Grounding circularity in Fryslân: discursive politics in the embedding of sociotechnical imaginaries

Abstract

The circular economy (CE) promises sustainable resource use, but how this vision materialises in specific contexts remains contested. In the Dutch region of Fryslân, a distinct sociotechnical imaginary of grounded circularity is taking shape through discursive-political processes that prefigure and foreclose socio-material pathways. Regional actors including government officials, entrepreneurs, and civil society organisations drive this embedding of the sociotechnical imaginary through two interlinked discursive processes: reinterpretation of CE’s imaginary elements and rearticulation of socio-material aspects of Frisian life. Reinterpretation grounds CE ideas, such as closing resource cycles, as assertions of local ownership and regional autonomy. Interlinked with this, rearticulation reconfigures local resources and practices–such as transforming flax into a circular insulating material–aligning them with an emergent Frisian CE that reflects communal Mienskip values and broad prosperity aims. Together, these processes forge a reconfigured discursive grip on reality, shaping actions toward an imagined future of grounded circularity. In this way, the concept of socio-technical imaginaries, as an analytical framework, demonstrates how imagination operates between visionary ideas and lived reality, revealing the emergence of tangible Frisian CE transition pathways that diverge from the EU’s eco-modernist trajectory. Fryslân’s socio-technical imaginary of grounded circularity gains meaning and agency through the discursive interweaving of imaginary and real elements, producing context-specific circular pathways that reflect regional identities and priorities.