ABSTRACT
The work of Theo van Leeuwen has influenced and inspired researchers in a number of disciplines on a global scale. This chapter draws on a number of key concepts in Van Leeuwen's studies, including recontextualisation and semiotic change, to address the issue of value adding in 'upcycled' artefacts. It combines these notions with theories of the social control of 'value' in social practices. The chapter identifies key semiotic resources that are recontextualised and, to various degrees, recognised in upcycled artefacts. It explores how artefacts produced in the developing world are branded with regard to upcycling as well as to gain an understanding of the process of value adding as such artefacts move between categories of value. The chapter concludes with a short discussion of the implications of this type of analysis for questioning the 'ethical' and 'anti-consumerist' foundation on which much of the upcycling movement rests.
