Opening the Black Box of Resourcification

Currently, the world is facing multiple severe challenges; climate change, pandemics and biodiversity loss, all of which have raised critical resource questions. To better understand the nature of resources, this paper continues on the path set by resourcification studies examining resources as a complex and dynamic concept. We theoretically deepen the resourcification basis by examining the uncharted resourcification process through which resources eventually become. By drawing from new materialist and posthumanist thinking, ecological psychology, and processual-relational sociology, we present processual-relational and socio-material amendments to resourcification through three resource axioms: 1) Resources are enacted in and through socio-material relations that extend beyond the human. 2) Resources are the results of coadjustments towards functionality. 3) Resources are situated and temporally emergent. The axioms are further validated and demonstrated with a case study focusing on concrete. Finally, we propose a definition for the resourcification process and discuss its implications for future resourcification studies