Global Modernity, Material Worlds and the Migration of Form
As soon as things move from one place to another, social forms migrate with them. Things are neither passive instruments in a course of action nor mere expressions of a society. Rather, they themselves are actively involved in the formation of meanings, practices, and cultural patterns of perception. Through this, they necessarily influence the social orders of their respective destinations. Following from this observation, the proposed research project intends to illuminate the locally specific forms of global modernity from a practice theory perspective. This proposal is guided by two basic assumptions: First, that global modernity should not be read as a single Western export product but must instead be regarded as a heterogeneous and contested result of a centuries-old history of interconnectedness. Second, that social modernization processes are not only associated with broad socio-structural and discursive changes—such as processes of rationalization, differentiation, and individualization—but also correlate with the emergence of specific material and visual cultures. By implication, conclusions about the particular social and cultural conditions of each local variant of modernity can be drawn from its material and aesthetic characteristics—whether from architecture, design or visual arts.