Toward an Ecology of Materials

TLDR

Material culture studies and ecological anthropology both examine the material conditions of social life, yet despite methodological convergence, their practitioners still communicate in largely incommensurate theoretical languages. The review aims to overcome these limitations by proposing an ecology of materials that focuses on their enrollment in form‑making processes. The authors develop an ecological framework that centers materials’ enrollment in form‑making processes. The review identifies that a conception of the material world excluding living organisms, an emphasis on finished artifacts over material properties, and a conflation of things with objects hinder the flow of energy and material circulation, and it concludes with observations on materials, mind, and time.

Abstract

Both material culture studies and ecological anthropology are concerned with the material conditions of social and cultural life. Yet despite advances in each of these fields that have eroded traditional divisions between humanistic and science-based approaches, their respective practitioners continue to talk past one another in largely incommensurate theoretical languages. This review of recent trends in the study of material culture finds the reasons for this in (a) a conception of the material world and the nonhuman that leaves no space for living organisms, (b) an emphasis on materiality that prioritizes finished artifacts over the properties of materials, and (c) a conflation of things with objects that stops up the flows of energy and circulations of materials on which life depends. To overcome these limitations, the review proposes an ecology of materials that focuses on their enrollment in form-making processes. It concludes with some observations on materials, mind, and time.