Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle

Eden, Sally

Abstract

© The Author(s) 2015. This article explores the digital exchange and moral ordering of sustainable and ethical consumption in online Freecycle groups. Through interactive exchanges in digital (online posts) and material (consumer items) modes, Freecycling blurs three common binaries in analyses of consumption: (1) consumption/production, (2) digital/material and (3) mainstream/alternative. Drawing on Ritzer's notion of 'implosions' as well as practice theory, I show that Freecycling practices reimagine and reproduce both products and consumers, practising prosumption through mixed digital and material practices in a performative economy, and how mainstream and alternative ways of consuming are entangled in pursuit of more sustainable, ethical consumption. This challenges us to think beyond these traditional binaries and to conceptualise a more blurred, less analytically clean and more circular approach to studying consumption.

Citation

Eden, S. (2017). Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle. Journal of Consumer Culture, 17(2), 265-285. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540515586871

• Acceptance Date: Apr 29, 2015
• Online Publication Date: May 28, 2015
• Publication Date: Jul 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: May 20, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: May 28, 2015
• Journal: Journal of consumer culture
• Print ISSN: 1469-5405
• Electronic ISSN: 1741-2900
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 265-285
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540515586871
• Keywords: Freecycle
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/374063
• Publisher URL: http://joc.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/05/27/1469540515586871.full.pdf?ijkey=J2rmPnavcz8VU93&keytype=finite
• Additional Information: Author's accepted manuscript of article published in: Journal of consumer culture, 2015: http://joc.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/05/27/1469540515586871.full.pdf?ijkey=J2rmPnavcz8VU93&keytype=finite