New materialist applications in ‘dirty work’ studies have rightly emphasised the importance of materiality alongside symbolism. However, these approaches have neglected important themes irreducible to the material world, such as temporality, reflexivity and social structure. This article develops an alternative critical realist perspective on socio-materiality in dirty work which emphasises these themes. It draws on 2016–2017 ethnographic data on the work of clinical photographers of wounds in a UK specialist outpatient wound healing clinic. First, it shows how photographers’ reflexivity mediates the relationship between their embodied materiality and their agency in the physical domain. Second, it highlights the temporal dynamics between reflexive agents, their material environment, and the context of their operation. Finally, it emphasises the non-conflationary relationship between the social structures of the medical hierarchy and photographers’ agency in dirty work. Together, these contributions highlight the utility of an emergent, realist ontology in understanding the dynamics of dirty work.

唯物主义者在“肮脏作品”研究中的新应用正确地强调了唯物主义与象征主义的重要性。但是，这些方法忽略了物质世界不可还原的重要主题，例如时间性，反身性和社会结构。本文针对肮脏工作中的社会物质性提出了另一种批判性的现实主义观点，强调了这些主题。它借鉴了2016-2017年人种学数据，这些数据来自英国一家专业的门诊伤口愈合诊所中伤口的临床摄影师的工作。首先，它显示了摄影师的自反性如何介导他们体现的实质性与他们在自然界中的代理人之间的关系。其次，它强调了自反主体，其物质环境和其操作环境之间的时间动态。最后，它强调在肮脏的工作中医学等级制的社会结构与摄影师的代理机构之间的非矛盾关系。总之，这些贡献突出了一种新兴的现实主义本体在理解肮脏工作动态方面的效用。