The Discomfort of Things! Tidying-up and Decluttering in Consumers’ Homes

Abstract

Most relatively affluent consumers are fighting a losing battle with material disorder in their homes. No matter how hard they try to rein it in, material disorder always comes out on top. We argue that part of the continued obduracy of material disorder is because of its messy understanding. We clarify material disorder’s muddled conceptual boundaries by theorizing from an ethnographic investigation of consumers who recently dealt with material disorder through decluttering their homes. Leveraging twin analytical lenses that we label the possessive materialist and post-materialist lenses, we surface two distinct yet inter-dependent forms of disorder (disorder-as-untidiness and disorder-as-clutteredness) that together plague consumers’ homes. We contribute a pluralized understanding of material disorder, that is, disorders not disorder. We also offer novel insight into agentic struggles between consumers and home possessions over material dis/orders.