The Western social sciences were characterized by their strong anthropocentric dualism based on the legacy of humanism. However, in the early 2000s, a new paradigm called ‘new materialism’ has emerged, attempting a post-anthropocentric turn by emphasizing the symmetric and entangled relations between humans and nonhumans in the world. This study attempts to examine what this new materialism is and how ‘new’ and ‘different’ it is from the existing paradigms of the Western social sciences such as positivism, social constructivism, and critical realism. Then this study will highlight some key aspects of new materialist paradigm and its four major theoretical approaches among many. This study will also explore what this new paradigm can offer to both sociology and research methodology. In the latter, we will examine new methodological possibilities provided by the concept of ‘research-assemblage’ emerging from new materialism, and what this means for empirical social inquiry and policy development. This study will conclude that new materialism can contribute to not only the development of post-anthropocentric social research, but also the movement of ‘ecologization’ to overcome our ecological crisis of the Anthropocene in both the global and Korean contexts.