New Materialisms in Social Theory and Practice

New materialisms constitute a cluster of theoretical approaches that reconceive social phenomena through the mutual co-constitution of human and non-human forces. Rejecting entrenched dualisms such as subject/object and nature/culture, they emphasise how material entities—from technologies and bodies to environments and objects—possess agentic capacities and enter into dynamic entanglements. This perspective shifts analytical focus away from autonomous individual actors or overarching structures, toward relational assemblages in which agencies emerge and dissipate through interactions. In social theory, new materialisms have invigorated debates on inequality, memory, ageing, health and gender by demonstrating how so-called inert matter partakes in social processes. In methodological practice, they invite researchers to attend to the material conditions of inquiry, to trace flows of matter and meaning, and to deploy innovative conceptual toolkits inspired by Deleuzian, Baradian and Spinozist philosophies. The result is a more-than-human social science that holds implications for policy, design, public health and technology governance across global contexts. By foregrounding material-discursive co-production, this field offers concrete pathways for rethinking sustainability, social justice and participatory research in an era of rapid technological and environmental change.

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Technical terms

Assemblage: A heterogeneous configuration of human and non-human elements whose dynamic relations produce specific capacities.

Affect: The capacity of bodies, objects or environments to enact changes in one another, fostering or inhibiting responses.

Capacity: An emergent potential or power that arises within an assemblage, enabling or constraining action.

Entanglement: A condition of mutual interdependence among entities, where boundaries between matter and meaning dissolve.

Material-discursive co-production: The simultaneous shaping of social reality through both material forces and discursive practices.

References

1. Materiality Versus Metabolism in the Hybrid World: Towards a Dualist Concept of Materialism as Limit of Post-humanism in the Technical Era. Philosophy & Technology (2024).
2. Doing new materialist data analysis: a Spinozo-Deleuzian ethological toolkit. International Journal of Social Research Methodology (2021).
3. Non‐human matter, health disparities and a thousand tiny dis/advantages. Sociology of Health & Illness (2021).