Sophie Woodward (Manchester): Imagination and Gifts: The lives and temporalities of dormant gifts
| Dates: | 11 November 2024 |
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| Times: | 15:00 - 17:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Sophie Woodward |
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Gifts that are hidden unwanted in a cupboard could be dismissed as a relationship that has gone wrong, or a lack of understanding of a recipient’s preferences. An implicit but key aspect of keeping (and buying) gifts is imagination: of what another person would like, or what someone would think if a gift is resold. This talk develops the idea of imagination via a methodological twist on follow the thing approaches (Cook et al, 2004) to things to explore how we can trace the histories of imagined futures of hidden gifts in the home. This approach opens up the temporal relations of gifting and I take the frame of dormancy to think about the frozen presents of unwanted gifts to highlight both their vibrancy (Bennett, 2009) as well as projections into the future. Drawing on ethnographically informed fieldwork in the UK, I think about the complex intersections and disjunctures between the relational, moral, material and economic values of gifts. In doing so it asks: what is the proper life of a gift? Theories of the gift set up how gifting allows a relationship to work, but what if dormancy is a necessary part of making relationships work?
Speaker
Sophie Woodward
Organisation: University of Manchester
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Hanson Room
Humanities Bridgeford Street
Manchester
