Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Email: sattlegger isoe. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in the office and warehouse of an organic wholesaler in Germany, this article presents a trans-sequential analysis of an innovation that aimed to reduce the use of plastic wrap.
During the analytical reconstruction of the innovation process, the substitution of plastic wrap turned out to be a precarious process of negotiating attachments to plastic. Against this background, innovation is not simply about the implementation and substitution of technology by human actors, but about negotiating attachments that humans have towards objects within socio-technical assemblages.
Drawing on actor-network theory and the sociology of attachment, the article highlights the dynamic interplay between persistence and problematization of plastic wrap, which characterizes the innovation process. This interplay is seen along several steps during the innovation process: from 1 the problematization of plastic dependency to 2 the mobilization of alternatives, to 3 resistance against measures to be implemented and 4 the enforcement of reusable strings as technological substitution and 5 to conclusive retrospection on the innovation process.
Instead, withdrawing is a double-sided process of detaching and attaching, removing constraints and building new ones. Keywords: plastic packaging, attachment, actor-network theory, trans-sequential analysis. Since the s, plastic packaging has become part of the organization of food supply in Western countries, and today plays a decisive role in how we produce, transport, store, buy and sell food Cochoy, ; Hawkins, ; Phillips, ; Sattlegger, Through practices like layering, bundling, storing and displaying, plastic packaging has enabled new types of products e.
Packaging determines the presentation and assessment of products and is a crucial factor in the organization and evaluation of work practices and supply chain logistics Sattlegger, In this process, packaging has been transformed from a black-boxed tool into an epistemic object that demands attention and work by human actors Knorr-Cetina, ; Miettinen and Virkkunen, Importantly, the negotiations between packaging as a useful and ubiquitous tool and packaging as a social-ecological problem are challenging and conflictual Hawkins, , For exploring the potentials of packaging waste reduction and promoting a sustainable transformation of packaging use, it is crucial to understand the concrete processes of negotiation in the contestation of plastic packaging.
