Creating with traces of life: waste, reuse and design
Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development
ISSN: 2044-1266
Article publication date: 10 December 2019
Issue publication date: 15 January 2020
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to adopt posthumanist perspectives on waste as traces of life to investigate how the alternative heritage work of redesigners transforms discarded building materials into reuse interior designs. It combines recent research on waste, shifting focus from representational and symbolic aspects to its material and indexical relations to human life, with critical perspectives emphasising heritage as encompassing different and ambiguous ways of engaging with material transformation over time.
Design/methodology/approach
Anthropological fieldwork involving participant observation was conducted over six months to closely examine the entanglement between redesigners and reuse materials in interior design work.
Findings
The sensory ethnographic approach reveals how materials are approached as unfolding processes rather than closed objects. Tracing how redesigners capitalise on the ambiguity of traces of life in building materials, the paper shows how uncertainty and risk are inevitable companions when working with reuse. To rehabilitate used things, and reassociate with materials classified as waste or heritage, means following their trajectories of becoming and responding to their signs of life. While involving important benefits, this often leads to the inconvenient and risky mess characteristic of an interconnected and entangled multispecies world.
Originality/value
Ethnographic analyses of reuse design are few. In particular, there is a lack of studies informed by posthumanist theories recognising the social and ecological embeddedness and mutual entanglement of humans and materials. By studying practices for extending the lifespan of salvaged materials external to formal heritage management this paper contributes with perspectives to revitalise heritage practices, while highlighting the neglect of socio-historic values of materials within circular economy.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council under (Grant No. 421-203-1923), the research project “Re:heritage. Circulation and Marketization of Things with History”. The author is indebted to editors and reviewers for productive criticism and comments. Many thanks to Anna Bohlin, who read and commented on an earlier version of this paper. The author also wants to thank all the people the author has met throughout the fieldwork who shared their time and experiences and in particular the redesigners who saw the value in anthropological research of their work and let the author inside their studio.
Citation
Appelgren, S. (2020), "Creating with traces of life: waste, reuse and design", Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 65-75. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCHMSD-09-2019-0115
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited