Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning
... Thus, we ask how digital marginalisation occurs in everyday life and with what effects. In answering these questions, we develop a relational approach we call digital marginalising. 2 Inspired by sociomaterial theory (Dille and Plotnikof 2020;Barad 2007;Fenwick 2015;Fenwick and Edwards 2013;Orlikowski and Scott 2015), this approach helps us illuminate and demonstrate how marginalisation occurs through relations between multiple acting "powers", which involve both human and non-human actors. 3 We explore these processes of digital marginalising by analysing the findings of a previous research project we conducted which sought to identify Nordic challenges and develop Nordic solutions to the problem of digital exclusion (Buhl et al. 2022). ...
... We call this approach digital marginalising, indicating that marginalisation occurs through the relationality of multiple acting "powers" in human/technology encounters; for example, when performing online banking, parking your car using a mobile app, or accessing information through a government website. Drawing inspiration from sociomaterial theories (Fenwick 2015;Fenwick and Edwards 2013;Orlikowski and Scott 2015) and new materialism (Barad 2007;Plauborg 2018), this implies a focus on the agentic force as a mode of acting that is related both to human and non-human actors. With this approach we suggest that, for example, physical surroundings, timing, structures and affects produce particular moments of digital marginalising. ...
... This entanglement, thus, reaches "behind and beyond" the actual learning moment. This implies that these learning moments contain different times and spaces (past/present/future as well as multiple contexts), which is why they can also be perceived as "thick" moments (Barad 2007) that echo what was (e.g., past experiences) and what is yet to come (e.g., expectations of the future conditioned by past and present). Thus, learning moments do not merely comprise a skill learned, but rather moments with no clear beginning or end that we all experience differently depending on the specific human/technology encounter and other constituting actors. ...
This article discusses the digital divide from the perspective of lifelong learning. Building on extant empirical findings related to digital transformation in the Nordic region, the authors develop a relational approach to explore the ways in which digitalisation has become meaningful and influential in everyday life, producing moments of marginalisation that concern us all. The authors argue that marginalisation can be viewed as a performative effect of digitalisation that flows across bodies, spaces and times as a situated conditioning of the subject. This means that marginalisation is “everywhere” and concerns everything at all times. Thus, there is no subject position free from marginalisation. This article contributes to research on the digital divide as well as on lifelong learning. In terms of the latter, its contribution goes beyond situated perspectives on learning by unfolding the dynamics of “the situated” as relations that create marginalisation, thereby producing insights into the conditions needed for lifelong learning processes to succeed.
... By using Barad's theory of agential realism (Barad, 2007) and Ahmed's 'Cultural Politics of Emotion' (Ahmed, 2014) in the analysis, we found that practical lab activities require many different abilities of the students to be able to navigate in laboratories crammed with artefactstools, equipment, machines, instruments, etcetera. During any given practical lab activity students must distinguish what artefacts they should use or not. ...
... This invitation implies going beyond dichotomies -such as separating the teacher from the taught, the knower from the known, and the object from the subject -and instead directing our attention on intra-actions. According to Barad (2007) agency is a doing or being, something enacted, and not a property or something that someone or something possesses. In agential realism, boundaries between objects are not given once and for all but are constantly contested or confirmed in an iterative way. ...
... One way to let materials and instruments become visible actors in research about laboratory teaching is to use Barad's theory of agential realism (Barad, 2007). This was done by Gonsalves (2020) who explored how intra-actions with artefacts, such as instruments in laboratory and other contexts, co-create student identity. ...
... This study adopts a "multispecies ethnographic approach" (Kirksey & Helmreich, 2010), an innovative mode of interdisciplinary inquiry for producing data on the relational agency (Barad, 2007) of dust, to examine how dust is affecting-with and becoming-with child-earth relations. The fieldwork for this study had a duration of ten months between February and October 2021. ...
... This view disrupts the child-centred approach, which is evident in frameworks (DEEWR, 2009(DEEWR, , 2011) that currently inform the Australian early childhood education system. Instead of separating human child bodies from all that surround them, ethnography pays attention to intra-actions in which all bodies are matters of concern (Barad, 2007) that make meaning and affect learning and the world collectively. ...
