Decolonising the circular economy

Abstract

The Circular Economy (CE) is widely promoted as a regenerative alternative to linear production, yet mainstream CE theories and frameworks are predominantly rooted in Global North and Eurocentric epistemologies and technocentrism. In this paper, I argue that such epistemologies and technocentrism ignores informal economies and indigenous knowledge systems. Furthermore, I argue that the current CE approaches often reproduce colonial patterns by externalising environmental and labour inequalities to poorer regions in the Global South. I propose a novel CE decolonisation framework. The framework focuses on epistemic plurality of CE, power redistribution, the technocentric widening of CE and the transformative impact of CE. I argue that these dimensions of CE decolonisation must be considered across knowledge production, governance, research, and the targeted outcomes.