ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter draws the book to a close through a focus on its main contributions. Through the numerous empirical examples which underpin this book, I have revealed some of the objects and materials of ‘nothing’ whilst unpacking the connections and affinities they enable. From lost flip-flops, to found hats, to lingering broken mugs, to the capacities of dust, I have illustrated the potency of the things we no longer possess, do not ‘see’ or have no idea of the performative and transformative qualities of until their ‘acting back’ can no longer be ignored. In sum, stuff connects and it does so in myriad ways. Rather than summarising the book, the chapter concentrates on three areas of contribution to illuminate the importance of absent, invisible and transient objects in our everyday lives and the relevance of their relational capacities. These are how we can rethink materiality through a focus on nothing and affinities of nothing, how we can refocus debates on consumption to better understand what it means to own and possess things, and how in turn these contributions enable us to reframe sustainability and to explore opportunities which enable people to have different relationships with the objects and materials around us.
