Slowing the Loop: the role of grief and hope in building new economic spaces

Abstract

In this paper we examine how civil society groups are tackling plastics within the South West region of England. We consider the drivers behind the rapid rise in 'plastic activism' in the region and how these groups contribute to wider considerations of the circular economy. We critique the techno-managerial conceptualisations of the circular economy and rational-actor approaches to nudging individual behaviours and call for more attention to be made to the relational, emotional, and affective connections that people have toward place, environment, and non-human beings. We consider the role of emotions and affect in driving new social practices that are, in turn, re-articulating local economic geographies through place-based responses to environmental concerns. We pose that, in response to feelings of grief and loss (for ecological decline and lost futures; see Head 2016), civil society groups are finding small spaces of hope that contribute to a plastics circular economy through new and reclaimed social practices that slow the loop.