ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the material embedding of military professional practices and the ways in which technology, artifacts, and embodied capacities shape organizational life. It argues that military practice is inseparable from its material arrangements, which both enable and constrain interaction, authority, and cultural meaning. The analysis juxtaposes two extremes: ranger units, which operate at a “material point zero,” where professional practice is grounded in collective bodily endurance and close interdependence; and naval warships, where practice is almost entirely organized around serving complex technological systems. Between these poles lie additional forms, such as brigade command units—marked by tensions between technological uncertainty and an offensive combat mindset—-and aircraft maintenance companies, where technical expertise and flexible work structures mediate between military and technological logics. By tracing how material arrangements interact with social structures and symbolic orders, the chapter demonstrates how military practices are variably constituted through bodies, systems, and hybrid organizational forms.
