Returning an online order feels entirely ordinary, and it is entirely legal. But Carolina Paulesu explains why those everyday choices are not as harmless as they seem. Her research done at the EUI Department of Law examines how European private law, and consumer law in particular, shapes the way we consume, and how it feeds into structural injustice – what she calls “the injustice of the everyday”. Buying a pair of jeans in several sizes, keeping what fits and sending the rest back is normal behaviour, yet much of what is returned ends up as textile waste in the land, air, and water of communities far from us, leading to their systematic oppression and domination.
The problem, Carolina argues, is not the individual shopper. Private law is usually thought of as neutral, but she shows that it is not. It makes these everyday choices feel normal and morally unproblematic, and through the consumer contract, it gives people the very means to take part in structurally unjust processes of production and consumption.
For Carolina, the takeaway is that these injustices cannot be fixed at the checkout. They can only be addressed collectively, through organisation and shared action rather than shopping for change, and by looking at consumer law more critically than its familiar language of consumer rights allows.
Watch the full video to learn more about Carolina's research.
Watch all the #MyEUIResearch videos on the EUI YouTube channel.
Carolina Paulesu was a PhD researcher in the EUI Department of Law and has recently defended her doctoral thesis, "Structurally Unjust Production and Consumption. A Youngian Theory of Private Law," supervised by Professor Martijn Hesselink.