“When we let go of the stuff that binds us, we will be free”: Decluttering Rituals in Pursuit of Freedom

In the past decade, the decluttering trend—a broad phenomenon that includes movements such as Minimalism, Slow Living, Simple Living, Swedish Death Cleaning, Feng Shui, Underconsumption Core, and Marie Kondo—has gained a significant following in the United States. The decluttering trend attributes agency to objects and assumes that unnecessary objects in the home actively restrict human freedom. This paper examines the decluttering rituals people engage in to free themselves of the hold their possessions have over them. I argue that these decluttering rituals produce and subsequently obscure waste. Thus, decluttering rituals liberate people from their possessions by burdening marginalized populations and places with managing the waste and absorbing its toxicity.