Discussing New Materialism (eBook)

Ulrike Tikvah Kissmann is Professor of Sociological Methodology of Qualitative Reconstructive Research at the University of Kassel.Joost van Loon is Professor of General Sociology and Sociological Theory at the Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.

Contents 5
About the Contributors 7
Part I Introduction 11
New Materialism and Its Methodological Consequences: An Introduction 12
References 27
Part II Postphenomenology and Actor-Network-Theory 28
What Makes Sensation of a Sentient Thing Possible: The Concept of Time in the Work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty 29
1Introduction 29
2The Concept of Linear Time in Merleau-Ponty’s Early Work 30
3The Re-Conceptualization of Time in Merleau-Ponty’s Late Work 34
3.1Chiasmic Structure of Time 34
3.2Immemorial “écart” of the Flesh 35
4Agency from the Perspective of Ontology of the Invisible 37
5The Case for Video Hermeneutics 39
6Conclusion 42
References 43
Historical Materialism and Actor-Network-Theory 46
1Introduction 46
2Historical Materialism 48
3Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) 54
4Differences that Matter: Thinking Historical Materialism and ANT Together 60
5Synergy: Signing a Contract as a Practice of Mediation 64
6Methodological Consequences 67
References 70
Part III Cyborg and Agential Realism 73
The Cyborg, Its Friends and Feminist Theories of Materiality 74
1Reading Cyborg Nature and Materialities 74
2In Love and War – Material-Semiotic Conversations 76
3Reproduction, Sex/Gender and Biological Determinism 77
4EDP, Technofeminism and Cyborg Conversations 80
5Feminism, Niels Bohr and Agential Realism 81
6Process Ontology and Methodological Sensitivity – Having an Ear for the Phenomenon 85
7Revival of the Cyborg-Materiality and New Conversations 87
References 89
“Cutting Together/Apart” – Impulses from Karen Barad’s Feminist Materialism for a Relational Sociology 92
1Introduction 92
2Resonances of an Agential Realism: Practice, Relationality and In/Determinacy 94
2.1Agential Cuts, Praxeological Realization and Post-Humanistic Responsibility 95
2.2Decentering: Practice as Intra-Action and the Ongoing Redefinition of the “Social” 97
2.3In/Determinacy: Spacetimemattering and Cutting Together/Apart 98
3Ethico-onto-Epistemo-Logy: The Ethical Dimension of Precariousness and Post-Humanist Queer Performativity 100
3.1Sociological Problematization: In/Determinacy and Precarization 100
3.2The Ethical Dimension of Precarity 101
3.3Infrastructure or Differential Becoming of the World: Performative Practices 104
4Cutting Together/Apart – Impulses for an Agential-Realistic Methodology 108
References 110
Part IV Praxeology and Communicative Constructivism 112
Rethinking Bodies and Objects in Social Interaction: A Multimodal and Multisensorial Approach to Tasting 113
1Introduction 113
1.1A Material and Embodied Turn 113
1.2A Praxeological Multimodal Approach to Social Interaction 114
1.3From Multimodality to Multisensoriality 116
2Sounds and Cries: Forms of Immediate Sensorial Access in Tasting 118
3Using Artifacts to Support Sensing and Naming 122
4Navigating Between Sensory Bodies, Sensed Objects, and Tools 129
5Conclusion 134
6Conventions 135
References 136
Materiality, Meaning, Social Practices: Remarks on New Materialism 139
1Introduction 139
2Matter as Eventful Potentiality 140
3The Analysis of Sociomateriality and the Turn to Ontology 142
3.1ANT: Symmetry Postulate and Actant Thesis 143
3.2Intra-Action and Non-Intentional Vitality 145
4“Matter” as Participant in Social Processes and Practices 146
4.1Affordances 146
4.2Materiality as Part of Public and Meaningful Ongoing Accomplishments 147
4.3Formulations as Member’s Methods of Rule-Following 149
5Conclusion: Methodological Principle of Symmetry and Ontological Reasoning 151
References 152
New Materialism? A View from Sociology of Knowledge 154
1Introduction 154
2Is There Something Wrong with New Materialisms? 155
3Interpretation as Entanglement and Interrelation 160
4Beyond New Materialism? Materiality in Sociology of Knowledge Based Discourse Research 168
References 170
Part V Algorithmic Culture and Doing Science 173
From Hardware to Software to Runtime: The Politics of (at Least) Three Digital Materialities 174
1Material Turns and the Test Case of Digital Transformations 174
2Three (Re-) Discoveries of the Materiality of Digital Transformations 177
3Empirical Incisions Through the Materialities of the Digital 180
4Materialisms, Ontologies, and Modes of Existence 182
5Politics of the Materialization of the Digital 186
References 188
Of Rabbits and Men, or: How to Study Innovation in Nanomedicine 191
1Introduction 191
2The Animal Testing Procedure 193
3The Human-Rabbit Relation 195
3.1Becoming a Laboratory Animal, Becoming an Experimenter 195
3.2Objectification – Subjectification 196
3.3Do Animals Act? 199
4Contingency and Openness in Experiments 201
5Nano-particles as Associations 205
6Conclusion: The Invention of Nano-sociality 207
References 208