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Paper short abstract:

Post-consumer goods are valued through different processes than those being valued for a first time. Ridding through various channels is central to those valuation process. This paper focuses on valuation in UK charity shops and recycling firms, and considers the role of ridding in primary markets.

Paper long abstract:

Valuation proceeds differently for consumer goods in their first time on the market as compared to further rounds. When post-consumer (used) goods are valued, ridding is central in the process of producing value-able commodities. This paper investigates how used items are (re)produced as commodities in UK charity shops and recycling firms. This paper shows how the subtractive logic of ridding (i.e., wasting, discarding, ejecting goods from the calculative space) is crucial in the process of qualification of used goods. Whereas many valuation studies emphasize the need to qualify or frame already-existing objects as desirable goods, I draw attention to the pragmatic, concrete processes of processing, sorting, categorizing, and/or (most crucially) discarding via various channels whereby a supply of heterogeneous materials and things is transformed into value-able goods. The valuation process for these goods must be understood as part of an ecology of valuation made up of private individuals as well as public and private firms who take on the work of ridding. The pragmatic and ecological approach to understanding valuation proposed in this paper contributes to STS valuation studies by suggesting that these marginal practices associated with the processing of discarded post-consumer goods are actually present - and significant - in more mainstream (firsthand) market contexts. Ridding mechanisms, while not as visible at points of sale in firsthand markets, are also of fundamental importance at points upstream along the value chain, namely during production and distribution. This paper draws on ethnographic and interview data from a year of fieldwork in the UK.