Restricted access

Research article

First published online July 2, 2015

Request permissions

Object interviews, material imaginings and ‘unsettling’ methods: interdisciplinary approaches to understanding materials and material culture

Sophie Woodward [email protected]View all authors and affiliations

Volume 16, Issue 4

https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794115589647

Abstract
References
Biographies

Abstract

This article aims to explore the possibilities and limitations of contemporary qualitative methods for understanding materials and material culture and how these can be expanded through interdisciplinary approaches. Taking the case study of an interdisciplinary project into old jeans, the article first considers the use of object interviews and life histories to explore how people ‘speak’ the material. Second, it develops the possibilities afforded by inventive material methods, such as socio-archaeological approaches of ‘material imaginings’. Finally, the article discusses the interdisciplinary project through the dialogues that took place around the methods of design and of textile technology and the data produced. Focusing upon dialogues offers a means of exploring the tensions and also connections between methods as a site for expanding qualitative understandings of materials as ‘live’ and vibrant. It aims to widen the remit of qualitative research methods to incorporate the material.

Get full access to this article

View all access and purchase options for this article.

References

Back L (2007) The Art of Listening. Oxford: Berg.

Back L, Puwar N (eds) (2012) Live Methods. Oxford: Blackwell.

Barry A, Born G (2013) Interdisciplinarity: Reconfigurations of the Social and Natural Sciences. London: Routledge.

Bennett J (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke.

Daniels I (2010) The Japanese House: Material Culture in the Modern Home. Oxford: Berg.

Dant T (2010) The work of repair: gesture, emotion and sensual knowledge. Sociological Research Online 15(3): 7.

Dicks B, Soyinka B, Coffey A (2006) Multimodal ethnography. Qualitative Research 6(1): 77–96.

Gaver W, Boucher A, Pennington S, Walker B (2004) Cultural probes and the value of uncertainty. Interactions - Funology 11(5): 53–56.

Gell A (1998) Art and Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gibson JJ (1977) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. London: Laurence Erlbaum.

Harper D (2002) Talking about pictures: a case for photo elicitation. Visual Studies 17(1): 13–26.

Harrison R (2011) Surface assemblages: towards an archaeology in and of the present. Archaeological Dialogues 18(2): 141–161.

Hauser K (2004) A garment in the dock; or, how the FBI illuminated the prehistory of a pair of denim jeans. Journal of Material Culture 9(3): 293–313.

Hockey J, Dilley R, Robinson V, Sherlock A (2013) Worn shoes: identity, memory and footwear. Sociological Research Online 18(1): 20.

Hodder I (1998) The interpretation of documents and material culture. In: Denzin N, Lincoln Y (eds) Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials. London: Sage, 110–129.

Hoskins J (1998) Biographical Objects: How Things Tell the Stories of People’s Lives. London: Routledge.

Hubbard G, Backett-Milburn K, Kemmer D (2001) Working with emotion: issues for the researcher in fieldwork and teamwork. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 4(2): 119–137.

Hurdley R, Dicks B (2011) In-between practice: working in the ‘thirdspace’ of sensory and multimodal methodology. Qualitative Research 11(3): 277–292.

Ingold T (2007) Materials against materiality. Archaeological Dialogues 14(1): 1–16.

Keane W (2005) Signs are not the garb of meaning: on the social analysis of material things. In: Miller D (ed.) Materiality. Durham: Duke University Press, 182–205.

Kingery W (ed.) (1996) Learning from Things: Method and Theory of Material Culture Studies. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press.

Klepp I, Hebrook M (2014) Wool is a knitted fabric that itches, isn’t it? Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty 5(1): 65–91.

Latour B (1993) We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Latour B, Woolgar A (1979) Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Fact. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Law J (2004) After Method: Mess in Social Science Research. London: Routledge.

Lury C, Wakeford N (2012) Inventive Methods: The Happening of the Social. London: Routledge.

Makinen M, Meinander H, Luible C, Magnenat-Thalmann N (2005) Influence of physical parameters on fabric hand. In: Proceedings of the HAPTEX’05 Workshop on Haptic and Tactile Perception of Deformable Objects. Universitat Hannover, Germany, 1 December 2005.

Mason J (2006) Mixing methods in a qualitatively driven way. Qualitative Research 10(4): 461–478.

Mason J, Davies K (2009) Coming to our senses? A critical approach to sensory methodology. Qualitative Research 9(5): 587–603.

Michael M (2012) De-signing the object of sociology: toward an ‘idiotic’ methodology. In: Back L, Puwar N (eds) Live Methods. Oxford: Blackwell, 166–183.

Miller D (1987) Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Pink S (2009) Doing Sensory Ethnography. London: Sage.

Rose G, Tolia-Kelly D (eds) (2012) Visuality/Materiality: Images, Objects and Practices. Farnham: Ashgate.

Rowsell J (2011) Carrying my family with me: artefacts as emic perspectives. Qualitative Research 11(3): 331–346.

Shankar S (2006) Metaconsumptive practices and the circulation of objectifications. Journal of Material Culture 11(3): 293–317.

Shove E, Watson M, Hand M, Ingram J (eds) (2007) The Design of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg.

Thurnell-Read T (2011) ‘Common-sense’ research: senses, emotions and embodiment in researching stag tourism in Eastern Europe. Methodological Innovations Online 6(3): 39–49.

Tracy F, Carmichael P (2010) Research ethics and participatory research in an interdisciplinary technology-enhanced learning project. International Journal of Research & Method in Education 33(3): 245–257.

Woodward I (2001) Domestic objects and the taste epiphany: a resource for consumption methodology. Journal of Material Culture 6(2): 115–136.

Woodward S (2007) Why Women Wear What They Wear. Oxford: Berg.

Biographies

Sophie Woodward is a Lecturer in Sociology at The University of Manchester. Dr Woodward carries out research into the fields of material culture, consumption and clothing, and has a particular interest in developing inventive methods for understanding the material. She is undertaking a new research project into dormant things – things that are no longer used but accumulate in houses in drawers and cupboards.

|

You currently have no access to this content. Visit the access options page to authenticate.