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Material Histories in Australia and New Zealand: Interweaving Distinct Material and Social Domains
Author(s) -
Labrum Bronwyn
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
history compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.121
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1478-0542
DOI - 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00716.x
Subject(s) - scholarship , object (grammar) , sociology , chart , work (physics) , social science , epistemology , engineering ethics , engineering , political science , law , linguistics , philosophy , mechanical engineering , statistics , mathematics
Many scholars have observed that we have recently witnessed a ‘material turn’, a term which acknowledges the broad interest over a range of social science and humanities disciplines in material culture, objects or stuff, however it is named. This article asks whether there has been a comparable material turn in Australia and New Zealand historical studies. It chart the contours of that scholarship, drawing on the author’s own work and selected studies by Australasian historians. Noting that there is a bifurcation between object‐focussed and object‐driven researches, the article concludes with suggestions for future directions in research, drawing on the wider interdisciplinary work in this area.