Short Abstract:

This panel+workshop session invites contributions that critically engage with concepts and cultural relevance of circularity in the era of polycrisis. We welcome standard papers and creative proposals that unwrite forms and notions of circularities and cyclicities across theory, method & practice.

Long Abstract:

Circular motifs predate the written history of humankind, standing in for notions of emergence, divine being, infinity, recursivity, and seasonality, among other themes. In ethnology, folklore and cognate fields, cyclical notions have often been associated with traditional worldviews (natural, mystical, embodied), contesting modern, more linear conceptions of temporal progress. The concept of circulation, meanwhile, has multiple associations with modernity and modern life, whether linked to ideas, goods, or social dynamics (Gänger 2017; Appadurai and Rao 2023). Circulation often refers to open-ended mobilities, speaking to society as a system of conduits, in which materials and wealth flow incessantly to nourish a process of accumulation and growth; ideas, newspapers, gossip, traffic, air, money, and waste all "circulate" (Swyngedow 2006; Gänger 2017). In the era of environmental change and polycrisis, circular motifs have re-emerged with fresh appeal. Circular thinking in the ecological imaginary draws on the cyclical imagery of endless return, pointing toward a social and political reality where materials and ideas cycle and generate new (and improved!) materials, ideas and alliances, potentially ad infinitum and hopefully sustainably (Pape & Gold 2023). Building on important work on lines and rhythms (e.g. Ingold 1993, 2016), we welcome contributions that engage critically with the cultural relevance of circularity across theory, method and practice. Through its dual format, this panel encourages both standard paper presentations and creative workshop-style interventions from diverse perspectives and disciplines that unwrite one or more of these notions—cycles, circles, or circulations—as etymologically linked concepts that are, compellingly, rarely analogous.

This Panel+Workshop has so far received 1 contribution proposal(s).
Propose contribution