Valuing the Unwanted: From Everyday Practices to Environmental Justice

This session explores how things, places, and practices once regarded as unwanted come to be valued in new ways. Vacant houses may become community spaces. Abandoned farmland may be reclaimed through collective action. Such cases show how environmental meanings are redefined through everyday practices. They also raise important questions about who has the power to define what is valuable, what is waste, and what kinds of futures are worth pursuing.

Environmental problems are defined not only as material conditions but also through social processes that assign value, responsibility, and legitimacy. What counts as waste is not self-evident. It is shaped by policy, expert knowledge, and public debate. At the same time, local communities and grassroots initiatives often challenge dominant understandings of what counts as waste and what counts as value. Their practices can create alternative ways of understanding environmental problems and imagining environmental futures.

These processes are closely linked to environmental justice. Decisions about what should be preserved, reused, or discarded affect different groups in unequal ways. They also influence which knowledge and priorities are recognized. Examining processes of revaluation helps us understand both everyday environmental governance and broader struggles for justice.

We invite contributions that examine how environmental values are challenged and transformed through everyday practices. Topics may include waste, repair and reuse, circular economies, community-based environmental initiatives, environmental justice, and sustainability transitions. This session provides an opportunity to discuss how alternative environmental futures emerge through the revaluation of the unwanted.