Karen Barad is a feminist, philosopher, and theoretical physicist. They believe there is a need for a greater focus on ontology in science. Barad’s background in theoretical physics and the conceptualization of what is real led them to develop a new theory: agential realism (Barad, 2007).

Agential realism is a posthumanist performative approach to studying science that focuses on the practices and processes of science rather than the products (Barad, 2007). It recognizes agency as a quality that the subject and object possess (Barad, 2007). Within this theory, the boundaries between subject and object, observer and observed, are not defined prior to their intra-actions. Barad (2007) uses the term intra-action rather than interaction to describe the relationship between the participants (both human and non-human) as it does not presume separate entities prior to the action. Rather the observer and observed are co-constituted via intra-actions. Both material phenomena and discursive practices, including how we create meaning, are involved in these intra-actions.

According to Barad, physical boundaries are not definite: they are being defined and re-defined. Given their background in theoretical physics, this concept makes sense. At a subatomic level, particles are entangled, electrons move instantaneously, things are in flux. The boundaries between observer and observed, apparatus and phenomena produced, emerge and are defined as a result of intra-actions within larger phenomena (Barad 2007). They view matter not as a physical thing one can pick up, but rather as a materialization of a substance (Barad 2017). Agency and intra-actions are what define these materializations.

Historically, scientists have been portrayed as outside observers who are removed from the phenomena they are studying. Thus, science can be seen as a purely objective matter which is revealed by the scientist. This is a very anthropocentric view. We know that in reality, this is not the case. Nature and culture cannot and should not be separated. Who is doing the science, what questions they’re asking, what questions are not being asked, and how funding is allocated all play an important role in science studies. As an example of this phenomenon, Barad highlights an experiment done by Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach in which the presence of sulfur on Stern’s breath from his cigar resulted in a chemical reaction allowing the results of their experiment to be seen (Barad, 2007). Without the intra-action between the breath and the apparatus, the experiment could have been viewed as unsuccessful. This is just one example of why we cannot ignore the human aspect of science. Barad believes that objectivity in science comes from the agential separability within phenomena (Barad 2007). Observer and observed are delineated through agential cuts in the intra-actions (Barad 2007).

Barad’s theoretical work studying science transcends into the educational world. Using Barad’s ideas of intra-action, Eaton and Hendry (2019) described a new way to envision curriculum. They describe a rhizomatic model as opposed to the current arborescent model used widely in Western society. A rhizomatic assemblage sees curriculum as a phenomena or process in action through the intra-actions of people, rather than a product that a person receives in the end (Eaton & Hendry, 2019).

Furthermore, Barad’s work can be applied to research by consciously thinking about the intra-actions between human and nonhuman matter. Hultman and Lenz Taguchi (2010) work to challenge our anthropocentric gaze when doing research which could, ideally, help to produce a new way of knowing. This can be done through recognizing the positive difference that is caused by connections and relations within and between different bodies, affecting each other and being affected. In the end, humans and nonhumans go through a transformation as a result of the intra-actions between them that is better understood if we live outside of “I” (Hultman & Lenz Taguchi, 2010).

Barad’s work inspires us to make connections to other philosophers. For example, their work on agential realism serves as a complement to Simpson’s (2014) writings on Aki and the relationship with the land. We considered coloniality in science, asking ourselves who gets to be a scientist, and what questions are being asked or not asked? Barad comments that the concerns of the queer, feminist, critical race theorist, and post-colonial (among others) are being completely overlooked by science studies (Barad 2007). This parallels Walter Mignolo’s need for decoloniality not just in the institution of science but also in the mind (2018).

In conclusion, agential realism extends beyond the scope of science and science studies. In an educational context, we ask ourselves how the rhizomatic metaphor, based on Barad’s work on intra-actions, can be used for curriculum development. How would a rhizomatic approach to curriculum change the way we view teaching and learning? What would be different if we paid attention to the intra-actions of both human and nonhuman matter? Barad (2007) invites us to think deeply about matter and meaning, how each is co-created via intra-actions, and ultimately our ethical responsibility as the concepts of self and other are so intrinsically linked.

References

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.

Eaton, P. W., & Hendry, P. M. (2019). Mapping curricular assemblages. Teachers College Record, 121(11), #22804. https://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=22804

Hultman, K., & Lenz Taguchi, H. (2010). Challenging anthropocentric analysis of visual data: A relational materialist methodological approach to educational research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23(5), 525-542. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2010.500628

Mignolo, W. D. (2018). The conceptual triad: Modernity/coloniality/decoloniality. In W.
Mignolo, & C. E. Walsh (Eds.), On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics praxis (pp. 135-152). Duke University Press.

Simpson, L. B. (2014). Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious
transformation. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3), 1-25. https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/22170/17985

Suggested Reading for Further Study

Bozalek, V., Bayat, A., Motala, S., Mitchell, V., & Gachago, D. (2016). Diffracting socially just pedagogies through stained glass. South African Journal of Higher Education, 30(3), 201-218. https://doi.org/10.20853/30-3-647

Brøgger, K. (2014). The ghosts of higher education reform: On the organisational processes surrounding policy borrowing. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 12(4), 520-541. https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2014.901905

Brown, S. L., Siegel, L., Blom, S. M. (2020). Entanglements of matter and meaning: The importance of the philosophy of Karen Barad for environmental education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 36(3), 219-233. https://doi.org/10.1017.aee.2019.29

Chen, M. Y. (2012). Lead’s racial matters. In M. Y. Chen, Animacies: Biopolitics, racial mattering, and queer affect (pp. 159-188). Duke University Press.

de Freitas, E., & Sinclair, N. (2013). New materialist ontologies in mathematics education: The body in/of mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 83, 453-470. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-012-9465-z

Lenz Taguchi, H. (2010). Learning and becoming in an onto-epistemology. In H. Lenz Taguchi (Ed.), Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: Introducing an intra-active pedagogy (pp. 42-62). Routledge.

Leonard, N. (2020). Entanglement art education: Factoring ARTificial intelligence and nonhumans into future art curricula. Art Education, 73(4), 22-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2020.1746163

Murris, K., & Bozalek, V. (2019). Diffraction and response-able reading of texts: The relational ontologies of Barad and Deleuze. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32(7), 872-886. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2019.1609122

Taylor, C. A. Diffracting the curriculum: Putting “new” material feminism to work to reconfigure knowledge-making practices in undergraduate higher education. Theory and Method in Higher Education, 5, 37-52. https://doi.org/10.14324/FEJ.04.1.01

Wozolek, B. (2021). Assemblages of violence in education: Everyday trajectories of oppression. Routledge.