Sociomaterial

Sociomateriality is a theoretical perspective in the social sciences and humanities that treats social and material phenomena as inseparable in everyday practices. Rather than seeing people and technologies as separate domains, sociomaterial approaches emphasize that social actions and material arrangements co-constitute one another.

Origins and influences: The term and its ideas draw on actor-network theory and practice-based approaches, and were popularized in organizational studies by scholars such as Wanda Orlikowski and colleagues. The perspective seeks to shift attention from a simple social versus technical split to the ways in which humans, artifacts, spaces, and other materials form interconnected assemblages.

Core ideas: A central claim is that agency is distributed across humans and nonhumans, with artifacts and infrastructures acting as active participants in social life. Materiality is not a neutral backdrop but an active force that shapes possibilities, constraints, and meanings. Practices emerge from the entanglement of people, technologies, spaces, and other matter, producing configurations that reframe work, knowledge, and identity.

Applications and implications: Sociomaterial analysis is used across organizational studies, information systems, education, healthcare, and design. Researchers examine how software, devices, built environments, and other material arrangements reorganize routines, coordination, power relations, and interpretive work, often revealing how technical infrastructures enable and constrain action in concrete contexts.

Critiques and related theories: Some critics warn against overemphasizing symmetry between humans and nonhumans or about dissolving moral responsibility in complex assemblages. The approach is commonly linked to practice theory, actor-network theory, and posthumanist analyses, and is typically explored through ethnography, case studies, and design investigations.