The metastatic spread of plastics in consumer society: a reading through the lens of counter-productivity and conviviality

ABSTRACT

The vertiginous rise of plastics after World War II has contributed to a profound transformation of both our lifestyles and the environment. Drawing on Ivan Illich’s concepts of counter-productivity and conviviality, as well as on the notion of agnotology, i.e. strategies for constructing ignorance, this contribution to the section Commodities that Cause Trouble pursues a twofold purpose: (1) to unveil how the metastatic spread of plastics has turned into a source of counter-productivity detrimental to individuals, the environment, and conviviality; (2) to shed light on the role that agnotology seems to play in this diffusion. This short essay reveals that plastics engage in a form of biological degradation, affecting health and the environment. They also undermine conviviality by expropriating consumers’ skills and autonomy while establishing themselves as a source of dependency.

KEYWORDS:

• Plastics
• counter-productivity
• conviviality
• agnotology

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their precise and constructive comments, which have greatly contributed to the improvement of the paper. I am also deeply grateful to Sophie Martins Felix and Jean-Philippe Nau for their insightful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anthony Beudaert

Anthony Beudaert, PhD, is associate professor in marketing at the University Savoie Mont Blanc (IREGE research center). His work mainly focuses on the consumption of people with disabilities. He has worked on their vulnerability, their identity trajectories and their relationship with time. His work has been published in Journal of Business Research, Recherche et Applications en Marketing, Consumption, Markets & Culture, Journal of Services Marketing and Décisions Marketing. He is also the co-founder of the Interdisciplinary Conference on Disability and Consumption (ICDC).