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The Contested realities of the Circular Economy

(2020) In Culture and Organization p.97-174
Abstract
We acknowledge that the CE is not one ‘thing’, but, rather, could be seen as an ‘empty signifier’ (Valenzuela and Böhm 2017), which allows for a whole range of interpretations and approaches to be bundled together under the term ‘circular economy’. Indeed, the CE is said to have 114 definitions (Kirchherr et al. 2017), which implies that academics and practitioners do not necessarily agree on precisely what the CE entails and how it should be implemented. In short, the CE is a contested concept (Korhonen et al. 2018), which is not surprising as essentially all approaches that try to square the circle of business-society-nature relations can be questioned and challenged from a variety of different viewpoints (McManus 1996; Carew and... (More)
We acknowledge that the CE is not one ‘thing’, but, rather, could be seen as an ‘empty signifier’ (Valenzuela and Böhm 2017), which allows for a whole range of interpretations and approaches to be bundled together under the term ‘circular economy’. Indeed, the CE is said to have 114 definitions (Kirchherr et al. 2017), which implies that academics and practitioners do not necessarily agree on precisely what the CE entails and how it should be implemented. In short, the CE is a contested concept (Korhonen et al. 2018), which is not surprising as essentially all approaches that try to square the circle of business-society-nature relations can be questioned and challenged from a variety of different viewpoints (McManus 1996; Carew and Mitchell 2008). Despite this ‘emptiness’ of the CE, allowing for open interpretation and even free, creative associations between a range of economic, social and environmental factors (Murray et al. 2017), influential economic and political actors have been allowed to hegemonize the CE discourse. The result has been the narrowing down of latent possibilities in the systems thinking that underpins the CE. (Less)
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Circular Economy
in
Culture and Organization
editor
LU orcid ; Bohm, Steffen ; Stowell, Alison and Valenzuela, Francisco
pages
178 pages
publisher
Routledge
ISSN
1475-9551
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
fc99b9ff-eaa6-43f0-8502-c3e092d338a0
alternative location
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gsco20/26/2?nav=tocList&fbclid=IwAR3R3oKpVbNjSadTXGdBTFoZuC76S6opscb6CNBY9_7AGoLG443OeEVadGQ
date added to LUP
2020-02-06 20:21:44
date last changed
2021-11-25 15:19:28
@misc{fc99b9ff-eaa6-43f0-8502-c3e092d338a0,
  abstract     = {{We acknowledge that the CE is not one ‘thing’, but, rather, could be seen as an ‘empty signifier’ (Valenzuela and Böhm 2017), which allows for a whole range of interpretations and approaches to be bundled together under the term ‘circular economy’. Indeed, the CE is said to have 114 definitions (Kirchherr et al. 2017), which implies that academics and practitioners do not necessarily agree on precisely what the CE entails and how it should be implemented. In short, the CE is a contested concept (Korhonen et al. 2018), which is not surprising as essentially all approaches that try to square the circle of business-society-nature relations can be questioned and challenged from a variety of different viewpoints (McManus 1996; Carew and Mitchell 2008). Despite this ‘emptiness’ of the CE, allowing for open interpretation and even free, creative associations between a range of economic, social and environmental factors (Murray et al. 2017), influential economic and political actors have been allowed to hegemonize the CE discourse. The result has been the narrowing down of latent possibilities in the systems thinking that underpins the CE.}},
  editor       = {{Corvellec, Hervé and Bohm, Steffen and Stowell, Alison and Valenzuela, Francisco}},
  issn         = {{1475-9551}},
  keywords     = {{Circular Economy}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{02}},
  pages        = {{97--174}},
  publisher    = {{Routledge}},
  series       = {{Culture and Organization}},
  title        = {{The Contested realities of the Circular Economy}},
  url          = {{https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gsco20/26/2?nav=tocList&fbclid=IwAR3R3oKpVbNjSadTXGdBTFoZuC76S6opscb6CNBY9_7AGoLG443OeEVadGQ}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}