Introduction: Reflections on postcolonial animations of the material

In this introduction to the special issue, Animating Theories of the Material: Approaching Animist Being in Postcolonial Literatures, Rosemary Jolly and Alexander Fyfe consider the recent surge of interest in animisms within postcolonial studies alongside the roughly coeval turn to questions of materiality within the humanities. Introducing the five essays in the issue, they raise questions around the potential limitations of various forms of materialism, both new and old, and highlight possible ways in which postcolonial scholars might responsibly attend to animist modes of thought. They argue for the political importance and the ethical necessity of an approach to animisms that does not reduce them to a theory of the material, yet at the same time bears witness to the full range of materialities that obtain within such worldviews.