Tracés, n°40/2021

This issue of Tracés seeks to promote scientific approaches in the social sciences that aim to rematerialize their objects, to give life to matter, which is all too often considered inert, and to re-examine the relationships between human and non-human worlds, beyond dichotomies.

Drawing on the empirical and conceptual revivals of so-called New Materialisms, this volume intends to examine them in confrontation with other theoretical universes without rejecting more classical forms of non-reductionist materialism, including lines of research stemming from the Marxist tradition.

This issue of Tracés offers an overview of contemporary approaches to matter following three complementary directions. The first focuses on the scientific, ethical and political stakes of taking into account living organisms, human and non-human, in their materiality. The second deals with the revival and reconfiguration of historical materialism when confronted with problems that it had sometimes anticipated, but most often neglected. The third part immerses us in the various recompositions brought about by these perspectives, which radically call into question the great ontological and epistemological divisions, as well as the status and role that sensitive narratives play both in our existences and in the making of knowledge.