycling market and the 8. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 133 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #8V8H63 Socio-economic formation of household recycling labour Score: 0.531 Related excerpt #C7XPKS: Having explored how consumers practically accomplish the three stages of recycling consumption work in England and Sweden, we use the rest of this chapter to illustrate how the performance of these three activities is influenced and shaped by the broader socio-economic formation of labour. In the framework outlined in Chapter 2, we argued that there are three forms of differentiation and integration of labour: the technical, modal and processual divisions of labour. The supply, warehousing and 9. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 117 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work Score: 0.53 Related excerpt #P7JM62: This chapter explores how recycling consumption work is practically accomplished by consumers in both our comparator countries, England and Sweden, drawing attention to what the work actually comprises and the implications of its successful accomplishment for the labour processes that follow. As already highlighted in chapters 3 and 4, we distinguish three distinct stages of work that consumers perform when preparing their household waste for recycling: first, waste has to be sorted into different categories (e.g. plastic, paper, glass, food, metal) and cleaned or readied for its onward journey; second, the different kinds of waste have to be collected together and stored in appropriate containers; and finally, consumers must leave their recycling outside their house or transport it to a bring-station/collection centre. This work varies according to the type of collection system in operation, as too does the propensity to carry out this work amongst household members, sometimes on the basis of gender and age. In terms of the socio-economic formations of labour (SEFL), these three tasks – supply, warehouse, distribution – can be considered the ‘technical division of labour’, whose performance is shaped by and influences both modal and processual divisions of labour. 10. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 30 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #54PR7R Capturing value Score: 0.529 Related excerpt #GT52J6: the scrap firms throughout the Vichy regime, in particular removing and deporting the Jews who had previously dominated the trade. These specialists had relied on established networks of contacts, local knowledge and a range of professional skills that were not so easy to replace. Denton (2013) documents the ‘messy reality’ of paper and scrap metal salvage that resulted from the destruction of this infrastructure, where materials collected and separated by households under instruction of the Vichy authorities simply piled up in schoolyards and on railway platforms. Wartime shortages in Britain also stimulated concerted salvage drives and transformed the attitudes of waste management professionals. But as Cooper suggests, successfully embedding recycling in municipal waste management practices requires ‘favourable technological, economic and cultural conditions’ (Cooper, 2008: 722), many of which did not exist and could not simply be wished into place. New plant and machinery were needed for extracting salvageable materials from waste that had previously been incinerated or tipped, and well-functioning markets for secondary materials were essential if salvage was to result in financial returns for local authorities rather than just accumulating unused. Rather than being cost-free, the whole operation was both capital and labour intensive. Indeed, it proved easier to persuade people of the benefits of thrift than to establish a viable infrastructure for the recycling of salvage especially at the level of local authorities. In more recent years, national-level legislation has been instrumental in shaping both waste handling and the reconceptualisation of salvage as recycling – policies that in turn have created greater opportunities for private-sector involvement in Britain in what had previously been known as ‘public cleansing’ (Stokes et al., 2013: 302). Put another way, just as institutionalised markets – often politically instituted markets (Harvey and Pilgrim, 2012) – are presumed by recycling, recycling in its turn extends the boundaries of markets by ‘internalizing objects formerly externalized as wastes’ (Gregson et al., 2013: 1). 11. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 143 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #V9VWQE Processual division of labour Score: 0.529 Related excerpt #W36TCH: of sorting, preparing and distributing their recyclable material to the recycling station which enables successful processing of this material into new products along the chain. 12. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 27 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Score: 0.523 Related excerpt #QLSPVM: [T]he demise of one pattern of resource recovery and reuse – the demise of the bricoleur, make do and mender – was paralleled by the emergence of other patterns of recovery and reuse – industrial and technical innovation in resource retrieval. Some patterns of activity became more wasteful as consumerism took off, others became less so. 13. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 208 Context: #E4VADY Varieties of Recycling Work Score: 0.519 Related excerpt #6VEFZM: the taken-for-granted underpinnings of long-standing systems of waste management. We then turn to the question of value, reflecting upon the ways that consumers in Sweden and England are encouraged to value the practice of recycling in moral ways, rather than as a source of personal income as in pre-industrial societies and areas of the global South. By using the case of educational resources developed to formally inculcate children into moral economies of recycling, we reveal how practical and normative instructions promote the successful accomplishment of recycling consumption work tasks, thus demonstrating the co-constitution of morals and markets. Finally, we summarise how the 'socio-economic formations of labour' (SEFL) framework has enabled us to explore the significance of the work performed by a variety of actors within distinctive economies of recycling. We consider the wider applicability of the SEFL framework and its potential to be taken forward into fields beyond waste to inform future studies of work and employment in society. ### 15. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 27 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Matching excerpt #73YW3A: Historical changes in ways of dealing with worn-out goods problematise what we mean by waste, at what stage in their life cycle material objects are designated as waste and what counts as rubbish. Many objects were mended or used for purposes other than the original one and so enjoyed a second life (e.g. quilts or rag rugs made from worn-out clothes and linen and fat, soaps or candles from rendered bones). Less residue was left as trash and considered useless than in later epochs. 6 But does this mean that towels already constitute waste material when they are torn up to be used as cleaning rags, or only when they are burned or put in the dustbin? 'Waste paper' may both be considered waste and have a use as fuel or firelighter. And what is disposed of as of no further use, or divested as no longer wanted by some, may well be used and wanted by others. Gregson and Crewe's (2003) and Gregson's (2007) investigations reveal the vibrancy and expanding modalities of second-hand cultures in the United Kingdom through charity shops, jumble sales, car boot sales and eBay. They also point to the care taken in the 'ridding' of goods and to the survival – perhaps revival – of a gift 2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 28 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Matching excerpt #W7KT97: Some objects considered beyond use by consumers in the global North are still valuable to much poorer people in the global South, for example the flip-flop sandal whose lengthy global journey Caroline Knowles (2014) traces to its eventual destination in an Ethiopian rubbish landfill site. Even this may not be the end of its life: if it has any use left, it will be collected and used or traded. The mountain of used clothes donated to charities or deposited in municipal bring-banks in Europe and North America normally have a second life in poorer regions of Africa and Asia. Even if we reject the notion of a throwaway culture in advanced countries, the second and third lives of rubbish in the global South point to global inequalities of income and possessions. Similar patterns of reuse are now also emerging in India (Norris, 2010) and other rapidly developing countries, where garments no longer used or wanted by their relatively wealthy middle-class owners are recycled through a variety of chains. 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 28 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Matching excerpt #S5UQYZ: economy with respect to charity shops and informal ways of trading in car boot sales. These are usually based on principles of exchange normally absent from first-hand purchase and sale, including negotiations over the utility and transformation of goods. 4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 39 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #52KHCY Research design and structure of the book Matching excerpt #5AWH7S: to take account of the work that consumers perform in order to use, reuse and dispose of goods and services. This project explored 'consumption work' across three domains: food preparation, domestic broadband installation and household recycling. A range of research techniques was used to learn about recycling and waste management in England and Sweden – expert interviews, observation, household interviews and analysis of secondary sources, including policy documents, websites, statistics and educational or promotional materials which sought to encourage consumers to recycle. Our research is focused on England rather than the United Kingdom or Great Britain because waste management is a devolved issue, meaning each of the countries within the United Kingdom organises their waste management slightly differently. Importantly for this research, the privatisation of waste disposal services occurred much earlier in England than in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. 5. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 50 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Matching excerpt #T32NX9: The work of consumers includes a whole range of activities both prior to, during and after acquisition of goods or services that are a precondition of using or appreciating them. Hence, our working definition of consumption work is as ' all work necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services '. Each good or service comes with its own specific range of consumption work tasks. These will be introduced sequentially with reference to everyday examples before more formally identifying certain generic characteristics of consumption work. 6. