Reclaiming unwanted things: alternative consumption practices, social change and the everyday
type: CreativeWork
description: This study looks at ways of acquiring, using and disposing of goods 'outside' the formal economy, focusing on three examples of reclamation practices: (1) giving and receiving goods free of charge via online reuse networks; (2) collecting and redistributing unwanted fruit from public and private spaces; and (3) reclaiming discarded food from supermarket bins. A central concern is with the relationship between everyday life and social change: how can engagement in these alternative yet mundane practices be conceptualised as a way to secure wider change? The research engages with and contributes to several intersecting debates, including: the relationship between 'alternative' and 'mainstream' economies; understandings of how new ways of doing things become adopted and spread; and interactions between values and practices. These issues are explored from a practice perspective. Analytical focus shifts from the attitudes and preferences of detached rational individuals to the social organisation of practices and the engagement of embodied social actors with those practices. Attention is paid to the lives of practices and their practitioners: how different social patterns of activity emerge and evolve; and how these become integrated into people's lives. In considering the lives of reclamation practices, analysis draws on participant observation, interviews and documentary sources. Moving on to the lives of practitioners, in-depth interview material takes centre stage, detailing how participants made sense of their engagement in these practices, how they became engaged, how engagement has been sustained and how it fits alongside other everyday practices. Findings can be summarised with respect to two analytical framings of reclamation practices, (1) as alternative consumption practices and (2) as a form of ordinary prefigurative politics. First, the research highlights the messy, overlapping nature of 'alternative' and 'mainstream' economic practices. On the one hand, as…
abstract: This study looks at ways of acquiring, using and disposing of goods 'outside' the formal economy, focusing on three examples of reclamation practices: (1) giving and receiving goods free of charge via online reuse networks; (2) collecting and redistributing unwanted fruit from public and private spaces; and (3) reclaiming discarded food from supermarket bins. A central concern is with the relationship between everyday life and social change: how can engagement in these alternative yet mundane practices be conceptualised as a way to secure wider change? The research engages with and contributes to several intersecting debates, including: the relationship between 'alternative' and 'mainstream' economies; understandings of how new ways of doing things become adopted and spread; and interactions between values and practices. These issues are explored from a practice perspective. Analytical focus shifts from the attitudes and preferences of detached rational individuals to the social organisation of practices and the engagement of embodied social actors with those practices. Attention is paid to the lives of practices and their practitioners: how different social patterns of activity emerge and evolve; and how these become integrated into people's lives. In considering the lives of reclamation practices, analysis draws on participant observation, interviews and documentary sources. Moving on to the lives of practitioners, in-depth interview material takes centre stage, detailing how participants made sense of their engagement in these practices, how they became engaged, how engagement has been sustained and how it fits alongside other everyday practices. Findings can be summarised with respect to two analytical framings of reclamation practices, (1) as alternative consumption practices and (2) as a form of ordinary prefigurative politics. First, the research highlights the messy, overlapping nature of 'alternative' and 'mainstream' economic practices. On the one hand, as…
author: Foden, Michael
language: en
date published: 2016-08
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:31:09Z
provider: Sheffield Hallam University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Sheffield Hallam University

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.7190/shu-thesis-00020