Sociology and the New Materialism

Nick J. Fox holds an honorary chair in sociology at the University of Sheffield. He has researched and written widely on materialist social theory as applied to health, embodiment, sexuality, creativity, and emotions. His most recent book (with Pam Alldred) is Sociology and the New Materialism (SAGE, 2017).Pam Alldred is Reader in Education and Youth Studies in the Social Work Division at Brunel University London, UK. She researches sexualities, parenting, and sex education and has written about discourse analytic, ethnographic and new materialist approaches to research, as well as the political and ethical dilemmas raised by participatory research and representational claims. Pam has led two large international projects on gender-related violence and then on sexual violence with European Union cofunding. She recently published Sociology and the New Materialism (with Nick J. Fox, SAGE, 2016) and coedits the Handbook of Youth Work Practice (SAGE, 2017). She is a member of the Sex Education and the Gender and Education journal editorial boards.

With their admirably stylish and accessible new book Nick Fox and Pam Alldred have laid out a coherent and compelling set of methodological strategies for thinking with new materialisms in the conduct of novel empirical inquiry. Through a series of case studies that range across ecology, social change, desire and embodiment, health and social policy, the authors establish a unique research assemblage by which new materialist agendas may be advanced across the social sciences. The book ought to be essential reading for anyone interested in how the social sciences should respond to the most compelling social and political problems of our time.

• PART ONE: New Materialism and the Sociological ImaginationChapter 1: IntroductionChapter 2: Foundations – new materialism and the sociological imaginationChapter 3: Environment – humans, posthumans and ecological sociologyChapter 4: Society – beyond systems, structures and stratificationPART TWO: Applying New Materialism SociologicallyChapter 5: Creativity – imagination, social production, social changeChapter 6: Sexuality – desire, intensification, becomingChapter 7: Emotions – embodiment, continuity and changeChapter 8: Health – beyond the body-with-organsPART THREE: Research, Policy and ActivismChapter 9: Research – designs, methods and the research assemblageChapter 10: Change – action, policy, social transformationGlossaryBibliography