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 31 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #54PR7R Capturing value Matching excerpt #AJLVC7: Just as waste is a contested concept, so is value. There is nothing absolute or intrinsic in either. Our concern in this book is primarily with understanding the role of consumers in the processes geared to capturing the economic value from waste. This is not to deny that many consumers attach an affective or emotional value to goods that they no longer want to use themselves. Many contemporary ways of divesting surplus goods are norm- or emotion-driven as demonstrated by the research of Gregson and Crewe referred to earlier. This and their subsequent work (Gregson et al., 2007a, 2007b) highlight the love and attention embodied in choosing a suitable destination for the disposal of valued objects. A different kind of affect in relation to waste surfaces in Evans' study of householders' practices in relation to food waste. Far from being blasé or uncaring about the food they routinely wasted through overprovision, they worried about it and experienced the process of getting rid of it as anxiety-laden. Indeed, they had developed quite complex procedures to dispose of the unwanted extra in ways that reduced their concerns (Evans, 2012: 53–4). While recognising its significance, this different kind of value is not our focus. As we shall see, many of those we interviewed were concerned about what happened to the objects they put out for recycling, but given our aims, we do not explore their own practices of giving or selling to second-hand outlets. 7. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 55 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #UN9LHM Outsourcing of consumption work Matching excerpt #ERG253: Consumption work can thus be characterised as comprising a large and disparate range of activities required for the purchase, use, reuse and disposal of consumption goods and services, their precise nature dependent on the particular good or service, and its system of provision. The need to acquire appropriate competences and knowledge and to coordinate activities are central to the performance and organisation of consumption work, and are to be included in its characterisation. However, the possibility for consumption work to be outsourced serves as a reminder that the socio-economic relations within which tasks are accomplished are crucial in determining whether or not work activities count as consumption work. 8. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 25 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Matching excerpt #724VNC: Although Ruth recalls much reuse of worn-out goods during her childhood, recycling was notable for its absence. By the time she was a young adult in the 1970s, reuse was in decline, but recycling entered the picture only in the last decade or two and in response to municipal initiatives. Similarly, Ulrika reveals that reuse was common, but in contrast her narrative also highlights early practices of recycling with newspapers and glass bottles kept aside and returned to the manufacturers for reuse. The experiences of these women mirror a broader historical switch from reuse and disposal at home through burning or composting, combined with the mixed materials dustbin, and towards a greater volume of a different kind of waste associated with changes in consumption and the distribution and packaging of consumption goods. A decline in rubbish 9. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 26 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Matching excerpt #3Q96SM: disposed of at home gave way to its entry into a more formal economy of waste. Strasser (1999), in her now classic social history of trash in the United States, argues that we have moved from a society with little waste in which reuse was a constant reality to a throwaway culture where disposability is the norm. Her aim is to demonstrate how 'the disposition of waste products is an integral, if unrecognised, part of industrialisation, linked to processes of production, distribution, purchase and use' (Strasser, 1999: 72). Different phases of these processes have implications for the content of trash and how it is disposed of. She draws attention to the importance of household waste as a source material for the early factory production of goods (e.g. rags were a crucial feedstock for paper production), and the role of pedlars and traders in buying and then selling on household waste. 'Recycling – the marketing and remanufacturing of household discards – was once inherent to production in certain industries, to the distribution of manufactured consumer goods, and to the habits of daily life.... By the end of the century, this two-way trade had given way to specialised wholesalers and waste dealers' (ibid.: 108–9). Nascent industrial enterprises relied on the household economy, which in turn benefited from selling waste that might otherwise have been reused or destroyed. 10. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 44 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Matching excerpt #BNWWWF: to the many kinds of domestic, leisure and personal equipment that our routine lives increasingly rely on. Work is necessary not only in order for the consumption of goods and services to take place, but many forms of consumption also create work as a consequence of use (e.g. disposal of the washing machines). And since many forms of consumption work presuppose particular competencies or knowledge, its relation to learning and skills acquisition is also an important area for consideration. Coordination represents a further significant aspect of consumption work: over and above the tasks linked with specific goods are those required both to coordinate a range of products that are used in combination and also to coordinate between consumers where consumption is a collective or social activity. Examples involving both these dimensions might include commensality (coordinating the various elements of the meal and the people eating it) or a camping trip (researching the location, getting together the equipment, means of transport, participants). These and other distinctive characteristics of consumption work will be developed below. 11. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 38 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #BZVVQK Household recycling and consumption work Matching excerpt #UVZCZP: These four issues concerning reuse and recycling, the capture of value, the work required to process waste and the norms and moral codes surrounding waste and its disposal form a tightly linked nexus. It is difficult to separate one from another even analytically, let alone in real life practice. At any given time and place, whether and how worn-out or used-up goods are reused or recycled depends on the means available for extracting value from them, which in turn presupposes an integrated infrastructure in order to be a viable enterprise. Different regimes of waste and means of extracting value involve consumers in undertaking a different range of activities to dispose of their waste, to which they attach particular norms and moral ideas. Households and consumers express and imbibe a variety of ethical and normative values about waste and 'wasting' shaped in relation, and complementary, to prevailing waste regimes that guide and sustain their practical activity. All disposal methods involve work, but the tasks, nature of the workforce and who does what differ according to the wider system of disposal. This integrated nexus of waste, value, work and morals was evident from Ruth's and Ulrika's narratives, and is closely linked to the overarching aims of the book to analyse the varying work of consumers in household recycling in different times and places. 12. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 51 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Matching excerpt #DJ8GS5: Maintaining goods and services may be required for their continuing reuse, the nature and frequency of such consumption work varying with the goods in question. Regular servicing, updating software, renewing contracts and coping with breakdowns all require attention which is the consumer's responsibility to organise or effect. Over time, technological developments, including the emergence of more user-friendly systems, 13. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 65 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #2LDKSC Differentiating consumption work #PVEUCS Self-service, co-production, prosumption, etc. Matching excerpt #MNF5XZ: The second camp takes a much more negative view of putting the consumer to work, scholars interpreting co-production as the offloading of tasks from producer to consumer and as part of a process whereby the producer realises and retains the value created out of consumers' work. This complements the 'workshift' (noted above) where work previously undertaken as public services (especially in health and social care) in advanced Western economies is shifted onto communities, households and family members. Examples from the commercial world include the increasing prevalence of customer satisfaction and feedback surveys or online reviews of goods, understood as providing free market research for companies (e.g. Fuller and Smith, 1991; Sherman, 2011). The extension of self-service from its original location in supermarkets to many other spheres is also seen in this light, as is the spread of 'ikeaisation' where consumers complete the final stages of a process that used to be undertaken as part of 'production'. Ritzer's accounts of ATMs and fast-food outlets fall squarely under this negative heading and are symptomatic of the 'disenchantment' he attributes to McDonaldisation. 5 14. