Jennifer Gabrys

Gay Hawkins

Mike Michael

From food punnets to credit cards, plastic facilitates every part of our daily lives. It has become central to processes of contemporary socio-material living. Universalised and abstracted, it is often treated as the passive object of political deliberations, or a problematic material demanding human management. But in what ways might a 'politics of plastics' deal with both its specific manifestation in particular artefacts and events, and its complex dispersed heterogeneity? Accumulation explores the vitality and complexity of plastic. This interdisciplinary collection focuses on how the presence and recalcitrance of plastic reveals the relational exchanges across human and synthetic materialities. It captures multiplicity by engaging with the processual materialities or plasticity of plastic. Through a series of themed essays on plastic materialities, plastic economies, plastic bodies and new articulations of plastic, the editors and chapter authors examine specific aspects of plastic in action. How are multiple plastic realities enacted? What are their effects? This book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, human and cultural geography, environmental studies, consumption studies, science and technology studies, design, and political theory.

The Material Politics of Plastic

Accumulation

Arnold Arluke

Lynda I. A. Birke

Linda Birke

The Sacrifice provides a uniquely detailed account of the sociological context of animal experimentation. Drawing on historical material, media reports and professional debates, interviews with scientists and animal technicians, and ethnographic data from laboratory settings, the authors provide a rich analysis of the complex and changing role of the laboratory animal in the political and scientific culture of the US and the UK.

How Scientific Experiments Transform Animals and People

The Sacrifice

Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

Celia Lury

Rachel Fensham

Sybille Lammes

Angela Last

Emma Uprichard

The landscape of contemporary research is characterized by growing interdisciplinarity, and disciplinary boundaries are blurring faster than ever. Yet while interdisciplinary methods, and methodological innovation in general, are often presented as the ‘holy grail’ of research, there are few examples or discussions of their development and ‘behaviour’ in the field. This Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Research presents a bold intervention by showcasing a diversity of stimulating approaches. Over 50 experienced researchers illustrate the challenges, but also the rewards of doing and representing interdisciplinary research through their own methodological developments. Featured projects cover a variety of scales and topics, from small art-science collaborations to the ‘big data’ of mass observations. Each section is dedicated to an aspect of data handling, from collection, classification, validation to communication to research audiences. Most importantly, Interdisciplinary Methods presents a distinctive approach through its focus on knowledge as process, defamiliarising and reworking familiar practices such as experimenting, archiving, observing, prototyping or translating.

Routledge Handbook of Interdisciplinary Research Methods

Mike Michael

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