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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

190768

"Cutting together/apart"

impulses from Karen Barad's feminist materialism for a relational sociology

Susanne Völker

pp. 87-106

Abstract

The most pressing questions for how the world, with its range of phenomena, can be shared in a fair and egalitarian manner, how differences can be made possible while not being essentialized and exploited, in short: how alterity can be practiced as entanglement/relatedness, is currently discussed by authors, whose – still heterogeneous – approaches refer to a so called "New Materialism". In this contribution the works of one of the representatives of this approach, the queer-feminist science theorist and physicist Karen Barad, are taken as a starting point to discuss, what kind of impulses her theory project of ethico-onto-epistemo-logy and her methodology of agential realism has to offer to a practice oriented sociology. Barad's theoretical-methodological considerations provide connection points for two concepts which are very influential in sociology: for Pierre Bourdieu's praxeology and Judith Butler's queer-theoretical considerations concerning socio-ontological precariousness of (human) life. In addition to these entanglements, Barad's concepts – as argued here – enable theoretical and methodological shifts of these practice oriented sociological and performativity-theoretical approaches regarding their understanding of sociality and anthropocentric anchoring.

Publication details

Published in:

Tikvah Kissmann Ulrike (2019) Discussing new materialism: methodological implications for the study of materialities. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 87-106

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-22300-7_5

Full citation:

Völker Susanne (2019) „"Cutting together/apart": impulses from Karen Barad's feminist materialism for a relational sociology“, In: U. Tikvah kissmann (ed.), Discussing new materialism, Dordrecht, Springer, 87–106.