Yes.
It’s been a long time and I’m still researching…
Researching into the topic of materiality is quite difficult because its such a broad topic. There are so many meanings behind the word “materiality”. The meaning could be from matter to materialistic things.
What could the meaning be?
So, in order to find some answers, I looked through a thesaurus to find some context behind the word “materiality” and there was no meaning associated with said word so I looked into “material”. It had lots of definition so I decided to put those definitions through a mind map.
I know what you are thinking…it looks confusing! There are so many interesting ideas that the chain just grew even wider as the ideas came out. There were so many words that you could link with “materiality” like physical which branched off to concepts like “the material world”. Honestly, at first, it made me think about the song Material Girl by Madonna because “we are living in a material world.” Moreover, it also made me think about the material things we own; from shoes to jewellery, the “materialistic things” we need in order to blend in society. “As material civilisation has progressed, so has the material environment which human beings have created for themselves.” (Dant, 2005, pg 136). We live in material world where we need these material objects as a security blanket to feel safe and not be judged by the “materialistic society.” As the “civilisation” has increased, the need for materialistic things has expanded within the society. Maybe, having these material objects is a way to be accepted into society because we have built a “material environment.”
Furthermore, other things that linked with “materiality” were information that branched off to facts, details and work. “Work” made me think about this section in the book Materiality and Society where Christian Heath and his colleagues, who did a study of workplaces, analysed video data where material objects were part of work and looked into details of interaction between humans and objects. “Their focus of attention has primarily been on how material objects become incorporated onto interaction between humans and how attention to material objects is inserted into exchange of talk.” (Dant, 2005, pg 8).
However, the most interesting concept about “materiality” was substance as it branched out to options like elements, matter and body. Substance was also linked with “decomposition of organic material” which branched off to ideas about plants and the human body and if it’s possible, how certain fabrics might react if I leave them in different elements like leaving them in soil, etc. Sensual and the concept about “the renunciation of material pleasure” stared to become interesting because it was linked with the human body and how we feel about material objects.
Overall, there were so many ideas around “materiality” and creating the second mind map made it a bit clear on where I wanted to focus (which is about the human body). I’m not quite sure on how I want to carry the research as I don’t want to approach it directly but think more about what I want to research and what’s interesting to me.
Bipana
Dant, T. (2005). Materiality and Society .Maidenhead: Open University Press .
Question of Research 