Objects and Materials: A Routledge Companion PDF
Preview Objects and Materials: A Routledge Companion
Objects and Materials There is broad acceptance across the humanities and social sciences that our deliberations on the social need to take place through attention to practice, to object-mediated relations, to non-human agency and to the affective dimensions of human sociality. This Companion focuses on the objects and materials found at centre stage, and asks: what matters about objects? Objects and Materials explores the field, providing succinct summary accounts of contempo- rary scholarship, along with a wealth of new research investigating the capacity of objects to shape, unsettle and exceed expectations. Original chapters from more than 40 international, interdisciplinary contributors address an array of objects and materials to ask what the terms of collaborations with objects and materials are, and to consider how these collaborations become integral to our understandings of the complex, relational dynamics that fashion social worlds. Objects and Materials will be of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences and humanities, including in sociology, social theory, science and technology studies, history, anthro- pology, archaeology, gender studies, women’s studies, geography, cultural studies, politics and international relations, and philosophy. Penny Harvey is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester and Director of CRESC, the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change. Eleanor Conlin Casella is Professor of Historical Archaeology at the University of Manchester. Gillian Evans is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Hannah Knox is a Research Fellow at CRESC, the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio- Cultural Change at the University of Manchester. Christine McLean is a Senior Lecturer at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. Elizabeth B. Silva is Professor of Sociology at the Open University. Nicholas Thoburn is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester. Kath Woodward is Professor of Sociology at the Open University. Culture, Economy and the Social A new series from CRESC – the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change Editors Professor Tony Bennett, Social and Cultural Theory, University of Western Sydney; Professor Penny Harvey, Anthropology, Manchester University; Professor Kevin Hetherington, Geography, Open University Editorial Advisory Board Andrew Barry, University of Oxford; Michel Callon, Ecole des Mines de Paris; Dipesh Chakrabarty, The University of Chicago; Mike Crang, University of Durham; Tim Dant, Lancaster University; Jean-Louis Fabiani, Ecoles de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales; Antoine Hennion, Paris Institute of Technology; Eric Hirsch, Brunel University; John Law, The Open University; Randy Martin, New York University; Timothy Mitchell, New York University; Rolland Munro, Keele University; Andrew Pickering, University of Exeter; Mary Poovey, New York University; Hugh Willmott, University of Cardiff; Sharon Zukin, Brooklyn College City University New York/Graduate School, City University of New York The Culture, Economy and the Social series is committed to innovative contempo- rary, comparative and historical work on the relations between social, cultural and economic change. It publishes empirically-based research that is theoretically informed, that critically examines the ways in which social, cultural and eco- nomic change is framed and made visible, and that is attentive to perspectives that tend to be ignored or side-lined by grand theorising or epochal accounts of social change. The series addresses the diverse manifestations of contemporary capital- ism, and considers the various ways in which the ‘social’, ‘the cultural’ and ‘the economic’ are apprehended as tangible sites of value and practice. It is explicitly comparative, publishing books that work across disciplinary perspectives, cross- culturally, or across different historical periods. The series is actively engaged in the analysis of the different theoretical tradi- tions that have contributed to the development of the ‘cultural turn’ with a view to clarifying where these approaches converge and where they diverge on a par- ticular issue. It is equally concerned to explore the new critical agendas emerging from current critiques of the cultural turn: those associated with the descriptive turn for example. Our commitment to interdisciplinarity thus aims at enriching theoretical and methodological discussion, building awareness of the common ground that has emerged in the past decade, and thinking through what is at stake in those approaches that resist integration to a common analytical model. Series titles include: The Media and Social Theory (2008) Understanding Sport: A Socio-Cultural Edited by David Hesmondhalgh and Analysis (2012) Jason Toynbee John Horne, Alan Tomlinson, Garry Whannel and Kath Woodward Culture, Class, Distinction (2009) Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Bortolaia Shanghai Expo: An International Forum on Silva, Alan Warde, Modesto Gayo-Cal and the Future of Cities (2012) David Wright Edited by Tim Winter Material Powers (2010) Diasporas and Diplomacy: Cosmopolitan Edited by Tony Bennett and