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 41 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Matching excerpt #5YBMYM: This chapter develops the analytical approach underpinning our contention that consumers in England and Sweden perform a key role in the division of labour of waste management and our interpretation of recycling as a form of unpaid work. We introduce the notion of consumption work as a more general concept for recognising the work of consumers as a significant and growing field. And we propose a conceptual framework for understanding such work as an integral part of the division of labour which rests on reformulation and expansion of traditional approaches. The labour associated with consumption is not new, but it has been rapidly expanding in recent years as a consequence of socio-economic change and technical innovation. The requirement to sort and recycle household waste, introduced by national and local states, represents one instance of such developments. We are all familiar with self-service in supermarkets, with online checking-in and with self-assembly equipment. Not only is an increasing range of tasks transferred from producers and retailers to consumers, but emergent forms of leisure activity, travel arrangements, financial management that are often Internet dependent introduce new kinds of work for consumers that were previously unknown. Few goods or services are delivered 'complete' to consumers in the sense that they are ready for use without further activity. On the contrary, work is normally required before they can be consumed and, also, with the extension of recycling, after they have been used but before they can be thrown away. Recognition of the interdependence between the work undertaken prior to and after the purchase of goods and services and before their disposal problematises any assumption that post-purchase activity comprises only 15. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 22 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #F9BQ54 Narrating rubbish historically #Y8P6AX Ulrika's recollections from Sweden Matching excerpt #FDKSJF: brown paper. Bread was not wrapped, just put in my mother's bag. So there was not much paper packaging at all at this stage. We had an open fireplace in one of the rooms where most paper was burnt, often used to start the fire, which was also fed with firewood. Newspapers were saved separately, tied up in bundles and taken to a place to be processed for reuse. All glass bottles – beer, wine and spirits – were returned to the seller, and we got some money back. 16. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 59 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #2LDKSC Differentiating consumption work #XQA6FE Consumption Matching excerpt #ZSCDEK: The impression of a black box intervening between the work associated with producing and distributing consumption goods and services on the one hand and their non-work appropriation and appreciation on the other is little challenged by the dominant approaches to both work and consumption. This is the space which consumption work aims to unpack. Our contention is that consumption work determines what is actually consumed. Different people may acquire the same goods, but what they consume will differ depending on the consumption work expended on them. What is bought does not determine what is consumed, and consumption work represents a key bridging activity between acts of purchase and acts of consumption. 17. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 52 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Matching excerpt #LFEGCA: These are some of the tasks to be included under the rubric of consumption work. Different stages in the instituted economic process or cycle of production and provision, through distribution and exchange, to consumption, require different kinds of input on the part of consumers: before acquisition, selecting a provider or product and organising the exchange and delivery and, once acquired, preparing goods for use, as well as for their eventual disposal. Virtually all goods require further activity on the part of the consumer after purchase and prior to use in order to render them consumable. Following the final transaction, consumption work converts the product into an object for consumption and defines precisely what is in the end consumed. 2 Work undertaken post-exchange but prior to use has a non-market character: it is not organised or specified by the seller or other market agents but falls to the consumer to accomplish outside of exchange relations. The need for such activity on the part of the consumer remains the case even where the bulk of responsibility for preparatory work lies with the producer rather than consumer, or has moved towards the provider through a process of commoditisation (e.g. food) or public provision (e.g. water). 3 18. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 18 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #F9BQ54 Narrating rubbish historically #8GATCB Ruth's recollections from England Matching excerpt #BXBZXK: Thinking back, there was probably far less rubbish to dispose of than nowadays, and perhaps that accounts for it being an unmemorable task. In our first house we had had a coal fire before the solid fuel central heating was installed and whatever rubbish could be burned would be put on it. Other friends’ families kept chickens or pigs, or collected food leftovers to give to local people who kept pigs. Many clothes were used till they were far more worn out than would be the case today, or they were handed down from other children who had outgrown them and in turn handed on to others. Holes in socks and jumper elbows were darned (and when past darning, were used to polish shoes), and leather patches were sewn on to jacket cuffs and elbows that had worn through. Sheets that were wearing thin were re-sewn ‘sides to middle’ and worn out towels were torn up and used as cleaning rags. In the era before supermarkets and self-service, food was wrapped in paper, and my mother had kitchen drawers bulging 19. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 42 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Matching excerpt #3WVQWA: Two everyday examples provide a flavour of the issues involved, self-assembly furniture and the washing machine. Whereas in the past furniture was made and assembled by the manufacturer and sold and delivered by retailers in its final form, flat pack removes the assembling stage from paid employment and transfers it to the consumer. Transporting the goods from store to home also becomes the responsibility of the customer. The labour and costs of transport and assembly thus shift downstream and across socio-economic domain to the consumer. Insofar as the furniture has to be assembled in order to be useable, the consumer has labour to undertake after having bought the goods, but before they can be consumed and used. Consumers either accomplish it 20. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 199 Context: #RKL76Z Living Off Tips: Waste and Recycling in Brazil and India #79KXQZ Recycling: The hierarchy of 'informality' Matching excerpt #CSXFSS: She goes on to explain that her maid 'enjoys' haggling with the scrap iron collector, while she herself does not have the time or inclination to do so. The hawkers, on the other hand, preferred to buy from the women of the household because they were 'more interested in cleaning their houses for a little return, than in adding a second crust to their livelihoods', rather than from the servants who 'haggled assiduously over rates' since they relied heavily on the extras they earned this way (Beall, 1997: 8). Approximate matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 28 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Score: 0.568 Related excerpt #S5UQYZ: economy with respect to charity shops and informal ways of trading in car boot sales. These are usually based on principles of exchange normally absent from first-hand purchase and sale, including negotiations over the utility and transformation of goods. 2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 27 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Score: 0.552 Related excerpt #73YW3A: Historical changes in ways of dealing with worn-out goods problematise what we mean by waste, at what stage in their life cycle material objects are designated as waste and what counts as rubbish. Many objects were mended or used for purposes other than the original one and so enjoyed a second life (e.g. quilts or rag rugs made from worn-out clothes and linen and fat, soaps or candles from rendered bones). Less residue was left as trash and considered useless than in later epochs. 6 But does this mean that towels already constitute waste material when they are torn up to be used as cleaning rags, or only when they are burned or put in the dustbin? 'Waste paper' may both be considered waste and have a use as fuel or firelighter. And what is disposed of as of no further use, or divested as no longer wanted by some, may well be used and wanted by others. Gregson and Crewe's (2003) and Gregson's (2007) investigations reveal the vibrancy and expanding modalities of second-hand cultures in the United Kingdom through charity shops, jumble sales, car boot sales and eBay. They also point to the care taken in the 'ridding' of goods and to the survival – perhaps revival – of a gift 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 28 Context: #3BMVZP Picking a Way through Rubbish #3AX9RU Changing practices of reuse and recycling Score: 0.546 Related excerpt #W7KT97: Some objects considered beyond use by consumers in the global North are still valuable to much poorer people in the global South, for example the flip-flop sandal whose lengthy global journey Caroline Knowles (2014) traces to its eventual destination in an Ethiopian rubbish landfill site. Even this may not be the end of its life: if it has any use left, it will be collected and used or traded. The mountain of used clothes donated to charities or deposited in municipal bring-banks in Europe and North America normally have a second life in poorer regions of Africa and Asia. Even if we reject the notion of a throwaway culture in advanced countries, the second and third lives of rubbish in the global South point to global inequalities of income and possessions. Similar patterns of reuse are now also emerging in India (Norris, 2010) and other rapidly developing countries, where garments no longer used or wanted by their relatively wealthy middle-class owners are recycled through a variety of chains. ### 16. Tool result: search_text Exact matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 143 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #BRWHQV Conclusion Matching excerpt #WBFNPT: This chapter has explored how consumers practically accomplish recycling tasks in their everyday routines, paying attention to three distinct stages of recycling consumption work. Drawing on examples from England and Sweden, we have shown that consumers supply, store and distribute their recyclable materials within their local system and have drawn out the implications of them performing these three tasks for the overall division of labour within waste management. We have seen how recycling consumption work is both shaped by and situated in an interdependent relationship within existing configurations of responsibility and systems of provision. We have developed our argument through the application and exploration of the three elements of differentiation and integration of work within the SEFL. We have argued that the supply, warehouse and distribution of recycling materials by consumers can be thought of as the technical division of tasks – which operate alongside the technical division of tasks performed by others employed within the waste management