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The social life of nothing: silence, invisibility and emptiness in tales of lost experience
Nothing really matters. All the things that we do not do, have or become in our lives can be important in shaping self-identity. From jobs turned down to great loves lost, secrets kept and truths untold, people missed and souls unborn, we understand ourselves through other, unlived lives that are imaginatively possible. This book explores the realm of negative social phenomena – no-things, no-bodies, non-events and no-where places – that lies behind the mirror of experience. Taking a symbolic interactionist perspective, the author argues that these objects are socially produced, emerging from and negotiated through our relationships with others. Nothing is interactively accomplished in two ways, through social acts of commission and omission. Existentialism and phenomenology encourage us to understand more deeply the subjective experience of nothing; this can be pursued through conscious meaning-making and reflexive self-awareness.
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Publication status
- Published
Publisher
RoutledgePages
208.0Place of publication
Abingdon; New YorkISBN
9781138297975Series
Routledge Studies in Social and Political ThoughtDepartment affiliated with
- Sociology and Criminology Publications
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- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2019-09-24Usage metrics
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