Editorial Introduction: The New Materialisms

The role of matter has been marginalised in much of historical and philosophical thought. Its proximity to the inertia of the physical, and its imbrications with the more basal nature of things, has cultivated a preference for an understanding of the world formulated as a flight from the tiresome weight of the material itself. Matter, as it seemed, has been a mere platform from which the exploration of more significant elements that characterised our experience as human beings could take off. This article explores the rise of new materialist strands of thought as a critical revisiting of the notion of materiality, and situates it within the increasing demand for contemporary paradigms of knowledge.