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Published: 4th September 2012

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What is the role of things in political participation? This innovative book develops a fresh perspective on everyday forms of engagement, one that foregrounds the role of objects, technology and settings in relation to public involvement. It makes a distinctive contribution to debates about the role of things, technology and matter in democracy, but it also offers a detailed empirical analysis of contemporary devices of participation, such as smart electricity meters, demonstrational eco-homes and sustainable living gadgets. Through case studies of mundane technologies of environmental engagement, this book then develops a set of innovative concepts and methods for the social and political analysis of distinctively material forms of participation. Material Participation explores the next steps that might be taken in social studies of participation, technology and the environment, focusing our empirical, critical and creative attention squarely on the materials and devices of the public.

'Marres' attention to the material conditions of political participation is not a return to materialism but a deep redefinition of each of those terms: why does politics matter and what does it mean to be involved into politics? Before her a pragmatist view of politics and publics remained abstract, without a clear method to follow the objects, pragmata, that give relevance to the creation of the public. Marres' work deeply renews what it is for the study of politics and participation to take material conditions seriously.' - Bruno Latour, Professor, Sciences Po, Paris, France 'Material Participation is a book about the role of objects in political participation. It is part of what has been called the object turn - what Noortje Marres, more delightfully, calls the coming out of things. It is an account of how moral and political phenomena may unfold on the plane of things. It deploys a vocabulary of modality, multi-valence, implication, accomplishment, setting and relevance to make visible the middling work of objects. And in doing so offers us the possibility of taking part in a politics of co-articulation, of producing new, more variable kinds of connections between publics, ontology, and the empirical.' - Celia Lury, Professor, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick, UK

ISBN: 9780230232112
ISBN-10: 0230232116
Audience: Tertiary; University or College
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 216
Published: 4th September 2012
Dimensions (cm): 22.2 x 14.1  x 1.7
Weight (kg): 0.378