This chapter interprets the GameStop saga of 2021 as the surface expression of an underlying libidinal economy of leverage. Building on post-Keynesian accounts of money and finance, it argues that the current financial system operates on the basis of a ‘rolling apocalypse’, turning the destructive nihilism of petty investors into fuel for the levered-up trading strategies of professional money managers.

Combining Freud’s ideas on sex with Marshall McLuhan’s understanding of technology, this chapter addresses the interpenetration of eroticism and finance today. In so doing, it clarifies how a detachment from the real traverses the technological, erotic, and economic transformation involved with online dating apps.

Emotion, a key area of interest in contemporary sociology, forms the central focus of Chapter 4. This chapter offers a sociological analysis of emotion in relation to baby loss and post-mortem practice. It focuses on parents’ experiences of emotion or being emotional as well as exploring emotion work in different types of professional practice. While parental and professional data form the central focus of the chapter, it also provides a sociological exploration of the emotional nature of doing research in this area. Throughout the chapter we explore the acute trauma and sadness of both experiencing and witnessing baby loss and post-mortem examination. The chapter also seeks to uncover some of the more life-affirming emotions often experienced in this context – for example, articulations of parental and professional pride – which often remain hidden from view. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the ways in which the articulation and management of emotions is contingent on the social relations and structures surrounding them.

This chapter draws together some of the significant conceptual, substantive and methodological themes that have emerged throughout the book, reflecting on their wider significance for existing debates in medical sociology, science and technology studies, social studies of death and dying, and research methods. We begin by examining the complex relationship between life and death, analysing and reflecting on parental coping strategies after loss. The chapter also considers the relationship between gender and reproduction, shedding light on the implications of our research findings for wider sociological debates on gender and masculinity. Existing conceptualisations of post-mortem practice tend to focus only on the clinical aspects of the examination. We aim to use the space offered by this conclusion to lobby for the development of a more enlightened approach to post-mortem, one that acknowledges the centrality of care and emotion. The chapter examines the sensory and sensitive nature of the research on which this book is based, offering suggestions on how researchers can successfully navigate emotions in research. As is shown throughout the book, while baby loss occurs to individual mothers and fathers, both parental and professional experience of this loss are profoundly shaped and mediated by the social. The conclusion draws to a close, therefore, by reflecting on the classic sociological relationship between the individual and society.

Trauma and suffering are part of the fabric of everyday social life, and, as such, have become an increasing concern in contemporary sociology. Drawing on data from our study, this chapter explores the deeply traumatic nature of baby loss. Parents often articulated an acute sense of shock at their unexpected loss, and a fear of what they might witness when they miscarried or delivered their baby. Other parents spoke about clutching at straws as they experienced agonising days of watching and waiting while their baby fought for life in intensive care. Regardless of the type of loss experienced, many parents articulated an acute sense of trauma and loss at being discharged from hospital with no baby to hold in their arms. Reflecting on emerging themes in the sociological literature on trauma, the chapter concludes by focusing on the ways in which trauma around baby loss can be experienced as both an individual psychological event as well as a collective experience.

The aim of the introduction is to provide readers who are new to the literature with an overview of key debates in the areas of baby loss and post-mortem practice. It begins by outlining existing literature on different types of baby loss (miscarriage, late fetal loss, stillbirth and SIDS). It also provides a summary of the different types of post-mortem available to parents across the UK (from full post-mortem to minimally invasive examinations). This chapter also provides an introduction to the taboo topic of paediatric post-mortem examination and the hidden world of the mortuary. It outlines the theoretical framework for the book, engaging with a wide range of literature on sensory sociology. The introduction also gives some background information on the research on which this book is based and offers a useful discussion about conducting sensitive research. The aims and methodology of the study are outlined, including a focus on such issues as sampling, data collection and analysis. The final section of the introduction outlines the book’s structure, providing a brief synopsis of each chapter.

Women’s rights to make decisions over their reproductive health have been central to feminist debates over several decades. When a serious fetal anomaly is diagnosed in late pregnancy, women are often expected to make choices over whether to terminate. Parents and professionals are also faced with difficult decisions around when to resuscitate babies or end neonatal life support. In the event of losing a baby, parents are also suddenly faced with making a range of difficult decisions including whether to consent to a post-mortem. This chapter focuses on exploring the difficult and often urgent decisions parents must make after they lose a baby, and seeks to extend existing sociological thinking on reproductive choice and decision-making.

Memory-making has often been central to research on reproductive loss. For example, research on baby loss has focused on exploring the role of ultrasound images, footprints, photos and gift-giving as part of the creation and maintenance of fetal personhood and memorialisation. Attention has been given in wider studies on death and dying to the intersection of material culture and place, and more recently to the emergence of less traditional commemorative practices. Drawing on data from the study, Chapter 6 explores memory-making as a dynamic social process that occurs across time and place. As our findings show, it often begins in the hospital where parents are given a memory box which they then fill with a range of different items over time. Professionals also prepare for and engage in a range of memory-making activities with parents, in the hospital but also in different contexts such as memorial services. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the social and relational aspects of memory production, and on the broader material turn in sociology, where it is argued that material objects both shape but are also shaped by everyday practice.

Chapter 5 focuses on the hidden care work that takes place in the mortuary. The concept of ‘care’ has been used by sociologists to explore a range of issues (for example, nurture, treatment, protection or work) in various settings, from children’s homes to residential care for older people. Care is often the central focus of sociological research on palliative or end-of-life ‘care’. In contrast, ethnographies of post-mortem practice tend to focus on the scientific rather than emotional or care work involved. Drawing on data from the study, we explore the various care practices enacted by different types of health professionals (such as bathing, dressing and talking to babies) that take place in the mortuary. These practices, although hidden from the view of the public and some other clinical staff, were often crucial to parental and professional experience of the post-mortem process. By uncovering some of these hidden care practices the chapter seeks to extend existing sociological literature in this field.