Publication (142 pages).

eader that he/ she is going through someone else’s perspective and interpretation
of the text. Every chapter follows a slightly different aesthetic and grid, becasue
hoarding isn’t linear, it is constantly changing, piling up content and distress.
In this part, there’s a constant style tension between display (gestual) and book
(mechanic), neat and tidy vs blurry, full bleed vs balanced and white spaced.
Hoarding is made out of tensions, between the anxiety, the fear, the chaos, the
mess and the social constructions that cause hoarding to be so misunderstood.
A more complete understanding of hoarding behavior is developed here by
showing the historical social construction of the behaviors that comprise the
disorder: acquisition, clutter, and retention of objects. This approach adds to
existing hoarding research and opens up new directions for further study by
bringing the sociological perspective into the discussion of this disorder. Despite
its possible inclusion in the upcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorder (the DSM-V), there are still many aspects of hoarding
disorder which are poorly understood or remain unexplored. This book adds a
previously overlooked element to hoarding research by showing how behaviors
associated with hoarding developed within a social framework. After discussing
the history of hoarding as a disorder and the human-object relationship, I construct
a social history in which the behaviors associated with hoarding from the
later 1800s through the present day are examined at macro, meso, and micro
levels of analysis. At the macro-level of analysis, the transformation of shopping
into a leisurely pastime and the use of advertising to influence consumer purchasing
has created a social and economic context in which the acquisition of
objects is normal, expected behavior. At the meso-level of analysis, the social
practice of creating a sense of class membership through the use of objects in the
home is explored, as is collecting as a hobby and a lifestyle. At the micro-level of
analysis, I show the relationship of the individual to their objects and the part
that social influences play in the discard or retention of those objects. I conclude
that to fully understand hoarding, researchers must consider that both hoarders
and non-hoarders live in a social world in which the behaviors associated with
hoarding have developed into existing norms.
Here is the result:
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