industries. The work of consumers interacts with the work and divisions of responsibility between actors working under different socio-economic bases, which in turn are shaped by how well the consumer performs those technical tasks. For example, whether the consumer supplies and distributes their waste as recycling or general waste influences which actor (public/private/not-for-profit) is responsible for this material, and the performance of this supply task is itself shaped by the types of information and provision offered by those different actors working in the public/private/not-for-profit sectors. Another dimension that influences the performance of recycling consumption work relates to the instituted process of labour across the waste management chain, with the processing and eventual destination of the material supplied by the consumer interacting with the requirements placed upon them to sort and prepare it. Mechanised sorting systems, for example, can reduce the amount of sorting labour that consumers have to perform, but consumers do still need to prepare their materials in a certain way for this process to result in high-quality materials for sale. Similarly, consideration of the life cycle of producer packaging is embedded in the organisation of the system of provision in Sweden which influences how/what the consumer must sort. In turn, keeping these materials 2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 90 Context: #TWZCKJ Environmentally Regimented Rubbish: Recycling Systems in Sweden #WDSBDX The consumer's role in the division of responsibility for waste management Matching excerpt #BLASPX: In sum, the consumer performs three key consumption work tasks when they handle their recyclable waste – they supply this material, they store or warehouse this material and they distribute the material to the appropriate collection point. The supply, warehousing and distribution of recyclable material are tasks that form an integral component within the division of labour and responsibility for waste management. Without the consumer's input and performance of these three tasks, the waste management system would be unable to function. As such, the work of consumers is essential for the maintenance of the producers' system and supports the continued work of municipalities and private WMCs. Just because this work is unpaid and conducted outside of the formal or market economy does not make it any less important. In Chapter 6, we shall be returning to these three consumption work tasks and exploring how consumers in both Sweden and England perform and understand them within their own systems of provision. 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 117 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work Matching excerpt #P7JM62: This chapter explores how recycling consumption work is practically accomplished by consumers in both our comparator countries, England and Sweden, drawing attention to what the work actually comprises and the implications of its successful accomplishment for the labour processes that follow. As already highlighted in chapters 3 and 4, we distinguish three distinct stages of work that consumers perform when preparing their household waste for recycling: first, waste has to be sorted into different categories (e.g. plastic, paper, glass, food, metal) and cleaned or readied for its onward journey; second, the different kinds of waste have to be collected together and stored in appropriate containers; and finally, consumers must leave their recycling outside their house or transport it to a bring-station/collection centre. This work varies according to the type of collection system in operation, as too does the propensity to carry out this work amongst household members, sometimes on the basis of gender and age. In terms of the socio-economic formations of labour (SEFL), these three tasks – supply, warehouse, distribution – can be considered the ‘technical division of labour’, whose performance is shaped by and influences both modal and processual divisions of labour. 4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 91 Context: #TWZCKJ Environmentally Regimented Rubbish: Recycling Systems in Sweden #LWS3U2 Conclusion Matching excerpt #D3NT7R: This chapter has highlighted how recycling processes rely on consumers regularly performing a range of tasks, and although these tasks may not be recognised by them as 'work', they nevertheless interdepend with the paid work tasks of those employed by the public sector, the not-for-profit sector and private market sector. Four socio-economic modes interdepend in the division of labour of waste management in Sweden: the municipalities are responsible for dealing with household wastes (including bulky items); the producers are responsible for dealing with packaging and electrical wastes; private waste management companies are responsible for collecting the waste in both producer and municipal systems; and the consumer is responsible for supplying, warehousing and distributing the waste into the different systems of provision. Work conducted under any of these socio-economic modes is shaped by the work conducted under the other socio-economic modes – for example, the willingness of the consumer to distribute recyclable material to packaging stations will be influenced by how regularly those packaging stations are emptied by the contractors employed by the producers' organisation, which in turn impacts upon how much packaging material is handled by the producers or municipalities. The consumer therefore plays an integral role in the division of labour within waste management, and both the material and energy economy depends upon and presupposes the completion of this work by consumers for its reproduction. As we will learn in Chapter 6, how consumers perform the key stages of recycling consumption work – supply, warehouse and distribution – is shaped by the institutional system of provision in which they are conducted, and in turn the labour processes within each distinct system of provision adapts to deal with the performance of this work by the consumer. 5. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 115 Context: #NAF2QB Market and State Heterogeneity: Recycling Systems in England #BGYSQZ The consumer’s role in the division of responsibility for waste management Matching excerpt #729QYL: As in Sweden, consumers in England perform three key consumption work tasks when they handle their recyclable waste – they supply this material, they store or warehouse this material in their homes and they accomplish the first stage of distribution when they leave this material on their kerbside for collection. The distribution stage is slightly less visible in the England than in Sweden, but it nevertheless remains an essential task performed by consumers. Without the consumer's input and performance of these three tasks, the waste management system would be unable to function. In Chapter 5, we explore these three consumption work tasks more fully, listening to how consumers in both Sweden and England perform and understand them within their own systems of provision. 6. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 133 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #8V8H63 Socio-economic formation of household recycling labour Matching excerpt #C7XPKS: Having explored how consumers practically accomplish the three stages of recycling consumption work in England and Sweden, we use the rest of this chapter to illustrate how the performance of these three activities is influenced and shaped by the broader socio-economic formation of labour. In the framework outlined in Chapter 2, we argued that there are three forms of differentiation and integration of labour: the technical, modal and processual divisions of labour. The supply, warehousing and 7. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 134 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #E4JZ2S Modal division of labour Matching excerpt #2ZDVR4: The modal division of labour refers to the way that work conducted under different socio-economic modes (public, private, not-for-profit, voluntary) interdepend. Therefore, what is of interest here is how the voluntary work of consumers who supply, store and distribute recyclable material interacts with work conducted by actors employed under different socio-economic modes. The most apparent example of this has already been highlighted when discussing whether consumers choose to recycle their material. The 'supply' stage of recycling consumption work can transform the same material into the responsibility of a different waste management organisation. In England, the division of responsibility between socio-economic actors for recyclable material and regular waste is quite complex. This means that the consumer's decision to place material into the regular waste could transform the responsibility for that material from the local collection authority to the disposal authority, or from a unitary local authority to a WMC, or some variant between these different actors. In Sweden, on the other hand, the situation is clearer. If consumers decide to supply their material to the producer-managed recycling station, this waste is transformed into a producer responsibility, whereas if they decide to put the material into the regular waste, it becomes a municipal responsibility. In all cases, the supply stage shapes whether a public, private or not-for-profit organisation is responsible for the material as it continues on its journey along the waste processing chain, after it leaves the hands of the consumer. In turn, the public, private or not-for-profit institution[s], with the responsibility for informing the consumer how to recycle and providing the infrastructure to enable this, also influence how competently the consumer performs their recycling consumption work. 8. 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 9. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 138 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #E4JZ2S Modal division of labour Matching excerpt #CH2MHS: have led to the development of kerbside collection infrastructures in some parts of Sweden (as in Lund) and a new type of modal division between municipalities and producers, which in turn influences how the consumer performs the three stages of recycling consumption work. 10. