Circular economy disclaimers: Rethinking property relations at the end of cheap nature
Converging environmental crises have inspired a movement to shift dominant economic forms away from linear “take-make-waste” models and toward more circular forms that reimagine discarded materials as valuable resources. With the coming “end of cheap nature”, this invitation to reimagine waste as so...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2023-01-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Sustainability |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2022.1007802/full |
| _version_ | 1797960591230369792 |
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| author | Cindy Isenhour Brieanne Berry Erin Victor |
| author_facet | Cindy Isenhour Brieanne Berry Erin Victor |
| author_sort | Cindy Isenhour |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Converging environmental crises have inspired a movement to shift dominant economic forms away from linear “take-make-waste” models and toward more circular forms that reimagine discarded materials as valuable resources. With the coming “end of cheap nature”, this invitation to reimagine waste as something more than “the political other of capitalist value” is seen as both an environmental necessity and an opportunity for green growth. Less often discussed is that the circular economy, in its reconfiguration of value, also has the potential to reshape contemporary property relations and dismantle existing forms of circularity. In this paper, we explore potential shifts in property relations through an analysis of three strategies often imagined as key to facilitating the transition to circularity—extended producer responsibility, repair, and online resale. Each case synthesizes existing research, public discourse, and findings from a series of focus groups and interviews with circular economy professionals. While this research is preliminary and demands additional research, all three cases suggest caution given the possibility that some circular economy strategies can concentrate value and control of existing materials stocks, dispossess those most vulnerable, and alienate participants in existing reuse, recycling, and repair markets. Drawing on and adapting Luxemburg's concept of primitive accumulation, Tsing's ideas about salvage accumulation, Moore's work on commodity frontiers and recent research which encourages more attention to processes of commoning—we argue that without careful attention to relations of power and justice in conceptualizations of ownership and the collective actions necessary to transform our economic forms in common, transitions toward the circular economy have the potential to enclose the value of discards and exacerbate inequality. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T00:47:34Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-239a6a9c48f34bdba6937863f59df938 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2673-4524 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T00:47:34Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Sustainability |
| spelling | doaj.art-239a6a9c48f34bdba6937863f59df9382023-01-05T13:03:32ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Sustainability2673-45242023-01-01310.3389/frsus.2022.10078021007802Circular economy disclaimers: Rethinking property relations at the end of cheap natureCindy Isenhour0Brieanne Berry1Erin Victor2Department of Anthropology, Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, Orono, ME, United StatesDepartment of Environmental Studies, Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA, United StatesDepartment of Anthropology, University of Maine, Orono, ME, United StatesConverging environmental crises have inspired a movement to shift dominant economic forms away from linear “take-make-waste” models and toward more circular forms that reimagine discarded materials as valuable resources. With the coming “end of cheap nature”, this invitation to reimagine waste as something more than “the political other of capitalist value” is seen as both an environmental necessity and an opportunity for green growth. Less often discussed is that the circular economy, in its reconfiguration of value, also has the potential to reshape contemporary property relations and dismantle existing forms of circularity. In this paper, we explore potential shifts in property relations through an analysis of three strategies often imagined as key to facilitating the transition to circularity—extended producer responsibility, repair, and online resale. Each case synthesizes existing research, public discourse, and findings from a series of focus groups and interviews with circular economy professionals. While this research is preliminary and demands additional research, all three cases suggest caution given the possibility that some circular economy strategies can concentrate value and control of existing materials stocks, dispossess those most vulnerable, and alienate participants in existing reuse, recycling, and repair markets. Drawing on and adapting Luxemburg's concept of primitive accumulation, Tsing's ideas about salvage accumulation, Moore's work on commodity frontiers and recent research which encourages more attention to processes of commoning—we argue that without careful attention to relations of power and justice in conceptualizations of ownership and the collective actions necessary to transform our economic forms in common, transitions toward the circular economy have the potential to enclose the value of discards and exacerbate inequality.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2022.1007802/fullpropertyenclosureprivatizationcommoningwasteenvironmental policy |
| spellingShingle | Cindy Isenhour Brieanne Berry Erin Victor Circular economy disclaimers: Rethinking property relations at the end of cheap nature Frontiers in Sustainability property enclosure privatization commoning waste environmental policy |
| title | Circular economy disclaimers: Rethinking property relations at the end of cheap nature |
| title_full | Circular economy disclaimers: Rethinking property relations at the end of cheap nature |
| title_fullStr | Circular economy disclaimers: Rethinking property relations at the end of cheap nature |
| title_full_unstemmed | Circular economy disclaimers: Rethinking property relations at the end of cheap nature |
| title_short | Circular economy disclaimers: Rethinking property relations at the end of cheap nature |
| title_sort | circular economy disclaimers rethinking property relations at the end of cheap nature |
| topic | property enclosure privatization commoning waste environmental policy |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsus.2022.1007802/full |
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