Patrick Joyce Contact Zones at the BBC World Service (1932–2012) (2012) The Social after Gabriel Tarde: Debates and Assessments (2010) Edited by Marie Gillespie and Alban Webb Edited by Matei Candea Making Culture, Changing Society (2013) Cultural Analysis and Bourdieu’s Tony Bennett Legacy (2010) Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations Edited by Elizabeth Silva and Alan Ward of the Social and Natural Sciences (2013) Milk, Modernity and the Making of the Edited by Andrew Barry and Georgina Born Human (2010) Objects and Materials: A Routledge Richie Nimmo Companion (2014) Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Edited by Penny Harvey, Eleanor Conlin Casella, Cultural Industries (2010) Gillian Evans, Hannah Knox, Christine McLean, Edited by David Hesmondhalgh and Elizabeth B. Silva, Nicholas Thoburn and Sarah Baker Kath Woodward Migrating Music (2011) Rio de Janeiro: Urban Life through the Edited by Jason Toynbee and Byron Dueck Eyes of the City (forthcoming) Beatriz Jaguaribe Sport and the Transformation of Modern Europe: States, Media and Devising Consumption: Cultural Markets 1950–2010 (2011) Economies of Insurance, Credit and Edited by Alan Tomlinson, Christopher Young and Spending (forthcoming) Richard Holt Liz Mcfall Inventive Methods: The Happening of the Unbecoming Things: Mutable Objects and Social (2012) the Politics of Waste (forthcoming) Edited by Celia Lury and Nina Wakeford Nicky Gregson and Mike Crang Page Intentionally Left Blank Objects and Materials A Routledge Companion Edited by Penny Harvey, Eleanor Conlin Casella, Gillian Evans, Hannah Knox, Christine McLean, Elizabeth B. Silva, Nicholas Thoburn and Kath Woodward First published 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 selection and editorial material Penny Harvey, Eleanor Conlin Casella, Gillian Evans, Hannah Knox, Christine McLean, Elizabeth B. Silva, Nicholas Thoburn and Kath Woodward; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Objects and materials: a Routledge companion / edited by Penny Harvey, Eleanor Conlin Casella, Gillian Evans, Hannah Knox, Christine McLean, Elizabeth B. Silva, Nicholas Thoburn and Kath Woodward. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Material culture. 2. Ceremonial objects. 3. Art objects. I. Harvey, Penelope, GN406.O28 2013 930.1–dc23 2 012049615 ISBN: 978-0-415-67880-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-09361-0 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Cenveo Publisher Services Contents List of illustrations xi Notes on contributors xiii Acknowledgements xviii 1 Objects and materials: an introduction 1 Penny Harvey and Hannah Knox PART I Material qualities 19 Introduction 19 Gillian Evans 2 An interview with artist Helen Barff 27 Gillian Evans 3 A poor workman blames his tools or how irrigation systems structure human actions 40 Maurits W. Ertsen 4 T he material construction of state power: artifacts and the new Rome 50 Chandra Mukerji 5 T he material politics of solid waste: decentralization and integrated systems 61 Penny Harvey 6 F rom stone to god and back again: why we need both materials and materiality 72 Soumhya Venkatesan vii Contents 7 New materials and their impact on the material world 82 Susanne Küchler and Peter Oakley 8 D ecay, temporality and the politics of conservation: an archaeological approach to material studies 92 Eleanor Conlin Casella and Karina Croucher PART II Affective objects 103 Introduction 103 Eleanor Conlin Casella and Kath Woodward 9 Boxing films: sensation and affect 109 Kath Woodward 10 Tactile compositions 119 Kathleen Stewart 11 Bodies and cadavers 128 Maryon McDonald 12 D omination and desire: the paradox of Egyptian human remains in museums 144 Karen Exell 13 A dream of falling: philosophy and family violence 156 Patricia Ticineto Clough 14 S arah Kofman’s father’s pen and Bracha Ettinger’s mother’s spoon: trauma, transmission and the strings of virtuality 162 Griselda Pollock 15 Spectral objects: material links to difficult pasts for adoptive families 173 Steven D. Brown, Paula Reavey and Helen Brookfield PART III Unsettling objects 183 Introduction 183 Elizabeth B. Silva 16 Haunting in the material of everyday life 187 Elizabeth B. Silva viii Contents 17 The fetish of connectivity 197 Morten Axel Pedersen 18 U seless objects: commodities, collections and fetishes in the politics of objects 208 Nicholas Thoburn 19 The unknown objects of object-orientation 218 Matthew Fuller and Andrew Goffey 20 How things can unsettle 228 Martin Holbraad 21 Objects are the root of all philosophy 238 Graham Harman PART IV Interface objects 247 Introduction 247 Nicholas Thoburn 22 True automobility 251 Tim Dant 23 T he environmental teapot and other loaded household objects: reconnecting the politics of technology, issues and things 260 Noortje Marres 24 Interfaces: the mediation of things and the distribution of behaviours 272 Celia Lury 25 Idempotent, pluripotent, biodigital: objects in the ‘biological century’ 282 Adrian Mackenzie 26 R eal-izing the virtual: digital simulation and the politics of future making 291 Hannah Knox 27 M oney frontiers: the relative location of euros, Turkish lira and gold sovereigns in the Aegean 302 Sarah Green 28 Algorithms and the manufacture of financial reality 312 Marc Lenglet ix
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