Karen Barad's Quantum Ontology and Posthuman Ethics: Rethinking the Concept of Relationality. (November 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: de Freitas, Elizabeth
• Other Names: St.Pierre Elizabeth Adams guest-editor.; Taguchi Hillevi Lenz guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Qualitative inquiry. Volume 23:Number 9(2017)
• Page Start: 741
• Page End: 748
• Publication Date: 2017-11
• Subjects: Barad -- ontology -- experimental method -- relation -- quantum; Social sciences -- Methodology -- Periodicals; Social sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; 300.72
• DOI: 10.1177/1077800417725359
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1077-8004

Abstract

This article focuses on Karen Barad's quantum ontology and her attempts to reformulate the concept of relationality. The aim is to show how Barad's work articulates a new kind of empiricism for the social sciences, by reclaiming the creative and speculative force of experimental practice and by recentering the philosophical problem as a source of inquiry. Relationality is redefined through discussions of diffractive apparatus, more-than-human performativity, and the "polymorphous perversity" of the matter-meaning mixture.