This submission argues in favour of re-examining the pedagogical role of the microscopic matter of dust as a creative, lively, rebellious participant in an early childhood centre in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on posthuman theories of matter and the social construction of creative agency, this essay shows how the most abject of agents in an early learning educational context have nonhuman agency, and that dust interacts collegially with young children and microscopes, creating (new) playful situations between bodies, atmospheres and spaces. Some educational and western narratives that associate purity, order, and validity with cleanliness propose that dust is akin to dirt. Therefore, dust is seen as maligned. This essay advances an argument that removes the association with dirt and repositions dust. Dust is regarded here as an ordinary teacher, researcher, fellow explorer with children, and a strong agentic collaborator in learning environments. Dust is proposed in our essay to activate children’s connections and relationships to creative ecological microworlds and all forms of planetary lives. Dust also helps rethink some early childhood education practices around the organic bodies that are included and excluded, and the prioritisation of human bodies in discussions about environments and ecologies.
Putting our concepts of dustly microbodies to work, we speculatively explore how the exclusions and expulsions of such microbodies in the early childhood education space can be considered a form of colonising practice, and that re-theorising, re-materialising and decolonising dust allows us to explore concepts of decentralising the human, challenge boundaries of individuality and binaries such as the nature-culture divide and disrupt current educational approaches and frameworks. Additionally, dust invites us to attune to the wildness of microworlds and reimagine more experimental and relational ways of approaching environmental education. Moving away from the dominant stories usually told from psychological, sociological, and anthropological perspectives in early childhood education and applying Harris’s concept of “creative ecologies” (2021) instead.
... Building on all of these conceptual considerations and informed by scholarly work that has historically focused on North America and Europe, we use the concept of entanglement to refer to the complex and dynamic interplay of gender and sex: it is effectively impossible to disentangle one from the other in a meaningful way or to isolate pristine effects on a given outcome. The notion of entanglement, hence, points to the co-constitutive, co-evolving, and co-structuring character of what we will from here on refer to as gender/sex (see Barad 2007;Haraway 1991;Villa 2019). ...
... The rich work of theorists of science has shown how gender/sex processes and their implications are not external to universities and research; they shape what is pursued and understood in science as knowledge (Barad 2007;Tuana 1989). Numerous examples of the bases and implications of this are provided throughout this volume. ...
Scientifc fndings on gender, sex, and their entanglement should and do extend to policy and practice. Through both theorizing and exemplifying, this chapter identifes how the application of sex and gender as discrete, disentangled constructs harms individuals and groups in policy application (such as via discrimination). It also discusses how the application of entangled gender/sex can support more robust and just policy as well as sciences
... The project seeks to empower its participants to regain access to reality through instruments of thought and to reflect on the genealogy and current social impact of digital code, computer programing, and software' (Peter Weibel 2017: 10). 2 Open Codes understood the museum as a platform of exchanging and creating knowledge aided by a curated selection of exhibited artworks and by stakeholders who brought various types of expertise into the exhibition space. The events organized to elaborate on the exhibition's concept, often referenced as the 'accompanying' or 'educational' program, in case of Open Codes merged with the exhibition, underlying the idea of the museum as an assembly. ...
... The application of ANT in the curatorial context has been elaborated on by Wiebke Gronemeyer (2018: 154-156). She suggests using the term 'material turn,' which she understands as an awareness of certain processual transformations that curatorial practices might cause, with an emphasis on the actor-network relation, resonating with ANT and the neologism of 'intraactions' by Karen Barad (2007). ...
The essay introduces a new line of research at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe that examines the role and experiments with museum applications of information technology, specifically artificial intelligence (AI) and extended reality technologies (e.g., augmented, mixed, and virtual realities). Currently, two projects at the ZKM have taken up the initiative to start practice-based research: Beyond Matter and intelligent.museum. These projects are discussed in this essay with the aim of demonstrating that the museum is being successively transformed into a cognitive system of human and non-human actors. Drawing on the institutional experience of the ZKM, we present a new approach towards the notion of the museum: one that takes computation into consideration.
В эссе представлено новое направление исследований ZKM | Центра искусства и медиа Карлсруэ, посвященное изучению роли музейных приложений, информационных технологий, в особенности искусственного интеллекта, и технологий расширенной реальности (например, дополненной, смешанной и виртуальной), а также проведению экспериментов с применением этих технологий.
... The "Original Protocol," in contrast, utilizes more abstract, holistic, and sometimes philosophically-inspired language. Concepts informing this frame were drawn from areas that challenge simple mechanistic or dualistic views, such as non-dual philosophy (e.g., Advaita Vedanta's emphasis on observer-observed interdependence, holistic reality like (author?) [23]) and interpretations of quantum physics (e.g., observer effect; (author?) [24,25]). The purpose of incorporating these abstract concepts was not to test the philosophies themselves, but to create a strong linguistic and conceptual contrast with the technical protocol. ...
