The End Has a Start: The Timeliness of Endings and the Affects of Closure

In this article, we take inspiration from Graham Crow’s call for a sociology of endings, which we regard as an important yet overlooked contribution to contemporary sociology in an age characterised by closure, loss, and decline. Drawing from an ongoing study of the social and cultural impacts of pub closure in the UK, the article presents reflections on our engagement with endings as a sociological topic. We focus on the temporal and affective nature of endings, suggesting that the ambiguous characteristics of both make studying endings fascinating and complex. We propose that sociologies of ending might take the form of hagiography, valediction, and elegy, each of which presents a different mode of attending to the temporalities, affective charges, and sociological significance of endings.