New Materialism in Cultural Geography
Summary
New materialism in cultural geography represents a shift from human-centred and representational approaches to an emphasis on the agency of matter, the entanglement of human and non-human forces, and the co-constitution of social and material worlds. Drawing on feminist theory, post-humanism and science studies, this perspective foregrounds processes of “intra-action” whereby bodies, objects, environments and technologies emerge through relational practices. Material flows, affective intensities and infrastructural networks become sites of inquiry in which landscapes, urban spaces and everyday routines are not merely backdrops to social life but active participants in shaping experience and meaning. This turn has yielded novel insights into environmental governance, urban design, resource politics and social justice by demonstrating how matter itself carries histories, exerts pressures and conditions possibilities for action. Methodologically, new materialist geographers employ multisensory fieldwork, mapping of material assemblages and experimental collaborations with artists, engineers and community groups to render visible the vitality of the non-human world.
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Technical terms
Relational ontology: A philosophical stance that holds entities exist through their relations rather than as discrete, pre-formed subjects or objects.
Intra-action: A concept denoting the mutual constitution of entangled agencies, emphasising that agencies emerge through relations rather than precede them.
Actor-network theory: An approach that treats human and non-human actors symmetrically, mapping heterogeneous networks of materials, technologies and beings.
Affect: Pre-conscious intensities or forces that circulate through bodies and environments, shaping perceptions, dispositions and actions.
Entanglement: The intertwining of social, material and affective processes in which distinctions between nature and culture become unstable.
References
- Negativity: space, politics and affects. Cultural Geographies (2021).
- Interstitial and Abyssal geographies. Political Geography (2022).
- Forms and scenes of attachment: A cultural geography of promises. Dialogues in Human Geography (2022).
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