Material Culture

Beginning with many of its earliest writings, sociology has a long tradition of theorizing the role of objects and material culture in social life. In the middle of the 20th century, these themes were taken up again by major sociological and anthropological thinkers who inspired a resurgence of interest in the study of objects. The sociology of culture and art began to address the production and reception of objects, while scholars from anthropology, cultural studies, and media studies began to develop a robust body of work around material culture. These two fields have somewhat different takes on the study of objects. Sociological accounts tend to be people focused, examining how institutional characteristics of art worlds shape the objects produced, and focusing explanations of meaning-making on the social position of the audience more so than the symbolic qualities of the object. Alternatively, material culture approaches tend to be object focused, engaging objects as symbols that help explain how people organize subcultures, create solidarity through exchange, or express social status. A turn toward materiality, originating from anthropology but taken up more recently in sociology, privileges the material qualities of objects and how they shape the use and symbolic meaning of objects. This work on objects raises the question of how sociologists should incorporate objects into accounts of action. This question has sparked an ongoing cross-disciplinary debate about whether objects have agency. Research in science and technology studies, alongside studies of craft and sport, have brought attention to how objects act back, shaping how knowledge is produced. Objects have also been understood as mechanisms of power, by shaping categories and morality, ritualizing icons, stabilizing social relations as instruments of the states and institutions, and structuring action through the built environment. These robust and vibrant areas of research make a strong case for the incorporation of objects into theories of power and knowledge.