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Sociology
Social Theory

Containment and Leakage: Notes on a General Containerology

Profile image of Olli PyyhtinenOlli Pyyhtinen

2025, Theory, Culture & Society

https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764241280151
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20 pages

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Abstract

In the article, we set out to develop the contours of a general containerology, interrogating containment as a technology and an ontological condition that shapes human and more-than-human relations. While exploring containment technologies as spatio-temporal devices of ordering vis-à-vis leakage, we nevertheless stress how containment inevitably remains contextual, provisional, and leaky at best. Addressing the selective permeability of containers, we also discuss the relation between contained interiorities and exteriorities as processes of articulations between milieus. We problematise the opposition and incommensurability between containment and leakage, and instead insist on conceiving them as co-constitutive. Ultimately, we outline an affirmative, positive take on containment beyond exclusionary inclusion, in contrast to prevailing negative conceptions and practices.

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