In attending to surfaces, as they wrap, layer and grow within sentient bodies, material formations and cosmological sates, this volume presents a series of ten anthropological studies stretching across five continents and in observation of earthly practices of making, knowing, living and dying.

Mike Anusas is Lecturer in Design & Screen Cultures, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. Originally having trained and worked as a designer and engineer, he retrained as a social anthropologist to teach and research at the intersection of design and anthropology, exploring relationships between skilled practices, form-making and environmental perception.

Cristián Simonetti is Assistant Professor in Anthropology, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. His work concentrates on how bodily gestures and environmental forces relate to notions of time in science, the topic of a monograph he published in 2018 also with Routledge, entitled Sentient Conceptualisations. Feeling for Time in the Sciences of the Past.

1 Introduction: turning to surfaces

2 On opening the book of surfaces

3 Air, smoke and fumes in Aymara and Mapuche rituals

4 In light and shadow: surfaces and polarities in rituals of second burial in Central East Madagascar

5 Re-animating skin: probing the surface in taxidermic practice

6 The temporality of surfaces

7 Threshold as social surface

8 Vital surfaces and the making of urban architecture

9 On the substance of surfaces: situating materials and design in Melanesian environments

10 On knitted surfaces-in-the-making

11 A life surficial: design and beyond

12 Epilogue