Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Materials play a central role in society. Beyond the physical and chemical properties of materials, their cultural properties have often been overlooked in anthropological studies- finished products have been perceived as 'social' yet the materials which comprise them are considered 'raw' or natural'. The Social Life of Materials proposes a new perspective in this interdisciplinary field. Diverting attention from the consumption of objects, the book looks towards the properties of materials and how these exist through many transformations in a variety of cultural contexts.
Human societies have always worked with materials. However, the customs and traditions surrounding this differ according to the place, the time and the material itself. Whether or not the material is man-made, materials are defined by social intervention. Today, these constitute one of the most exciting areas of global scientific research and innovation, harboring the potential to act as key vehicles of change in the world. But this 'materials revolution' has complex social implications. Smart materials are designed to anticipate our actions and needs, yet we are increasingly unable to apprehend the composite materials which comprise new products.
Bringing together ethnographic studies of cultures from around the world, this collection explores the significance of materials by moving beyond questions of what may be created from them. Instead, the text argues that the materials themselves represent a shifting ground around which relationships, identities and powers are constantly formed and dissolved in the act of making and remaking.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Foreword
• 1 Introduction: To Live in a Materials World
• Part I On Materials Innovation
• 2 What's in a Plant Leaf? Material Innovation and Shifting Environments in New Zealand
• 3 Pharmaceutical Matters: The Invention of Informed Materials
• 4 Towards Designing New Sensoaesthetic Materials
• 5 The Science of Sensory Evaluation: An Ethnographic Critique
• Part II From Substance to Form
• 6 Wild Silk Indigo Textiles of West Africa: Towards an Ethnography of Materials
• 7 Fashioning Plastic: Changing Materials in Design
• 8 Dressing for God: Cloth as Substance of Hindu Consciousness in ISKCON
• Part III The Subversion of Form by Substance
• 9 Introducing Fairtrade and Fairmined Gold: An Attempt to Reconfigure the Social Identity of a Substance
• 10 Subversive Plasticity: Materials' Histories and Cultural Categories in the Philippines
• 11 Diamonds, Machines and Colors: Moving Materials in Ritual Exchange
• Part IV Ecologies of Materials
• 12 The Woollen Blanket and its Value(s)
• 13 The Peony and the Rose: Social Change and Fragrance Marketing in China's Bath Market
• 14 Sustainability and the Co-production of Substances and Citizens in the UK Materials Industry
• The Implications of Materials Innovation and Disposal
• 15 Materials: The Story of Use
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index