The emphasis will be on the importance of binarisms in the modern world and on how separations like the one between representation and reality influenced practices and forms of discipline or violence. These questions will be approached through various topics such as tourism, economic and technical expertise or democracy. We will discuss the making of objects that shaped the politics of the 19th and 20th century, for instance ‘the orient’ or ‘the economy’. Finally, we will ask how material and technical things influence historical and political processes and thereby interact with human agency.