In this paper I argue that thinking about the material in cultural economy has much to gain from culture itself. Specifically, I explore the potential of literary narrative for conceptualizing and writing material within a performative cultural economy. Drawing on the industrial short stories of...

This paper identifies, and works from, the technoconceptual as a site of intervention for a politics of stuff. Its case is radioactive waste: specifically, UK higher activity wastes (HAW) and the policy future of a UK Deep Geological Disposal Facility (DGF). The paper proceeds through three...

We develop a particular approach to the analysis of retailing, one in which the importance of retailers' talk/practice and the connections between talk/practice and its displacement within retail organisations is emphasised. Displacement means that executive talk is not necessarily powerful, but...

This paper connects research on home-based consumption with research on waste policy and governance. We argue that, in order to meet the enhanced goals of waste reduction specified in <i>Waste Strategy for England 2007</i>, UK municipal waste policy needs a far closer engagement with the household, the...

This paper forwards a performative reading of asbestos in economies of disposal. It argues that materials need to be thought through transformative states, not just stable states, and that materials’ performativity varies according to material states. As a radical intervention in form,...

Following the earlier work of SMAILES, 1944, and SMITH, 1968, the changing urban hierarchy of England has been plotted for 1913, 1938, 1965 and 1998, using two alternative composite measures: an urban hierarchy embodying a number of different measures of urbanity; and a retail hierarchy based on...

Of central importance to the policy debate which emerged during the late 1990s in the UK on the topic of 'food deserts' were the causes of the perceived worsening access to food retail provision in certain poor neighbourhoods of British cities. The 1980s/early 1990s era of intense food...