1st Edition
The Materiality of Nothing Exploring Our Everyday Relationships with Objects Absent and Present
The Materiality of Nothing explores the invisible, intangible and transient materials and objects of everyday life and the relationships we have with them. Drawing on over 15 years of original, empirical research, it builds on growing research on the everyday, and unites the established field of material culture and materiality with emerging sociological studies exploring notions of nothing and the unmarked. The chapters cover topics such as lost property, museum curation, plastic microfibres, thrift, music and even hair, illuminating how invisible and intangible materials conjure memories, meanings and identities, inextricably binding us to other people, places and things. In turn, the book also engages with issues of sustainability and consumption, raising questions regarding society’s increasing need for material accumulation and posing some alternatives.
1 Introducing material affinities and the potency of connections
2 Object loss and material hauntings
3 Object Journeys 1: starting at ‘the end’
4 Object Journeys 2: acquiring, circulating, connecting
5 Layers and leaking: the invisibility of materials
6 Preservation and decay: exploring alternative accumulation
7 Rethinking materiality for a more sustainable society
Bibliography
Biography
Helen Holmes is a Lecturer in Sociology based in the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester, UK, and a member of the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives.
"The need to better understand the relations between people and ‘stuff’ is becoming abundantly clear. It matters as much for understanding the experience of everyday life as it does for thinking about all manner of sustainability crises. Placing notions of absence, intangibility and nothingness at the heart of things, this highly-original and captivating book sheds new light on how materiality should be thought about. Working across an impressive and enviable range of topics and sites – ranging from hair and plastics to lost property and nightclubs – Helen Holmes demonstrates the potency and relational capacities of objects even, perhaps especially, when they fall apart or disappear. At once theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich, The Materiality of Nothing will haunt you. It convinces not only of the need for an expanded view of the connections between persons and things, but also of the political and ethical case for acknowledging these." - Professor David M. Evans, University of Bristol, UK
