The Material Subject Rethinking Bodies and Objects in Motion

This edited volume links the practical knowledge of a community, i.e., knowing how to do something, with the analyses of socio-cultural concepts and values attached to actions (knowing what to do and why to do it). In particular, the work is situated in the anthropological study of techniques, materiality and power via the ideas of the Matière à Penser (MaP) school of thought. Drawn from different domains and geographical regions, the chapters in this volume emphasize the role of bodily and material culture in making subjects, with a focus on empirical field research and theoretical sophistication.

Each chapter highlights the embodied subject as a holistic entity including their mind, drives and pains that are engaged in relationships with others (Mauss 1934, Bourdieu 1977, Foucault 2001, Latour 1993, Warnier 1999, 2011). In doing so, this book rejects the Western notion of the self-managing individual with disembodied thought. The volume mediates different scales of engagement through its focus on practices and connects the study of physical properties (of both humans and objects) and gestures to larger questions of how individuals are connected with their environment and each other through actions. Significantly, the chapters provide students and scholars of material culture in the Anglophone world with valuable access to emerging cross-disciplinary research as well as selected works by French authors.