Guardiola-Rivera, Oscar (2007) Return of the fetish: a plea for a new materialism. Law and Critique 18 (3), pp. 275-307. ISSN 0957-8536.
Abstract
This essay argues for a renewed form of critique based upon a non-deflationary realist and materialist understanding of the nature of objects. Such an understanding is set against the deflationary conception of materiality common nowadays, one that sees ‘signs’ in the place of powerful objects (exemplars, charms, fetishes), adjudicates against the latter as mere relics of the past and can only conceive of material relations and causality in representational terms, as co-relative to our self-positing powers. Such a conception is responsible for our present inability to think the role of radical claims, thick attachments and religious objects in modern secular societies. The argument is developed from within a phenomenological tradition that includes Hegelo-Marxian themes and connects them with more and less recent insights from anthropology and elsewhere concerning value and objectification in modern times.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Business and Law > Birkbeck Law School |
| Depositing User: | Sarah Hall |
| Date Deposited: | 21 Jan 2019 15:49 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 17:47 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/25956 |
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