Participate in Developing a COST Action
The F/fashion Narratives Research Group is working with colleagues within Manchester Fashion Institute to establish a COST Action, Narratives Networks.
A COST Action is a European-based research network that seeks to strengthen Europe’s capacity to address scientific, technological and societal challenges.
COST Actions are funded by European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST). They run for 4 years and involve collaboration between academia, industry and policy makers. Based in Europe, COST Actions can include international contributors.
Narrative Networks: Transforming Intrinsic Value for Responsible Circular Fashion Consumption in Europe
The digitalisation of society is reconfiguring how value is created, validated, and maintained in contemporary material culture. For clothing, one of humankind’s most ubiquitous cultural products, value is increasingly established through networks of connected stories, rather than singular object histories. A garment’s value derives not just from its direct history, but from its position within broader narrative networks, which are generally digital. This transformation is particularly evident in the implementation of digital tags, which are increasingly used by companies and consumers. Consequently, garments can now accumulate multiple layers of stories to become hybrid carriers of tangible and digital heritage and memory.
European thought, crafts, technologies and structures have fundamentally shaped the development of the contemporary fashion industry. Yet the evolution in how garment stories are constructed and shared suggests a fundamental shift from linear histories to networked stories, from singular provenance to multiple, interconnected narratives that better reflect the complex relationships between objects, people, and environments in our digital age. Fundamentally, narrative networks demonstrate that garments exist within constellations of meaning that emphasise the interconnections between our human and more than human world. As Europe continues to have a leading role in determining the course of an industry that employs 11.9% of the global workforce, contributes 2% to GDP and as much as 10% of global carbon emissions, so it is laden with the responsibility to mitigate harms. Among the strategies suggested is consumer behaviour change. By de-centring a garment from its human ownership and acknowledging a more complicated construction of value, narrative networks have the potential to catalyse circular consumption initiatives within fashion through the realignment of consumer behaviours that recognise value is not intrinsic and immutable, but acquired, dynamic and in continual configuration.
The attitude-behaviour gap remains one of the biggest challenges in the establishment of circular fashion consumer. As highlighted by researchers (Fisk, 1973; Kozinets et al., 2004; Witt, 2011; UK.gov, 2019; Stringer et al., 2020; Christmann et al., 2021), it reveals a disparity between consumers’ ethical concerns and their actual purchasing decisions. While much is known about this phenomenon, strategies to bridge this gap have seen limited success. Recognising the moral, political and economic responsibility that Europe’s leadership in fashion bears, the Narrative Networks COST Action proposal facilitates interconnectivity between European social and behavioural scientists, humanities scholars, and industry representatives from divergent local economies. It will support transdisciplinary approaches to analyse and leverage fertile narrative networks to generate new knowledge in support of circular fashion consumption that centres on a responsible, future consumer. By developing a new approach, it aims to evidence and evaluate how garment values are being transformed through narrative networks, interconnected webs of stories, intangible cultural heritage, art of use, both physical and digital, that extend beyond singular object histories. Networked narratives encompass broader ecological and social relationships, deploying a measurable strategy that may significantly influence consumer behaviour from one of overconsumption to one of mindful and regenerative utilisation.
Q. How can narrative networks be leveraged to support responsible circular consumption within European fashion?
Themes:
- Behaviour change (responsible consumption)
- Re-valorisation/valuation of garments through networked narratives
- Smart tagging as the new format to convey the storytelling.
Aims:
- Develop transdisciplinary approaches to test and disseminate new analytical and multi-disciplinary approaches to study value creation within narrative networks.
- Evidence how narrative networks determine value within Europe’s fashion industry.
- Establish how narrative networks can support initiatives to promote responsible circular consumption within European fashion.
Determine academic, industry and policy interventions to support strategic use of narrative networks.
