Preview the Article

Follow the steps below to preview the article “I Spoke to ‘Minimalists’ to Find out Why They Are Giving up Their Personal Possessions.” Ideally, you should print the article and write your responses in the margins of the printed copy. To read more about previewing, visit the chapter on previewing a reading.

1. Read the title. What does it make you think about? What do you think the article is about? What questions do you have? Record your predictions and questions on the printed copy of the article next to the title.
2. Which of your possessions would be hardest for you to give away? The easiest to give away? Record your thoughts on the printed copy of the article.
3. Read the first two or three paragraphs. What additional predictions do you now have about the article? What additional questions do you have? Record them on the printed copy of the article.
4. Scan the article and notice the headings (e.g. Why minimalism?). What additional thoughts or questions do these raise? Record them on the printed copy of the article.
5. Scan the bolded and underlined vocabulary in the article.  If there are any words that you do not know well, look them up in a print or online dictionary and write some notes about their meanings on the printed copy of the article. Keep in mind that some words have multiple meanings. For example, the word crash is used in paragraph 3 and can have different parts of speech and meanings depending on its use. You will need to read the sentence containing the word to understand the word’s usage.
6. Based on your preview of the article, what do you think is the central point of the article? (Don’t worry if you are not sure. This is a prediction or guess – you do not have to be correct as long as you are engaging your brain.) Record your prediction on the printed copy of the article.
7. Based on your preview, do you predict that the article is narrative, expository, or argumentative?

Read Interactively

Now, read the article using the guidelines from the chapter on reading interactively. As you read, follow these steps to engage with the text.

1. Pause to confirm or revise your predictions and to answer the questions you posed while previewing the article. Write down those revised predictions and responses to the questions as you read. If you cannot find the answers to your questions, save them for further research and discussion.
2. Pause at other points to check for understanding of what you just read. Can you explain key ideas in your own words yet? If not, reread to clarify. It makes no sense to keep reading if you did not understand something or if you became distracted, which happens to everyone as they read. Ideas that come later in a text build on the previous ones.
3. Pay attention to any vocabulary words that are confusing. Look up the words in a dictionary if they are interfering with your understanding, or mark them to return to later.
4. Record any opinions or reactions you have to the reading.
5. Write down any further questions that develop as you read.

I spoke to ‘minimalists’ to find out why they are giving up their personal possessions

Amber Martin-Woodhead, Coventry University

February 25, 2021

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¹ I recently spoke to a man named Adam who told me that every object he owns could fit in one of Ikea’s famous shelving units. He owns two pairs of jeans and T-shirts in just three colours. He is so concerned with the ethical and environmental impacts of his possessions, that he once spent two months researching a pair of jeans to buy. Then when he finally took them to the till, he didn’t buy them as he noticed a tiny square of leather on the back.

² Adam is a “minimalist”. Minimalism is an increasingly popular lifestyle choice that involves voluntarily reducing the number of possessions owned to a bare minimum. It is based on the premise that “less is more”, as reducing physical possessions is seen to make way for the important non-material things in life such as personal wellbeing and everyday experiences.

³ The term minimalism surfaced after the 2008 financial crash and has become popular in the US, Japan and Europe over the past decade. Figureheads have emerged, such as US-based Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus who have released two feature-length films about minimalism on Netflix, and state on their website that they “help over 20 million people live meaningful lives with less”.

⁴ Intrigued by the rising popularity of minimalism, I started researching minimalist, books, online content and podcasts. As an academic interested in fashion and sustainable consumption, I also wanted to know about the main motivations and values of minimalists, and how it played a part in people’s everyday lives.

⁵ To find out more, I conducted in-depth interviews with 15 people across the UK who defined themselves as minimalists. Some lived in homes with relatively few possessions and others could fit all their possessions in just a few storage boxes.

Why minimalism?

⁶ The people interviewed explained they were mainly minimalists due to the personal benefits it provides. This includes being able to travel and move house easily, having more time (as they spend less time shopping, cleaning and repairing their possessions) and feeling happier (due to having less stress from clutter and a firmer control of their personal finances due to less shopping).

⁷ Some discovered minimalism later on in life and had big clear outs of their possessions. Others decluttered occasionally and some never decluttered at all, explaining that they had never accumulated a lot of possessions, having always had minimalist tendencies before the term even emerged.

⁸ Many of the minimalists were concerned about decluttering and issues of waste and landfill. Those who had decluttered didn’t mention throwing things away. Instead, they tended to sell on higher value items and gave other things away to charity shops, which they saw as more convenient and they liked the idea of another person being able to find value in the item.

