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Unbecoming Things: Mutable Objects and the Politics of Waste
Contributor(s): Gregson, Nicky (Author), Crang, Mike (Author)
ISBN: 0415506980     ISBN-13: 9780415506984
Publisher: Routledge
OUR PRICE:   $142.50  
Product Type: Hardcover
Published: January 2026
This item may be ordered no more than 25 days prior to its publication date of January 1, 2026
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social
- Social Science | Human Geography
- Social Science | Sociology - General
Dewey: 146
Series: Cresc
Physical Information: 256 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

This book responds to moves to rematerialize the social sciences, to attend to the stuff of daily life but challenges the social sciences to think beyond objects as stable things. It forwards the argument that objects need to be seen not as stabilising things, or immutable mobiles - as time stilled and materials fixed and conserved in the object form - or even always in the making, as becoming but as unbecoming things. It argues that objects are better seen as things coming apart, as en route to becoming something else, some stuff else, somewhere else. It locates these arguments in economies of demolition, disposal and reincarnation, focusing on object death, materials recovery and re-fabrication, and the sequestration and unleashing of materials classified as wastes. It uses as its exemplar case the classic immutable mobile, the ship - one of the most durable and complex of fabricated objects. It illustrates these arguments through global ethnography conducted in various settings around the world, including South Asia and the EU.