Theories of Material Agency and Practice: A Guide to Collecting Urban Material Culture

Abstract

Abstract In understanding the objects of urban life, social scientists formerly emphasized formal phases of acquisition; mechanisms such as advertising, retailing, and marketing placed at the forefront of their theorization. The lived trajectories of material culture have taken on a new prescience for museology as contemporary anthropological discourse and everyday urban practice increasingly acknowledge the embeddedness of “things.” Highlighting examples of the recent intersection of social science discourse, museology, art practice, and popular culture, this article explores concepts of material agency as a source for thinking through future collecting of urban material culture. [material culture, material agency, contemporary museology]

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