Research Methods in Critical Security Studies, 2nd Edition

35 Materiality

Mark B. Salter and Can E. Multu

DOI: 10.4324/9781003108016-41

Introduction

Objects have a social life that expands beyond their material existence. In Bennett’s (2010) words, objects have thing-power. They are central to our identities and our understandings of security; we practise and perform our identities through objects. Soldiers use weapons; air traffic controllers rely on their radar; programmers use computers; travellers use passports and visas. Objects play a central role in these repetitive performativities; they define and mediate our relationships with our core identities and practices. Materiality as an analytical frame looks at the co-productive relationship between the origins and everyday functioning of objects ...