Materiality of Nothing

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

• 1 Introducing material affinities and the potency of connections2 Object loss and material hauntings3 Object Journeys 1: starting at ‘the end’4 Object Journeys 2: acquiring, circulating, connecting5 Layers and leaking: the invisibility of materials6 Preservation and decay: exploring alternative accumulation7 Rethinking materiality for a more sustainable society Bibliography