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 138 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #V9VWQE Processual division of labour Matching excerpt #JERALK: The processual division of labour refers to interactions between the work of consumers and the work conducted at the various different stages of the overall instituted economic process of waste management. Work done at any one phase of the labour process presupposes and is shaped by work undertaken at others. Therefore, what is of interest here is how the three stages of recycling consumption work influence and are shaped by the work that is done to this material as it is processed along the waste management chain. How well the consumers sort different fractions of recyclable material and whether they wash those materials does have implication for the processing stages that follow. As we have seen, consumers in both countries sometimes struggle to understand what items are recyclable. In England, the types of material that local authorities collect depend upon their access to sorting infrastructure, such as MRFs, and collection vehicles, as well as the end markets for materials. In Sweden, on the other hand, the types of material collected depend upon the distinction between packaging and non-packaging, which relates to definitions laid down by FTI and their members (the producers that own that packaging). Thus, the expectations placed upon and the skills required of consumers to discern between materials are directly shaped by the system of provision and division of labour along the waste processing chain. Let us look more closely, in turn, at these interconnections and implications of the performance of recycling consumption work in England and Sweden. Approximate matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 90 Context: #TWZCKJ Environmentally Regimented Rubbish: Recycling Systems in Sweden #WDSBDX The consumer's role in the division of responsibility for waste management Score: 0.643 Related excerpt #BLASPX: In sum, the consumer performs three key consumption work tasks when they handle their recyclable waste – they supply this material, they store or warehouse this material and they distribute the material to the appropriate collection point. The supply, warehousing and distribution of recyclable material are tasks that form an integral component within the division of labour and responsibility for waste management. Without the consumer's input and performance of these three tasks, the waste management system would be unable to function. As such, the work of consumers is essential for the maintenance of the producers' system and supports the continued work of municipalities and private WMCs. Just because this work is unpaid and conducted outside of the formal or market economy does not make it any less important. In Chapter 6, we shall be returning to these three consumption work tasks and exploring how consumers in both Sweden and England perform and understand them within their own systems of provision. 2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 115 Context: #NAF2QB Market and State Heterogeneity: Recycling Systems in England #BGYSQZ The consumer’s role in the division of responsibility for waste management Score: 0.64 Related excerpt #729QYL: As in Sweden, consumers in England perform three key consumption work tasks when they handle their recyclable waste – they supply this material, they store or warehouse this material in their homes and they accomplish the first stage of distribution when they leave this material on their kerbside for collection. The distribution stage is slightly less visible in the England than in Sweden, but it nevertheless remains an essential task performed by consumers. Without the consumer's input and performance of these three tasks, the waste management system would be unable to function. In Chapter 5, we explore these three consumption work tasks more fully, listening to how consumers in both Sweden and England perform and understand them within their own systems of provision. 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 133 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #8V8H63 Socio-economic formation of household recycling labour Score: 0.632 Related excerpt #C7XPKS: Having explored how consumers practically accomplish the three stages of recycling consumption work in England and Sweden, we use the rest of this chapter to illustrate how the performance of these three activities is influenced and shaped by the broader socio-economic formation of labour. In the framework outlined in Chapter 2, we argued that there are three forms of differentiation and integration of labour: the technical, modal and processual divisions of labour. The supply, warehousing and 4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 88 Context: #TWZCKJ Environmentally Regimented Rubbish: Recycling Systems in Sweden #WDSBDX The consumer's role in the division of responsibility for waste management Score: 0.625 Related excerpt #L938AF: materials and dispose of the former at the FTI recycling stations and the latter at the municipal recycling centres. As the above sections have indicated, the supply of these different materials by the consumer is crucial to maintenance of this system. How the consumer sorts their waste has an important implication for the division of labour along the waste processing chain. The actions of the consumer can turn the same waste product into either heat or recycled material and can transform the handling of the waste from a municipal to a producer responsibility. If packaging is disposed of along with the household waste, it is collected alongside other household waste by a private WMC or a municipal operator and is transported to a municipally controlled incineration plant where it is burned to generate heat and power. However if the packaging is disposed of at a packaging station, the consumer takes on some of the responsibility for distributing that material to the collection point (by taking the waste to a central point); she or he sorts it into the correct receptacle from where it is collected by a private WMC and delivered to the producers' organisation for onward processing. On the other hand, if the waste is not packaged but is made of a similar material (such as a plastic plant pot), the consumer again takes the responsibility for distributing the material to a municipal recycling centre, where she or he sorts it into the correct fraction and from which the municipality or their approved contractor collects and processes it. Thus, the actions of the consumer form an integral component within the division of labour of waste management and determine which party is responsible for its onward handling. 5. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 125 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #JQANKU Consumer research in Sweden Score: 0.612 Related excerpt #KNHQQF: The four case studies above have highlighted how recycling consumption work involves a number of key tasks – the supply, warehouse and distribution of materials – which are performed with varying degrees of competence by different household members, who coordinate these tasks with their other domestic routines (like cooking and gardening). The case studies have also revealed that the system of recycling provision influences how waste must be sorted, prepared, stored and presented at the kerbside. In turn, the way these tasks are performed has important implications for the materials' onward handling, shaping modal and processual divisions of labour. Before turning to the wider contribution of the consumer to this overall process of waste management, we will first present findings from two qualitative studies with Swedish consumers. 6. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 143 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #BRWHQV Conclusion Score: 0.611 Related excerpt #WBFNPT: This chapter has explored how consumers practically accomplish recycling tasks in their everyday routines, paying attention to three distinct stages of recycling consumption work. Drawing on examples from England and Sweden, we have shown that consumers supply, store and distribute their recyclable materials within their local system and have drawn out the implications of them performing these three tasks for the overall division of labour within waste management. We have seen how recycling consumption work is both shaped by and situated in an interdependent relationship within existing configurations of responsibility and systems of provision. We have developed our argument through the application and exploration of the three elements of differentiation and integration of work within the SEFL. We have argued that the supply, warehouse and distribution of recycling materials by consumers can be thought of as the technical division of tasks – which operate alongside the technical division of tasks performed by others employed within the waste management industries. The work of consumers interacts with the work and divisions of responsibility between actors working under different socio-economic bases, which in turn are shaped by how well the consumer performs those technical tasks. For example, whether the consumer supplies and distributes their waste as recycling or general waste influences which actor (public/private/not-for-profit) is responsible for this material, and the performance of this supply task is itself shaped by the types of information and provision offered by those different actors working in the public/private/not-for-profit sectors. Another dimension that influences the performance of recycling consumption work relates to the instituted process of labour across the waste management chain, with the processing and eventual destination of the material supplied by the consumer interacting with the requirements placed upon them to sort and prepare it. Mechanised sorting systems, for example, can reduce the amount of sorting labour that consumers have to perform, but consumers do still need to prepare their materials in a certain way for this process to result in high-quality materials for sale. Similarly, consideration of the life cycle of producer packaging is embedded in the organisation of the system of provision in Sweden which influences how/what the consumer must sort. In turn, keeping these materials 7. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 3 Context: #W238BY Front Matter #E5XDK4 HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING AND CONSUMPTION WORK #XWRA5U Consumption and Public Life #NSQB8U Titles include: Score: 0.607 Related excerpt #D3C4SM: HOUSEHOLD RECYCLING AND CONSUMPTION WORK 8. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 117 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work Score: 0.606 Related excerpt #79CSM4: This chapter draws extensively on the household study conducted in England in 2012 in order to demonstrate how consumers act as suppliers, warehouses and distributors for recyclable materials (see also Wheeler and Glucksmann, 2015). Through a presentation of four in-depth case studies, we reveal how recycling is organised and negotiated between household members on an everyday basis. We then go on to demonstrate how these three stages of work are performed by consumers in the Swedish context, drawing on secondary sources (Ewert et al., 2009; Henriksson et al., 2010; Skill, 2008), as well as our expert 9. 