⁹ Many of the minimalists strongly disliked shopping, consumer culture and materialism. Some said they didn’t want to buy things in order to “keep up with the Joneses” and saw minimalism as a way in which they could avoid feeling like they had to. Also, some (but not all) of the minimalists were motivated to shop less in order to be more sustainable.

¹⁰ Everyone I interviewed reduced their possessions by trying to buy less and by repairing and maintaining what they already had. When they do buy things, they are very considered – questioning if they really need something carefully, avoiding impulse purchases, taking time to research goods (like Adam and his jeans) and trying to purchase less by buying “quality over quantity”.

A sustainable (non-)consumer lifestyle?

¹¹ Some of the minimalists were extremely motivated by sustainability and try to only buy second-hand products or new products that are sustainably and/or ethically made. Others saw not buying very much as a sustainable “by-product” of their minimalist lifestyle, rather than a main motivation. And some were not motivated by sustainability concerns at all.

¹² However, minimalism still has largely sustainable outcomes, even if this is not always the main motivation. Practices like highly reduced and carefully considered consumption, or carefully choosing what to dispose of to avoid things going into landfill, are clearly better for the environment than default disposable culture.

¹³ Regardless of their sustainability motivations, everyone I interviewed said minimalism made them happier. This perhaps explains its increasing popularity and also demonstrates its potential importance. By offering personal benefits and pleasures, minimalism may encourage more people to adopt a more sustainable anti-accumulation lifestyle – even if sustainability isn’t always the main intent.

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Amber Martin-Woodhead, Lecturer in Human Geography, Coventry University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Reflect

After reading the article, use the following questions to reflect on the content of the article and your reading process. See the chapter about reflecting for a discussion of why this is a crucial step.

1. Try to paraphrase the main idea in a sentence. This may be challenging because you have read the article only once. If you are struggling, do your best. You can refine this when you reread and summarize the article.
2. Is the article primarily narrative, expository, or argumentative? What is the purpose of the article? In other words, why do you think the author wrote it?
3. Which predictions were accurate, and which did you have to revise?
4. As you previewed the article, you wrote questions.  What questions remain unanswered after reading the article?
5. What else do you want to know about the article or topic of the reading? Write down any additional questions.
6. How did previewing the article help you to understand and engage with the text while reading?
7. Where did you struggle to understand something in the text, and how did you work through it?
8. What, if anything, could you have done differently to improve your reading process?

Summarize

Complete a summary of the article by following these steps. Make sure you have read the chapters about Reading to Summarize before proceeding with the summary.

1. Reread the article and complete the Summary Notes. See Preparing to Summarize for a review of this topic and an example.
2. Then, use your Summary Notes to write a one-paragraph summary of the article. See Writing a Summary for a review of this topic and an example. Make sure that you include in-text citations and the Work Cited.
3. Use the self-assessment/peer review questions from Evaluating a Summary to self-assess your summary or invite a peer to provide feedback.
4. Use the self-assessment or peer feedback to make changes to your summary.

Make sure you are comfortable with your summary before advancing to the response. If you misunderstand something in the article, then your response may be skewed based on that misunderstanding.

Respond

Write a response to the article by following these steps. Make sure you have read the chapters about Reading to Respond before proceeding with the summary.

1. Use the Response Questions from Preparing to Respond to brainstorm possible ideas for your response. See the example in that same chapter.
2. Read over your replies to the Response Questions. Choose one idea to write about in your response. Express that idea in a topic sentence. See Writing a Topic Sentence for a Response for examples. Ask a peer for feedback on your topic sentence.
3. Brainstorm about possible support you could use in your response. See Generating Support for a Response for examples.
4. Use your topic sentence and ideas from the list of support to write a one-paragraph response. See Writing a Response writing guidelines and examples. Make sure that you include the Work Cited and in-text citations for any quotes or specific ideas from the article.
5. Use the self-assessment/peer review questions from Evaluating a Response to evaluate your response or have a peer provide feedback.
6. Use the self-assessment or peer feedback to make improvements to your response.

Extend: Research and Connect

In the article, Amber Martin-Woodhead references “Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus who have released two feature-length films about minimalism on Netflix, and state on their website that they ‘help over 20 million people live meaningful lives with less'” (par. 3). Visit their website and explore their blog, film trailers, and other posts.

After reading Martin-Woodhead’s article and exploring Millburn and Nicodemus’s website, do you think you think minimalism is a beneficial practice? If so, what are the benefits? If not, why not? Would you want to try minimalism? Explain your thinking, and share your ideas with your classmates.