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The essays in this volume discuss the various approaches to New Materialism in Sociology and Philosophy. They raise the questions of what New Materialism consists of and whether it in fact should be considered a radical change in Social Theory. Are the ideas of a “material turn”, as the theory is formulated and in its assumptions, foreshadowed by the classical philosophies of Spinoza and Tarde? Do these new approaches bring substantially new perspectives to Social Theory? A further goal of these essays is to formulate the methodological and methodical consequences for its empirical implementation. What conditions must an ethnography of things fulfill if it is to be sufficient? Which participant objects and bodies do the approaches of the various social theories and methodologies include or exclude?

This volume presents a collection of approaches to the emerging field of video analysis in the social sciences. Although the importance of visual qualitative methods has increased, video analysis cannot draw upon a single method or methodology. Therefore this book will structure the diverse approaches in order to identify their traditions. It assembles studies from linguistic anthropology as well as conversation analysis, sociological hermeneutics, ethnography, phenomenology and finally focused ethnography. Practical questions will be asked, as for instance, how the fact of being filmed affects the situation that is being filmed and theoretical questions will be posed, as for example, whether actions are subject to contingency or whether they are pre-determined.