Table Of ContentObjects 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
