ABSTRACT
Many contemporary societies are supposed to have entered a stage of overflow—overflow of information, of consumption, of choices—which at times is portrayed as challenging, and at other times as fortunate. An appreciation of this tension is an important and integral component in understanding different kinds of overflow. Discussions of overflow—framed in terms of excess and abundance or their implicit opposites, scarcity and dearth—crop up in a number of contexts such as economic theory, management consulting, consumer studies, and the politics of everyday life. Although the phenomenon itself varies, the participants in such discussions—both academic and popular—usually apply the same notion of “overflow,” using it as a key to understanding various morally laden issues. As a result, the concept of overflow is symbolically loaded with a multitude of overtones, linked to numerous competing and contested worldviews, and inserted in many different ways into a wider “moral economy.” Many different phenomena are subsumed under the same concept, but also when applied to the same phenomenon, the meaning of the concept can vary dramatically depending on who is using it and in which circumstances. The term overflow or its synonyms (excess, surplus, overspill, etc.) is used as a label, as a classifying device, and such application has strongly normative consequences: a phenomenon thus classified must be “managed.” The very application of this label is the first of many strategies subsequently devised to frame or to control it. This classifying operation and the norms and activities that follow it are at the center of our attention.
