1 Ontologies of Matter in Sociological Institutionalism Ossi Ollinaho Presented in XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology, Yokohama, Japan, 16 th July 2014. Thematic Group on Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty, TG04: Indefinite (In)Distinctions? The New Ontology of Matter in a World of Inequalities, organizers: Luigi Pellizzoni & Marja Ylönen. Abstract Risks and uncertainties depend on what we look at (and for) in societies and on our understanding of why we see what we see. This depends on social theories, assumptions and understandings about why people do what they do. Furthermore, the particular risks and uncertainties that we ‘find’ through observing societies—that hence ‘exist’—of course steer our actions to a particular direction. Theories, risks and social interactions form thus a dialectical becoming. This paper addresses the theory-aspect of such becoming. I study how materiality has been conceptualized in sociological institutionalism and discuss political implications of distinct conceptualizations. I categorize the ontologies of matter in four distinct forms: 1) materiality as action; 2) materiality as a stage for social interaction; 3) materiality as tools employed in social interaction; and 4) materiality as required and transformed within social interaction. The focus is on the latter; that is, ‘loose’ matter and associated accumulative material change that uneventfully alters the surrounding sociomateriality. If accumulative changes are understood, it is possible to focus and systematically observe and analyze social systems and attempt to organize them so that accumulative phenomena are anticipated, controlled or even made disappear, instead of taking them as risks and uncertainties that can be only gambled on.