Material Methods: Researching and Thinking with Things [Paperback]

Material Methods brings together resources for researchers investigating both the material, as well as the social world through material objects we design, buy, make, exchange and collect.

It covers the whole research process, from theoretical underpinnings, selection of methods and their possible uses, as well as representing and analysing data. It introduces students and researchers to the wide range of cross-disciplinary methods which help us to approach and interpret material culture and materials. The book also provides students and researchers with the tools to critically reflect upon pre-existing methods to see their limitations as well as possibilities, and apply them to their own research practice.

 

Material Methods brings introduces students and researchers to the wide range of cross-disciplinary methods which help us to approach and interpret material culture and materials. 

This is the first comprehensive presentation and review of methods for the study of material things that incorporates the advances in material culture studies and a variety of anthropological and sociological developments of recent decades. It has extraordinary breadth including both the planning of research and the presentation of results, alongside considerations of analysis and theory, taken from a broad spectrum between art and science and all delivered in a clear and thoughtful style. There are many original ideas and suggestions for how to proceed. The result will be invaluable for students and researchers wanting to study our ever expanding world of material and visual culture.What an excellent book Sophie Woodward has written! In ‘Material Methods’ she brings into the methodological mainstream a sophisticated and provocative analysis of the possibilities of researching the material world, in a most timely way. She cl³Ï