ABSTRACT
In this chapter, new and old varieties of materialism are identified and distinguished from each other. In contrast to old versions of materialism in social sciences, recent versions highlight the practical dimension of material entities and regard materiality and sociality as being intertwined. While traditional ethnography was developed in opposition to a materialist stance on culture, recent accounts have embraced materialism in its nontraditional forms. For ethnographic research, this entails an extended understanding of agency, a nondualistic outlook on nature and culture, and a relational and processual view of entities. This falls in line with the sensibilities of an ethnography at home and its notion of seeing familiar things anew.
