Upcycling agency: material and human transformation for sustainability in fashion

Painter, M ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7846-7220, Hiller, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8793-0013 and Oehlmann, J, 2024. Upcycling agency: material and human transformation for sustainability in fashion. Journal of Business Ethics. ISSN 0167-4544

Preview

Text 2307278_Painter.pdf - Published version Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

In this paper, we offer some conceptual building blocks, or rather conceptual flows, towards a radical processual rethinking of the type of agency that allows for the sustainable production and consumption of fashion. Appeals to principled decision making or calculating costs and benefits instrumentally fail to engender the necessary behavioural changes, and more importantly, our current conceptual apparatus cannot account for the relationality that fosters sustainable lifestyles. An empirical study of upcycling practices allows us to interrogate the agency involved in sustainable organising and acknowledge the complex forms of valuation that take place in and through the making process. Our data were analysed through the lens of John Dewey’s pragmatist perspectives on valuation and were brought into conversation with literature on ‘making’, more specifically through the anthropological work of Tim Ingold. We contend that current conceptualisations of sustainable organising are inadequate because they undermine the relational orientation that sustainable organising entails. We argue for a processual, relational approach to valuation, which allows for the accommodation of a plurality of ways of thinking about what sustainable organising may mean. To live sustainably, one has to stay close to materials, engage relationally with one’s histories and contexts, and allow valuation to present itself as part of everyday practice.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Business Ethics
Creators:	Painter, M., Hiller, A. and Oehlmann, J.
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date:	29 November 2024
ISSN:	0167-4544
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1007/s10551-024-05878-7 DOI 2307278 Other
Rights:	© The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Melissa Cornwell
Date Added:	07 Jan 2025 13:31
Last Modified:	07 Jan 2025 13:31
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52790

Actions (login required)

Edit View

Statistics

Views

Downloads