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: 0.599 Related excerpt #L649QR: Netherlands demonstrates how attempts at salvage relied on all the various phases of the operation, and the work associated with them, being developed in concert and integrated one with another. The absence of one phase or insufficient integration of the chain compromised the viability of entire venture. In contemporary England and Sweden, the consumer is situated at both ends of the circuit, at the end and the starting point of a continuous cyclical process of recycling, as producer of feedstock and as consumer of new recycled goods. Recycling creates new goods and markets, and in the process the downstream becomes the upstream. 10. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 128 Context: #3SXB7F The Three Stages of Recycling Consumption Work #JQANKU Consumer research in Sweden #2WFNK3 The consumer provides a warehouse Score: 0.591 Related excerpt #778L76: If the consumer does prepare the material for recycling, she or he needs to find somewhere to store it before transporting it to the collection point. Each household can be thought of as a warehouse for recyclable material, stowing the material in a dry and/or protected space before its transfer to point of distribution. Norms of cleanliness and maintaining a tidy home were key considerations for consumers in both Sweden and England (Jane’s ‘Ikea mega drawer’, for example). In Skill’s research, households tended ‘to store the recyclable goods in the basement, on the balcony, or in the garage, in places that do not need to be tidy and are subject to different standards of cleanliness’ (Skill, 2008: 184). ### 17. 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: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 215 Context: #E4VADY Varieties of Recycling Work #XN35ZM SEFL and future directions Matching excerpt #AG3842: The second dimension of differentiation and interaction is of labour across socio-economic modes (total social organisation of labour, or TSOL). The same tasks may be undertaken on very different bases (paid or unpaid, formal or informal) within a variety of domains (including state, market, not-for profit sector, household or community). Work may shift across socio-economic boundaries from one domain to another, and the boundaries themselves may change, but importantly the work undertaken in one socio-economic domain presupposes or interdepends with that undertaken in another. The collection and processing of domestic waste provides a clear example of this multi-modal interaction. The unpaid work of consumers who prepare their household waste according to the requirements of local collection systems interacts with the paid work of those employed by municipalities, private waste management companies and the not-for-profit producer organisations. Such work can shift between domains – for example, in Shropshire, when Veolia was awarded the contract for providing waste management services, former public sector workers were employed under new conditions within the private sector, with knock-on effects for consumers who were subject to new 'standardised' collection and sorting systems. In England, recycling relies on the interaction between work 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 46 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 #8F4SNG: The second dimension of differentiation and interaction is of labour across socio-economic modes (total social organisation of labour, or TSOL) (Glucksmann, 2005). These domains include the state, market, not-for-profit sector, household and community, where the same tasks (e.g. care work) may be undertaken on very different bases (paid or unpaid, formal or informal). Work may shift across socio-economic boundaries from one domain to another for a variety of reasons (including privatisation, outsourcing or cuts in public services), and the boundaries themselves may change. The work undertaken in one socio-economic domain presupposes or interdepends with that undertaken in another. For example, the recent history of care work across many European countries provides an instructive case, where a pre-existing division between private and public provision has been reconfigured, often with the result that unpaid household and community labour assumes a greater role than previously (Glucksmann and Lyon 2006; Lyon and Glucksmann, 2008). In different countries and at different times, work activities are distributed in particular ways between socio-economic domains, resulting in distinctive 'modal' organisations of labour. These are operative and may be discerned at a variety of scales, from particular fields of economic activity to the national or societal level. Some countries are characterised by the dominance of the market, with the public and not-for-profit sectors being relatively undeveloped, while in others the public sector may account for a large proportion of employment and the market for less. Interaction and interdependence between the multiplicity of socio-economic modes is a basic characteristic of contemporary capitalism, which may be more accurately described as 'multi-modal' than a 'mixed' economy. 4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 55 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #UN9LHM Outsourcing of consumption work Matching excerpt #CQXWV6: Thus far consumption work has been described as undertaken personally by consumers without pay. However, there also exist opportunities for consumers to outsource certain tasks to others for a payment. Many small businesses offer services to assemble furniture or install computer equipment. The large UK supermarkets all offer a home delivery service for Internet shopping. So consumers may either do it themselves or pay for it to be done by others. When tasks are outsourced, they shift across socio-economic boundary from the unpaid labour of the consumer or household to paid employment in the market. When undertaken for a monetary payment by intermediate businesses the labour counts as paid work rather than as consumption work. If consumers employ intermediaries to do the shopping, or install equipment, then the activity is effectively 'sent back' into paid marketised work. However, if consumers do the same tasks themselves, it is consumption work. Supermarket home delivery involves a different range of consumption work tasks from shopping in store. While it presupposes the consumption work of ordering groceries online, the work of selecting, packing and transporting the goods is undertaken on behalf of consumers and reverts to conventional paid work. 5. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 212 Context: #E4VADY Varieties of Recycling Work #CQNVSV Comparative contrasts: Sweden and England, Brazil and India Matching excerpt #2HUSTJ: England and Sweden. Our aim in comparing them is primarily to throw a light on the different economies of waste, and configurations of public and private, formal and informal, and paid and unpaid labour that characterise them. 6. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 61 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #2LDKSC Differentiating consumption work #VT776A Domestic labour Matching excerpt #BLSZNM: problematic aspect of the feminist socialist approach towards domestic labour was its productionist treatment of all work outside of employed labour as ultimately dedicated to the re/production of capital, through re/producing labour for the labour market. The paradigm was based on a rigid home/work, unpaid/paid labour dualism and had no space for consideration of the work necessary for the consumption of commodities, whether or not these contribute to reproduction, and irrespective of where they are undertaken. 7. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 44 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Matching excerpt #B3GJXZ: Recognising consumption work as a terrain for study in its own right entails a number of theoretical presuppositions and implications. Conventional approaches to the division of labour, which focus predominantly on the market and paid employment, or which study one industry or work place, are unlikely to include the work of consumers within their analytical frame. Yet such work, usually unpaid, is often essential to completion of a process of production or service provision. The following discussion aims to clarify the terrain of consumption work, its empirical significance as a field of research enquiry, and to define and delimit it in relation to existing concepts and concerns. The first section situates consumption work within a broader three dimensional framework for analysing divisions, or 'socio-economic formations', of labour. The second defines and characterises consumption work, using examples drawn from everyday life. The third section distinguishes consumption work and the approach we are developing to it from other activities and forms of work that may overlap with it and the literatures conceptualising them. The three main foci here are consumption, domestic labour and the linked approaches of co-production, prosption and co-creation. Finally, we summarise our understanding of the household recycling of waste as a form of consumption work, shaped by prevailing systems of provision and occupying a distinctive place within the division of labour. We suggest that the input of consumers is a key component of economic process in this as in many other domains. 8. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 49 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 #K5ND2D: Taken together, these three dimensions integrate a relational conception of the work of consumers within the analysis of the overall socio-economic formation of labour. Conversely, consumption work provides an analytically key entry route for exploring articulation of the three dimensions of socio-economic formations of labour. The work consumers undertake (what skills are acquired, the amount and range of work to make consumption possible) depends on how goods and services are sold, on how 'complete' they are and on their potential uses. As shown by the simple example of bread, the unpaid non-market mode of work that consumers need to do depends on how work is technically organised, as well as on how work is shifted upstream and downstream in the system of provision and marketing. In the case of recycling, the wartime experience in both England and in occupied France and the 9. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 90 Context: #TWZCKJ Environmentally Regimented Rubbish: Recycling Systems in Sweden #WDSBDX The consumer's role in the division of responsibility for waste management Matching excerpt #BLASPX: In sum, the consumer performs three key consumption work tasks when they handle their recyclable waste – they supply this material, they store or warehouse this material and they distribute the material to the appropriate collection point. The supply, warehousing and distribution of recyclable material are tasks that form an integral component within the division of labour and responsibility for waste management. Without the consumer's input and performance of these three tasks, the waste management system would be unable to function. As such, the work of consumers is essential for the maintenance of the producers' system and supports the continued work of municipalities and private WMCs. Just because this work is unpaid and conducted outside of the formal or market economy does not make it any less important. In Chapter 6, we shall be returning to these three consumption work tasks and exploring how consumers in both Sweden and England perform and understand them within their own systems of provision. 10. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 116 Context: #NAF2QB Market and State Heterogeneity: Recycling Systems in England #KR8AFZ Conclusion Matching excerpt #5Y5X7S: This chapter has highlighted that the work of consumers forms an essential component in the maintenance and reproduction of waste management systems. Just because this work is unpaid and conducted outside of the formal or market economy does not make it any less important. Consumers act as suppliers, warehousers and distributors of materials, which are then appropriated by local authorities/private waste management companies before being sold on to processing companies for a profit. How the consumer performs the key stages of recycling consumption work is shaped by the institutional system of provision in which they are conducted, and in turn the labour processes within each distinct system of provision adapts to deal with the performance of this work by the consumer. Chapter 5 looks in greater detail at these interdependencies between the work conducted by consumers and the work conducted under different socio-economic modes at different points within the instituted economic process of waste management in our two countries. Approximate matches 1. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 62 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #2LDKSC Differentiating consumption work #VT776A Domestic labour Score: 0.672 Related excerpt #JET56L: provision' incorporates both paid and unpaid forms of work (2000: 18). Both prefigure the consumption work optic being developed here. 2. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 55 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #UN9LHM Outsourcing of consumption work Score: 0.669 Related excerpt #CQXWV6: Thus far consumption work has been described as undertaken personally by consumers without pay. However, there also exist opportunities for consumers to outsource certain tasks to others for a payment. Many small businesses offer services to assemble furniture or install computer equipment. The large UK supermarkets all offer a home delivery service for Internet shopping. So consumers may either do it themselves or pay for it to be done by others. When tasks are outsourced, they shift across socio-economic boundary from the unpaid labour of the consumer or household to paid employment in the market. When undertaken for a monetary payment by intermediate businesses the labour counts as paid work rather than as consumption work. If consumers employ intermediaries to do the shopping, or install equipment, then the activity is effectively 'sent back' into paid marketised work. However, if consumers do the same tasks themselves, it is consumption work. Supermarket home delivery involves a different range of consumption work tasks from shopping in store. While it presupposes the consumption work of ordering groceries online, the work of selecting, packing and transporting the goods is undertaken on behalf of consumers and reverts to conventional paid work. 3. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 52 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Score: 0.613 Related excerpt #LFEGCA: These are some of the tasks to be included under the rubric of consumption work. Different stages in the instituted economic process or cycle of production and provision, through distribution and exchange, to consumption, require different kinds of input on the part of consumers: before acquisition, selecting a provider or product and organising the exchange and delivery and, once acquired, preparing goods for use, as well as for their eventual disposal. Virtually all goods require further activity on the part of the consumer after purchase and prior to use in order to render them consumable. Following the final transaction, consumption work converts the product into an object for consumption and defines precisely what is in the end consumed. 2 Work undertaken post-exchange but prior to use has a non-market character: it is not organised or specified by the seller or other market agents but falls to the consumer to accomplish outside of exchange relations. The need for such activity on the part of the consumer remains the case even where the bulk of responsibility for preparatory work lies with the producer rather than consumer, or has moved towards the provider through a process of commoditisation (e.g. food) or public provision (e.g. water). 3 4. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 55 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #UN9LHM Outsourcing of consumption work Score: 0.609 Related excerpt #ERG253: Consumption work can thus be characterised as comprising a large and disparate range of activities required for the purchase, use, reuse and disposal of consumption goods and services, their precise nature dependent on the particular good or service, and its system of provision. The need to acquire appropriate competences and knowledge and to coordinate activities are central to the performance and organisation of consumption work, and are to be included in its characterisation. However, the possibility for consumption work to be outsourced serves as a reminder that the socio-economic relations within which tasks are accomplished are crucial in determining whether or not work activities count as consumption work. 5. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 53 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #YZ3YS7 Consumption work as an economic activity Score: 0.607 Related excerpt #P7DX65: In most cases, consumers will take for granted the demands made of them as simply the normal way of doing things, without giving them a second thought or thinking of them either as work or as onerous. Yet, from the perspective of economic activity, accomplishment of the tasks is integral to and presupposed for completion and repetition of the process. The fact that they are individualised and become the responsibility of individual consumers or households, that they are undertaken outside of market or formal economy relations and that they are unpaid, should not detract from their role. Moreover, when considered separately in relation to a particular phase of the circuit, or to a particular consumption good, they may not amount to much. However, when considered collectively as the totality of all tasks associated with all the stages of a process, in relation to all consumption goods and services, the picture looks rather different. From this viewpoint, consumption work may be seen as an extensive realm of activity and one that is not normally acknowledged, certainly in theory but often also in practice. Just because the work required of consumers is not usually named, and may not be experienced as such, does not mean that consumption work is insignificant as a form of work, or not amenable to analysis. The aim in grouping together under one heading and naming the disparate range of tasks is to open up a large black box and to highlight a form of labour, which, although necessary, has largely been invisible or ignored. 6. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 44 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Score: 0.606 Related excerpt #B3GJXZ: Recognising consumption work as a terrain for study in its own right entails a number of theoretical presuppositions and implications. Conventional approaches to the division of labour, which focus predominantly on the market and paid employment, or which study one industry or work place, are unlikely to include the work of consumers within their analytical frame. Yet such work, usually unpaid, is often essential to completion of a process of production or service provision. The following discussion aims to clarify the terrain of consumption work, its empirical significance as a field of research enquiry, and to define and delimit it in relation to existing concepts and concerns. The first section situates consumption work within a broader three dimensional framework for analysing divisions, or 'socio-economic formations', of labour. The second defines and characterises consumption work, using examples drawn from everyday life. The third section distinguishes consumption work and the approach we are developing to it from other activities and forms of work that may overlap with it and the literatures conceptualising them. The three main foci here are consumption, domestic labour and the linked approaches of co-production, prosption and co-creation. Finally, we summarise our understanding of the household recycling of waste as a form of consumption work, shaped by prevailing systems of provision and occupying a distinctive place within the division of labour. We suggest that the input of consumers is a key component of economic process in this as in many other domains. 7. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 49 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: 0.605 Related excerpt #K5ND2D: Taken together, these three dimensions integrate a relational conception of the work of consumers within the analysis of the overall socio-economic formation of labour. Conversely, consumption work provides an analytically key entry route for exploring articulation of the three dimensions of socio-economic formations of labour. The work consumers undertake (what skills are acquired, the amount and range of work to make consumption possible) depends on how goods and services are sold, on how 'complete' they are and on their potential uses. As shown by the simple example of bread, the unpaid non-market mode of work that consumers need to do depends on how work is technically organised, as well as on how work is shifted upstream and downstream in the system of provision and marketing. In the case of recycling, the wartime experience in both England and in occupied France and the 8. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 42 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Score: 0.594 Related excerpt #WF9ACX: consumption. It challenges the notion of 'production' and 'consumption' as watertight realms and calls for a conception of the division of labour that extends from the market and world of paid employment to encompass the end user. Recycling is to be understood as one example of the broader phenomenon of consumption work. 9. