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Theme: 3. Prosperity, the Pains of Growth and its Governance
Immanuela Asa Rahadini
Asia Research Institute, NUS, Singapore
Qian Hui Tan
Asia Research Institute, NUS, Singapore
Natalie Pang
National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
Immanuela Asa Rahadini
Asia Research Institute, NUS, Singapore
Natalie Pang
National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
Qian Hui Tan
Asia Research Institute, NUS, Singapore
Touted as a panacea for negative environmental externalities like resource depletion and waste generation, circular transitions have gained traction in policy circles and public/academic discourses. Such negative externalities are purportedly alleviated by closing circularity loops, i.e. transforming waste/outputs into resources/inputs through the promotion of circular R-behaviours (e.g. reduce, reuse, recycle). Consumers, households and communities are hence increasingly expected to play a larger role in closing circularity loops by investing in R-behaviours including reusing and recovering things, sorting/rinsing/bringing recyclables to a recycling point, and repairing household objects. Integral to a circular economic agenda are new forms of ‘consumption work’ needed to secure and set in train R-behaviours. Such work is not only hidden and unpaid, but often embedded in prevailing gender and class relations.
This panel expounds on the quotidian lived experiences of distributing, negotiating and (p)refiguring circular consumption work among members of households and communities in the domestic sphere and beyond. Given the salience of unwaged consumption work in a circular economy, this panel interrogates the extent to which time-consuming, labour-intensive circular R-behaviours are socially sustainable on the ground, and whether they contribute to sustainable development goals or a more radical ‘de/post-growth’ economy. To this end, we invite presentations informed by social-scientific/humanities approaches that consider:
a) the opportunities and challenges of securing (non-)material resources (e.g. time, skills) required for cultivating circular R-behaviours and sufficiency-oriented consumption patterns;
b) who bears the disproportionate burden of performing household/community consumption work and whether this exacerbates pre-existing social inequalities;
c) the kinds of circular R-behaviours that are prioritised over others and why;
d) circular R-behaviours and other related not-for-profit activities/arrangements involving but also exceeding the domestic domain, such as alternative systems of provisioning; and
e) how the cultural-institutional context of Asia shapes circular R-behaviours, households and communities.
Overall, this panel throws light on the requisite proficiencies/resources for competent circular consumption work and the interplay between socio-institutional structures and consumption choices. It also hopes to enrich the overwhelmingly Western-centric scholarship on circular consumption/households by offering an Asian vantage point.