Overview

Objects in Context: Theorizing Material Culture brings together a group of diverse essays originating from a graduate student conference held at Western University in 2013 entitled (Re)Activating Objects: Social Theory and Material Culture. With over 100 delegates from across Canada and the United States, the conference's vision was to investigate the ways that material culture provides a lens to examine the structures of our socio-cultural-economic worlds. As such, this publication provides interdisciplinary approaches to a wide range of fundamental and theoretical questions about social constructions, social politics, and social ethics. The contributing scholars offer critical approaches which 'activate' objects that are under-theorized and/or 'reactivate' objects with shifting or multiple ideologies. Ultimately, the papers within this volume address the broad-ranging question, what can objects tell us about the worlds in which we live?