Analyzing Production from a Socio-material Perspective

Abstract

While film studies is showing growing interest in production studies, the sociology of art and cultural production is turning its attention to the role of artworks.1 As sociologists have begun to emphasize the organizational implications of material products, film studies have started to highlight the social dimensions of the way production is organized. In this chapter, I aim to pursue and combine these lines of thought to suggest that the social analyses of cultural production could be taken further by including objects as potential actors, thereby developing what may be called a socio-material perspective. This perspective is well developed within science and technology studies (STS). My proposal for a socio-material perspective on cultural production therefore implies drawing on insights from developments within this field. Others have made similar transfers of ideas, by comparing the laboratory and the studio for instance.2 By considering artworks as objects, the socio-material perspective questions the traditional distinction between the sociology of art and art studies. I will therefore begin this chapter by outlining this distinction and by suggesting that it should be transgressed. I will then present three examples of the socio-material analyses of cultural products to show how this perspective can be used in cultural production analyses. These examples are taken from the work of cultural sociologists who have carried out music, architecture, and film production analyses from a socio-material perspective. Finally, I will briefly discuss some of the potential criticisms and limitations linked to this perspective.