Everyday Politics of Circular Futures
Doctoral thesis
Permanent lenke
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3068839Utgivelsesdato
2023Metadata
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- Institutt for design [1219]
Sammendrag
This thesis deals primarily with the ideas about a circular economy (CE). A branch of critical studies about CE has emerged in recent years. These critical studies take the nexus of consumption and production as its point of departure but expand the questions to the social contexts and effects of how CE is conceived and performed. As CE has entered mainstream sustainability discourses, policies, and practices, we see the contours of a dominant version of CE. This mainstreamed version of CE affirms the social structures that some have referred to as the cause of most global environmental crises by prioritizing technical change, profit-making, and economic growth.
Positioned as contribution to critical studies about CE, the work in this thesis recognizes that the concept of CE offers an opportunity to question the aspects that sustain and reproduce current consumption and production systems as part of social life. If framed this way, CE is considered a transition that requires a profound societal transformation to foster more just societies. To open the space of possibility in transitioning towards a CE means opening its futures to common senses and social imaginaries that organize production and consumption differently.
The thesis is based on a research-for-design approach, meaning its contributions inform the relationship between CE and the design discipline. This orientation acknowledges that many conventional practices in the design industry also affirm current ways of organizing production and consumption. Thus, the critique of CE is also reflected in a critique of design.
The main research aim of this thesis is to identify opportunities for design to support CEs based on social imaginaries that contest the currently dominant organization of production and consumption. This aim implies that design covers activities that reach beyond professional designers. Moreover, it supposes that other forms of organization, doing, and being are possible despite the dominant structuration of social life.
In terms of theory, the work in this thesis is based on critical perspectives, most prominently an understanding of social life employing social practice theory to analyze the normality of social life and the persistence or change of dominant projects as part of everyday life.
This thesis derives from three empirical studies conducted in Trondheim, a major city and municipality in the Trøndelag region in Norway, to elucidate alternative possibilities for CE. The first study looks at CE as part of the discourses of actors involved in its emergence in the public sector at different scales, in the private for-profit sector, and the organized civil society. The second study looks at social practices that contest consumerism by incorporating modalities of consumption based on repair and reuse. Finally, the third study looks at the general political context of governance for a CE; this study derives from two workshops, one about climate change conducted with youth citizens of the Trøndelag region and one about what is considered to be necessary production and consumption.
The results of the studies show evidence of a possible social reconfiguration concerning consumption.In the first study, an alternative discourse emerges in Trondheim, diverging from the imperative of economic growth as proposed by the discourses in the policies and proposals by the national – Norway – and European institutions. This divergent discourse points towards the reduction of consumption. It is enacted in practice by the municipality and local organized civil society through services prioritizing other welfare aspects –i.e., sharing and public access– over economic growth. The second study shows a contestation of consumerism anchored on practices that do not rehearse the competences of the market –buying and selling. Instead, these practical engagements organize around the social circulation of knowledge and material resources. The social circulation of knowledge also connects to identities and technical skills. Finally, the third study used participatory futuring to demonstrate that the core aspects of a CE are included in other societal discussions, in which CE does not need to be explicitly addressed –for example, about climate change and the governance of production and consumption. It shows that other aspects of the critique of CE can be questioned and explored by decentering the discursive load of the concept –and how it predisposes its enactment, such as the power dynamics, responsibilities, and expectations of the different actors as part of their roles in the production and consumption system.
To conclude, the results from the empirical studies present alternative social imaginaries in the configuration of another common sense in Trondheim. Furthermore, this alternative common sense is linked to an alternative CE based on priorities sustained by a welfare system. This alternative CE emerges from the contestations to economic growth, market competences, and knowledge production modes that do not consider the affected actors. Finally, following a research-for-design orientation, these contestations are posed as opportunities to be advanced by design. In this sense, design acts integrating CE should consider these contestations and their broader political implications.
Består av
Paper 1: Ortega Alvarado, Isaac Arturo; Sutcliffe, Thomas Edward; Berker, Thomas; Pettersen, Ida Nilstad. Emerging circular economies: Discourse coalitions in a Norwegian case. Sustainable Production and Consumption 2021 ;Volum 26C. s. 360-372. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.Paper 2: Ortega Alvarado, Isaac Arturo; Pettersen, Ida Nilstad; Berker, Thomas. Contesting Consumerism with a Circular Economy?. Circular Economy and Sustainability 2022. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.
Paper 3: Ursin, Marit; Lorgen, Linn C.; Ortega Alvarado, Isaac Arturo; Smalsundmo, Ani-Lea; Chang Nordgård, Runar; Bern, Mari Roald; Bjørnevik, Kjersti. Promoting Intergenerational Justice Through Participatory Practices: Climate Workshops as an Arena for Young People’s Political Participation. Frontiers in Psychology 2021 ;Volum 12. s. - This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).
Paper 4: Ortega Alvarado, Isaac Arturo; Pettersen, Ida Nilstad. Designing for what? Approaching necessary production and consumption for a circular economy. Proceedings of DRS 2022. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license.