Call for Participation [Special Session] :

Rethinking Consumption in the Circular Economy 

 

 

We are looking for participants for a session which we are organizing as part of the conference "Transforming consumption-production systems towards just and sustainable futures" hosted by the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI), the European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (ERSCP) and Wageningen University & Research (WUR), July 5-8, 2023 in Wageningen, The Netherlands.

Session title: Everyday circularities: rethinking consumption in the Circular Economy 

 

• Proposed Session: Academic session of 90 minutes
• Chairs: Kersty Hobson, Cardiff University and Mary Greene, Wageningen University
• Session Type: Paper Presentations (i.e. not full papers at the time of the conference, but with the possibility of developing presentations into a special issue after the conference)

Abstract
In most accounts of the societal transformations that are key to Circular Economy frameworks, changes to everyday practices are often under-theorized and under-researched. Consumers renting, re-using, and repairing—or signing up to ‘sustainable product service systems’—are, for the most part, framed as reliant upon shifts in attitudes, technological innovation and/or price signals, which can be brought in via established routes of social change e.g. nudging, R&D. Much less consideration is given to the profound socio-material and spatial transformations that ‘circular’ consumption will require. For example, where are ‘libraries of things’ located, and how do issues of time, mobility, information, and cultural capital affect their use? How can and do households adopt multiple circular practices, and to what effect? How does seeing everyday practice as systems of provision rather than a series of isolated acts shift our perspectives? This session aims to discuss such questions, focussing on theorising and researching ‘everyday circularities’ from a critical social science perspective, inviting submissions on topics such as, but not limited to:

 

1. The social dynamics of circular consumption practices
2. Institutional and policy interventions towards circular consumption
3. Sufficiency, consumption and the everyday
4. Methodologies of household circularities
5. The role of action research in circular consumption practices

Please send an abstract of 300-500 words to Kersty Hobson (hobsonk@cardiff.ac.uk) and Mary Greene (mary.greene@wur.nl) by 16th November 2022 at 14.00. Abstracts should follow the conference guidelines as outlined on the conference website.