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 50 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #TNJ9YK Characterising consumption work Score: 0.594 Related excerpt #T32NX9: The work of consumers includes a whole range of activities both prior to, during and after acquisition of goods or services that are a precondition of using or appreciating them. Hence, our working definition of consumption work is as ' all work necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services '. Each good or service comes with its own specific range of consumption work tasks. These will be introduced sequentially with reference to everyday examples before more formally identifying certain generic characteristics of consumption work. 10. Source: Household Recycling and Consumption Work (#4LST57), Kathryn Wheeler, Miriam Glucksmann, p. 44 Context: #SG3XKH Consumers as Workers in Economies of Waste #MCE5DZ Introducing consumption work Score: 0.585 Related excerpt #BNWWWF: to the many kinds of domestic, leisure and personal equipment that our routine lives increasingly rely on. Work is necessary not only in order for the consumption of goods and services to take place, but many forms of consumption also create work as a consequence of use (e.g. disposal of the washing machines). And since many forms of consumption work presuppose particular competencies or knowledge, its relation to learning and skills acquisition is also an important area for consideration. Coordination represents a further significant aspect of consumption work: over and above the tasks linked with specific goods are those required both to coordinate a range of products that are used in combination and also to coordinate between consumers where consumption is a collective or social activity. Examples involving both these dimensions might include commensality (coordinating the various elements of the meal and the people eating it) or a camping trip (researching the location, getting together the equipment, means of transport, participants). These and other distinctive characteristics of consumption work will be developed below. ### 18. Assistant tool calls #### Tool call: `write_note` ```json { "block_ids": [ "T32NX9", "K4CB2W", "75NQG2", "73YW3A", "S5UQYZ", "AJLVC7", "BLASPX", "P7JM62", "DKNKM6", "HM3BWV", "4PNKDC", "73NW5B", "MSGHYR", "796DZS" ], "text": "Wheeler & Glucksmann's Household Recycling and Consumption Work should be used in the thesis primarily as a general concept/framework for recognising unpaid consumer labour, not as a direct claim that they empirically studied second-hand markets. The book defines consumption work as “all work necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services” #T32NX9 and develops the technical/modal/processual SEFL framework #K4CB2W #75NQG2. It does mention second-hand cultures, charity shops, car boot sales and eBay, and notes care in ridding/divesting goods #73YW3A #S5UQYZ, but explicitly says practices of giving/selling to second-hand outlets are not its focus #AJLVC7. For Brīvbode, the concept works best if reframed from household recycling feeding formal waste/material markets to semi-public non-monetary circulation where labour is redistributed among donors, takers, volunteers, and informal networks. Difference: in recycling, householders supply, warehouse and distribute feedstock to municipal/producer/private systems #BLASPX #P7JM62; in Brīvbode, households and volunteers sort, store, transport, curate, value, and morally regulate reusable objects in a gift/freecycling infrastructure #DKNKM6 #HM3BWV #4PNKDC #73NW5B. The absence of price makes valuation work more explicit #MSGHYR and shifts some divestment labour from participants to volunteers #HM3BWV. The draft should revise #796DZS to avoid saying Wheeler & Glucksmann 'contend that secondhand markets involve consumption work' and instead say their broad definition makes reuse/divestment analytically available as consumption work, while Brīvbode extends the framework into non-market exchange.", "title": "Consumption work: Wheeler & Glucksmann and Brīvbode adaptation" } ``` ### 19. Tool result: write_note NOTE SAVED #GRWRWK IRI: https://sheaf.less.rest/GRWRWK ### 20. Assistant I checked the thesis draft against Wheeler & Glucksmann’s *Household Recycling and Consumption Work* and saved a durable note here: #GRWRWK. ## Main finding The thesis is using Wheeler & Glucksmann in a productive way, but one sentence should be tightened. The draft currently says: > “Wheeler and Glucksmann (2015) contend that secondhand markets involve consumption work – sorting, cleaning, repairing” #796DZS That is a little too strong. The book **does not mainly study second-hand markets**. Its empirical focus is household recycling systems, especially in England and Sweden. It does mention second-hand cultures, charity shops, car boot sales, eBay, and “ridding” goods with care #73YW3A #S5UQYZ, but it explicitly says that practices of giving/selling to second-hand outlets are **not its focus** #AJLVC7. So the thesis should not present Wheeler & Glucksmann as directly making an argument about second-hand markets. Better: they provide a **general framework** for seeing unpaid consumer labour in acquisition, use, re-use, and disposal. ## What the book actually gives you The strongest usable parts are: 1. **Definition of consumption work** They define it as “all work necessary for the purchase, use, re-use and disposal of consumption goods and services” #T32NX9. This definition is broad enough for Brīvbode. 2. **The point that this labour is usually invisible** Consumers often experience these tasks as just “normal way of doing things,” not as work, but the tasks are still necessary for the system to function #P7DX65. 3. **Technical / modal / processual framework** They distinguish: - technical division of tasks and skills; - modal interdependencies across paid/unpaid, market/non-market, formal/informal work; - processual connections across production, distribution, exchange, consumption/post-exchange #K4CB2W #75NQG2. 4. **Three recycling tasks: supply, warehouse, distribute** In household recycling, consumers sort/clean/readify materials, store them at home, and move them to collection points #P7JM62. This is the most directly comparable model for Brīvbode, though it needs adaptation. ## How this differs in Brīvbode The thesis already has the right instinct: Brīvbode is not just “another recycling case”; it is a **non-monetary, semi-public circulation infrastructure**. In Wheeler & Glucksmann, household recycling work usually feeds into **municipal, producer, private-sector, or not-for-profit waste systems**. Households supply, warehouse, and distribute recyclable feedstock; then formal actors process and often sell materials onward #BLASPX #5Y5X7S. In Brīvbode, the chain is different: > household → swapshop → household Objects are not primarily transformed into industrial feedstock or commodity value. They are kept as usable things. The work is still consumption work, but it is organised around **reuse, care, moral valuation, and social circulation**, rather than around formal waste markets. ## What Brīvbode adds to the concept ### 1. Consumption work becomes visible in a semi-public space The thesis nicely argues that Brīvbode makes normally private divestment/acquisition work visible #6G862E #TEEVBW. This is a real extension of Wheeler & Glucksmann, whose work begins from household routines and formal waste infrastructures. ### 2. The absence of price creates new valuation work This is one of the strongest original points. In markets, price does some valuation work. In Brīvbode, people must decide morally and relationally what is appropriate to bring, take, leave, or discard. Madara’s discomfort — “At first it felt a bit like I was stealing” — shows that freeness does not remove valuation; it relocates it into the participant #MSGHYR. ### 3. Brīvbode redistributes work, it does not simply reduce it The paragraph on online selling is good: selling requires photographing, describing, communicating, arranging meetings; Brīvbode lowers this divestment burden for participants #HM3BWV. But the labour does not disappear. It shifts to volunteers who sort, assess, curate, maintain quality, and manage social needs #ZJG8XW #737NYX. This fits Wheeler & Glucksmann’s core point: work does not vanish when systems change; it moves across socio-economic boundaries #LR5FFK. ### 4. Modal labour is especially important here The modal dimension is probably the best fit. Brīvbode brings together unpaid volunteering, household management, neighbourly help, care work, informal exchange, and some indirect relation to textile/waste infrastructures #4PNKDC #5ZQLP4. Unlike Wheeler & Glucksmann’s recycling systems, the dominant mode is not state/market coordination but volunteer/community coordination. ### 5. Processual labour becomes networked and gendered The draft’s processual section is strong: Brīvbode depends on extended divestment networks where certain women become logistics nodes for neighbours, relatives, colleagues, and families #73NW5B #JY7V8V. This parallels Wheeler & Glucksmann’s gendered recycling finding — women sorting, men transporting — but in Brīvbode the gendered work expands into social mediation, moral judgement, and care #8QVYKY. ## Suggested replacement for #796DZS I would revise that paragraph like this: > Wheeler and Glucksmann (2015) develop “consumption work” as a concept for naming the often invisible labour required before, during, and after consumption: the tasks necessary for the purchase, use, re-use, and disposal of goods and services. Their empirical focus is household recycling rather than second-hand exchange, but their framework is useful here because it shows how material circulation depends on unpaid and often unrecognised work by consumers. They distinguish technical dimensions of labour, concerning the allocation of tasks and competencies; modal dimensions, concerning interdependencies across paid and unpaid, formal and informal, market and non-market arrangements; and processual dimensions, concerning how labour is distributed across the full span of production, distribution, exchange, consumption, and disposal. In Brīvbode, this framework needs to be adapted from household recycling into a context of non-monetary reuse: goods do not primarily enter industrial recycling markets, but move from household to household through a volunteer-run infrastructure where sorting, storing, transporting, curating, and valuing remain necessary forms of work. Also fix spelling: “Gluckmann” → “Glucksmann” in #796DZS and #DKNKM6. ## Bottom line argument The concept works very well for Brīvbode **if framed as an adaptation, not a direct application**. Wheeler & Glucksmann help name the labour that makes circulation possible. Brīvbode shows what happens when that labour is organised not through commercial exchange or municipal recycling, but through a non-monetary, volunteer-run moral economy where value is kept in use, price is absent, and the work of deciding, caring, sorting, and routing becomes socially central.