The Social Life of Materials

PrefacePart I: Introduction1. To Live in a Materials WorldAdam Drazin, University College London, UKPart II: On Materials Innovation2. What's in a Plant Leaf? A Case Study of Materials Innovation in New ZealandGraeme Were, University of Queensland, Australia3. Pharmaceutical Matters: The Invention of Informed Materials Andrew Barry, Oxford University, UK4. Towards Designing New Sensoaesthetic Materials: The Role of Materials LibrariesMark Miodownik, University College London, UK5. The Science of Sensory Evaluation: An Ethnographic CritiqueDavid Howes, Concordia University, CanadaPart III: From Substance to Form6. Wild Silk Indigo Wrappers of Dogon of Mali: An Ethnography of Materials Efficacy and DesignLaurence Douny, University College London, UK7. Fashioning Plastic: Changing Materials in DesignTom Fisher, University of Nottingham, UK8. Dressing for God: Cloth as Material of Religious Subjectivity in a Hindu Group Urmila Mohan, University College London, UKPart IV: The Subversion of Form by Substance9. Introducing Fairtrade and Fairmined Gold: An Attempt to Reconfigure the Social Identity of a SubstancePeter Oakley, Royal College of Art, UK10. Subversive Plasticity: Materials' Histories and Cultural Categories in the PhilippinesDeirdre McKay, Keele University, UK11. Diamonds, Machines and Colors: Moving Materials in Ritual ExchangeFilipe Calvao, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, SwitzerlandPart V: Ecologies of Materials' Social Lives12. Sustainability and the Co-constitution of Substances and SubjectsSarah Wilkes, University College London, UK13. The Peony and the Rose: Social Change and Fragrance Marketing in China's Bath MarketChan Chow Wah, independent scholar, Singapore14. The Woollen Blanket and its Imagined Values: Material Transformations of Woollen Blankets in Contemporary ARtFiona P. McDonald, University College London, UKThe Implications of Materials Innovation and Disposal15. Materials: The Story of UseSusanne Kuechler, University College London, UKIndex