Material Politics of Citizenship

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Amelung ◽  
Cristiano Gianolla ◽  
Joana Sousa Ribeiro ◽  
Olga Solovova
Keyword(s):  
Material Politics

Ecological Democracy and the Co-participation of Things

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Disch
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Actor Network ◽  
Material Politics ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
Ecological Democracy

Is ecological democracy possible? If so, what would it entail? This chapter first reviews the literature based in deliberative democracy that proposes to extend communicative competence to non-humans, and then traces an alternative constructivist line of environmental political thinking from its beginnings in the strand of science and technology studies pioneered by Bruno Latour and others known as actor-network theory, through two actor-network theory-inspired approaches to political theory, “object-oriented democracy” and “material politics/participation.” Whereas this alternative approach solves some of the conundrums to which the communicative model gives rise, it is neither as radical a departure from politics as it is “normally understood,” nor aspoliticalas its proponents claim.

Anthropological Approaches to Contemporary Material Worlds

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Waste Disposal ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Resource Extraction ◽  
Material Life ◽  
Material Politics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Material Agency ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Affective Dimensions

This chapter explores the place of materials in contemporary anthropological research. Moving away from semiotic approaches to material culture, the focus is on the diverse ways in which the vitality of materials is invoked in different analytical traditions and diverse ethnographic settings. Phenomenological approaches to craft practice emphasize the intrinsic relationality and vitality of materials over and beyond the capacity of human intention to impose form. This celebration of the vital force of materials is contrasted to a darker and more explicitly material politics that emerges from contemporary studies of waste disposal and resource extraction where toxicity and deathly effects characterize the transformational force of material life. Anthropological investigations into material agency and the personhood of things also attend to the immaterial and affective dimensions of material relations and pose ontological questions about the social consequences of material life.

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