materialkultur

Materialkultur, often translated as material culture, is the study of the physical aspects of human life—the objects, spaces and environments that people produce, use, and value. It encompasses artifacts such as tools, clothing, architecture, artworks, consumer goods, as well as landscapes, interiors, and digital media that mediate daily life. The central concern is how material things embody social values, identities, power relations, practices, and knowledge, and how they circulate through production, exchange, reuse, and disposal.

Materialkultur is interdisciplinary, drawing on anthropology, archaeology, history, sociology, art history, and museology. Researchers analyze how objects are made, by whom, under what conditions, and how they move through networks of trade and exchange. Methods include typology and cataloging, provenance research, fieldwork, material analysis, conservation, and the interpretation of objects in museums or exhibitions. The field also examines everyday and neglected items, not only spectacular artifacts.

Historically, interest in material culture rose in the 19th and 20th centuries as scholars sought to understand societies through things. Theoretical approaches include symbolic analysis, practice theory, actor-network theory, and posthuman perspectives that emphasize object agency and entanglement with humans and infrastructures.

Applications cover museums and curatorial practice, heritage management, design research and user experience, urban and architectural studies, and digital humanities. Materialkultur raises questions about ownership, memory, sustainability, and the ethics of collection and display, while offering a framework to understand how objects shape and reflect cultural life.