[Themaintainers] Fwd: H-Environment: Call for Papers “Social and Cultural Aspects of Circular Economy”

Fri Jul 3 15:55:45 EDT 2020

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JC

Jonathan Coopersmith
Professor
Department of History
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX  77843-4236
979.739.4708 (cell)
979.862.4314 (fax)

To teach or not to teach:
https://www.tact.org/post/to-teach-in-person-or-not-that-is-the-question

Most recent oped: "Will Artemis fail in the halls of Congress?"
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3836/1

Apollo thoughts:
https://today.tamu.edu/2019/07/19/would-apollo-11-have-happened-without-russia/

*FAXED.  The Rise and Fall of the Fax Machine* (Johns Hopkins University
Press) is the co-recipient of the 2016 Business History Conference Hagley
Prize for best book in business history.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: H-Net Notifications <drupaladmin at mail.h-net.org>
Date: Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 7:20 AM
Subject: H-Environment: Call for Papers “Social and Cultural Aspects of
Circular Economy”
To: j-coopersmith at TAMU.EDU <j-coopersmith at tamu.edu>

Greetings Jonathan Coopersmith,
A new item has been posted in H-Environment.
Call for Papers “Social and Cultural Aspects of Circular Economy”
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://networks.h-net.org/user/login?destination=node*6228875__;Lw!!KwNVnqRv!TqB5RTF_SloAQeLpzJLlsLghOGeUdyawkY-ajtcV4JHOvJfVvFHs2gB2as_2TPWXMdPG$>
by Viktor Pal

*Call for Papers*

*“Social and Cultural Aspects of Circular Economy”*

Circular economy is a relatively new concept within the frame of
sustainable development, despite having received significant attention
within the scientific community. The world’s most populous country, China
enacted a law to transform its economy based on principles of circular
economy. The circular economy concept, however, has been criticized to be
one-dimensional, lacking social and cultural aspects. In this project we
aim to integrate culture, society and circular economy.

*Background*

Until the second half of the twentieth century the great majority of people
even in the most developed countries could not afford to discard household
items until they were worn out. At that time most people had repair and
recycle skills: men fixed work tools and furniture, women sewed and reused
rags to create new household objects. (Strasser, 1999)

This old, relatively circular system, first opened only gradually, and then
in the twentieth century change accelerated to an extreme. As of today,
consumer culture has overtaken not only North America and Western Europe
but several other regions of the world. The take-make-waste extractive
industrial model creates an open system which is characterized by the
continual influx of new products designed to be used briefly and then
discarded. It is based on the cult of waste, where reparability is
unimportant, and disposability is celebrated by the consumers.

It is the consensus of the environmentally focused social sciences
community that the current global environmental crisis is one of the most
complex challenges humanity is facing currently, and that the shift to a
regenerative system in which resource input and waste, emission, and energy
leakage are minimised by slowing, closing, and narrowing material and
energy loops. (Geissdoerfer, Savaget, Bocken, Hultink, 2016)

Sustainability is based on three pillars: economic, environment and social,
and is explicitly focused on human stakeholders, human well-being, and
human rights. In 1987 the concept of sustainable development was coined as
“development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987).

“The Circular Economy, however, is virtually silent on the social
dimension, concentrating on the redesign of manufacturing and service
systems to benefit the biosphere. While ecological renewal and survival,
and reduction of finite resource use clearly benefits humankind, there is
no explicit recognition of the social aspects inherent in other
conceptualisations of sustainable development.” (Murray, Keith Skene,
Kathryn Haynes, 2015)

*About the Project*

It is the main goal of this publication project to explore how the concept
of circular economy may include social and cultural dimensions beyond the
engineering, environmental, and economic aspects. It is our understanding
that trash making is not solely a technocratic question and it cannot be
detached from human societies and human culture.

Currently we seek contributions of a planned edited volume, which explore
the various social and cultural aspects of the shift from the current
take-make-waste extractive industrial model to the restorative circular
economy concept.

Editors have contacted top academic publishers which found this project
promising and have expressed preliminary interest in publishing the outcome as
edited volume.

Proposals are welcome from all related STS (Science, technology and
society), social sciences, cultural and sustainability studies, as well
humanities disciplines, with focus on any area globally, including past,
present or future temporalities. Submissions should include a *300 words
abstract and short autho**r bio* and should be sent by September 30 to
editors  *viktor.pal at helsinki.fi* <viktor.pal at helsinki.fi> and
*idunmade at mtroyal.ca* <idunmade at mtroyal.ca>

Contributors are expected to present their draft papers at a ZOOM (online)
workshop organized by the University of Helsinki Environmental Humanities
Hub in January 2020. Final manuscript submissions to book editors are
expected in June 2021, with submission to press in September 2021.

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