To “animate” means, among other things, to give life to inert objects. As contemporary biology moves steadily away from the underlying laws that define life in favor of an open field of generative, dynamic collaborations that enliven organic matter, a new theory of materialism has emerged across the disciplines of political science, philosophy, and geography. New materialism proposes that all matter has agency akin to living humans. According to political theorist and philosopher Jane Bennett, this understanding of matter acknowledges “the capacity of things—edibles, commodities, storms, metals—not only to impede or block the will and designs of humans but also to act as quasi agents or forces with trajectories, propensities, or tendencies of their own.” From the components of an electrical grid, to the food that living beings consume and through which they are transformed, to the irregular crystalline structure that allows iron to turn into steel when heated, these often-dissonant assemblages of matter act together to impact our human designs for and situations in the world.
