Our relationship with objects is far less clear-cut than a rational materialism predicated
upon a subject/object distinction would have us believe. On the contrary, it is a
messy and unpredictable one, electrified by emotional investments, often anxietyridden,
never innocent or neutral, and always implicated in powerful identity-forming
practices. This essay examines instances of contemporary animism in our relationship
with object-relics by mapping the symbolic and affective investments these objects are
charged with. The hypothesis is that their borderline ontological status defies simple
categorization and that it might be better examined through the lens of a neo-animist
paradigm able to express the complex, relational and negotiated engagement between
us and the material world. The belief in the thaumaturgical power of object-relics is a
persistent if irrational cultural topos that, precisely because it operates transversally
and adheres to a wide array of commodities, can be the entry point for an investigation
into how the meaning of things around us is generated and produces tangible effects
in the making (and unmaking) of subjectivities. It is my intention to question the distinction
between animate and inanimate objects, to privilege instead their opaque and
enigmatic status, and the way in which they act as clusters of
