Short Abstract

We explore how ethnographic and historical research can trace materials and substances through their transformations—e.g., phase transitions, chemical reactions and physicochemical interactions—to analyse how they emerge from and shape molecular, biological, ecological and social relations.

Description

Late industrialism and its anthropocenic consequences make visible that life is deeply entangled with materials and substances. In STS, taking materiality into account is common, yet materials and substances have mostly been treated as stable components of assemblages.

This panel explores materials and substances (including substance mixtures) as processually emergent, and considers what insights can be gained from attending to their transformation, such as phase transitions, chemical reactions, and physicochemical interactions in substance mixtures, constantly creating ever changing entanglements. Particularly, we ask how ethnographic research can trace materials and substances as they emerge from and reconfigure entanglements across different scientific, economic, political, and socio-cultural practices and scales.

Attention to material transformations unsettles the traditional view of materials and substances as existing in stable isolation and puts the focus on the relationships in which they exist – it highlights that they are shaped by the practices that work with them and shape these practices in turn. Water, for example, transforms through filtration, chemical treatment, freezing, evaporation, and contamination, and its composition is shaped by regional mineral compositions. Wood weathers and decays, metals corrode and leach, plastics fragment into microparticles and release chemical additives when exposed to environments. Such examples offer vantage points into understanding and specifying how changing material conditions shape molecular, biological, ecological, and social relations. (Reflections on elements, e.g., air or fire, are also welcome.)

We invite reflections on concepts and methods derived from ethnographic and historical inquiries that follow materials and substances through their transformations: What methods allow us to attend to phase transitions, chemical reactions, and other material transformations? How does the permeation and transformation of bodies and environments challenge our analytical repertoires and ethical registers? How can we create issue publics around dynamic materials and substances to foster reflections and discussions on their effects and inherent politics?

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