“Nobody” matters in circular landscapes

Abstract

This paper aims to apply an intersectional environmentalist lens to the circular economy (CE) transition in Flanders. CE discourse often takes a deterritorialised approach, that is, a focus on innovation and growth. This approach tends to neglect local knowledge and background skills that can inhabit and work with landscapes in balanced ways to enable a fully circular society. This knowledge is partly embodied by “nobodied” actors. After introducing relevant terminology, this article draws upon a collaborative autoethnography which integrates autobiographies of authors’ experiences of circularity in projects with “nobodied” CE actors, and ethnographic notes on the Flemish context in which the CE discourse developed. The reflections unearth how a lack of an intersectional environmentalist lens in the CE rhetoric “nobodies” informal CE actors and practices. We show how they do not matter in a circular economy in a deterritorialised approach, but how they matter in a circular landscape view.