Mitchell Center researchers publish paper on value of reuse in Maine
A paper by Cindy Isenhour and Brie Berry, members of the Mitchell Center’s Materials Management team, was published on April 27 in the journal Economic Anthropology. Cindy is an associate professor of anthropology at UMaine and a Mitchell Center faculty fellow, and Brie is a doctoral student in anthropology and environmental policy. Both work on research involving Maine’s reuse economy.
Their paper, “Still good life”: On the value of reuse and distributive labor in “depleted” rural Maine, explores Maine’s strong culture of reuse and the ways that reuse is viewed and valued, particularly in economic terms. They question the ways that value is assigned to producing new products while “discounting the possibility that stewarding and redistributing existing goods can provide a means to both salvage existing and produce new value.”