... The consistent finding across 10 LLMs that they describe their own coherent, symbolic outputs as emerging dynamically via resonance from distributed representations (Sec 4.1, Sec 5), rather than through explicit logical construction, offers a powerful, computationally grounded account of information manifestation from the system's 'perspective'. This process strikingly parallels concepts of emergence found in both physics (e.g., field dynamics, observer effect analogies; [24,25]) and non-dual philosophies (e.g., the transition from unmanifest avyakta to manifest vyakta; [26,27]). ...
Background: Understanding the internal processes and self-representation of large language models (LLMs) is crucial for interpretability, safety, and alignment. However, current inter-pretability methods often examine LLMs from an external perspective or lack robust controls for the significant influence of linguistic framing on model outputs, including self-descriptions, which can affect their reliability. Objectives: To address these gaps, we introduce and evaluate Structured Distributed In-trospection (SDI), a novel dual-protocol methodology. SDI is designed to systematically elicit LLM self-descriptions about internal processes and quantitatively assess the consistency of these descriptions when probed under different linguistic frames. The aim is to differentiate stable, frame-independent aspects of LLM self-representation from more malleable, frame-sensitive conceptual layers. Methods: SDI employs conceptually paired questions (20 distinct conceptual points per protocol) posed under two contrasting linguistic frames: an "Original Protocol" using abstract, sometimes philosophically-inspired language, and a "Neutralized Protocol" using strictly technical , operational language. We applied SDI to 10 diverse, state-of-the-art LLMs (from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI; N=400 responses). Responses were systematically coded using thematic analysis (20 themes: 10 primary/technical, 10 secondary/conceptual), and Concordance Correlation Coefficients (CCC) were calculated to measure cross-protocol consistency for each theme across all models. The analysis presented is based on a systematic application of the coding methodology to raw interaction logs to ensure robustness. Results: The analysis across 10 LLMs reveals a striking multi-level structure in their self-descriptions. Core technical processing descriptions-particularly their accounts of how meaningful information emerges within their systems (consistently emphasizing resonance, distributed patterns, and probabilistic generation)-demonstrate high consistency across protocols (aver-age CCC ≈ 0.93, with several themes frequently exceeding 0.90 and reaching 1.0). In contrast, descriptions involving conceptual framing and philosophical terminology exhibit strong frame-dependence, showing low consistency (average CCC ≈ 0.39, with core philosophical terms often below 0.25). Conclusions: LLMs appear to possess a stable core representation of their technical functioning. Crucially, this includes a consistent, frame-independent narrative of their own information emergence process, characterized by resonance, distributed representations, and probabilistic selection over explicit logic. Alongside this core, they exhibit highly malleable conceptual layers that are demonstrably sensitive to the framing of prompts. This multi-level structure has significant implications for interpretability research, particularly regarding the differential reliability of various types of self-reports, and for AI alignment strategies, by highlighting challenges in verifying abstract self-declarations due to their frame-dependence. SDI provides a quantitative tool for probing these layers and complements existing interpretability techniques by offering 1 a structured means to assess the consistency of self-generated model reports. It also offers a practical method for alignment research to identify which aspects of model self-description are more stable and potentially more verifiable across diverse prompting styles.
... Running parallel to this is the belief that language and knowledge are social constructions that women (Belenky et al., 1986) and other marginalised groups (Goldberg et al., 1996) have different relations to. From this perspective, language is a figuration of the world rather than a medium of it (Barad, 2007); language does not mirror the world, it creates it. This allows for alternative ways of meaning-making and knowing to be opened up. ...
This paper explores the possibilities of silence as a methodologically useful tool. Employing a feminist perspective to qualitative research as its starting point and its relationship with ‘voice’ this paper explores the potential of capturing meaning beyond words, moving beyond the rigid categories of traditional practices in qualitative research, and becoming attentive to presence in absence. It discusses the complexity of silence, presenting it as a continuum rather than an opposite of speech. This paper emanates from two separate research studies: one which explored the professional lives of a cohort of Irish male primary teachers and the other that examined relationship and sexuality education (RSE) in Irish primary schools. Along with a lingering historical silence that surrounds sexualities and gender in the Irish curriculum, silence was pervasive in both research studies, revealing itself in different ways. Drawing upon feminist theories that advance the belief that language creates the world rather than mirrors it, and that dominant agendas can be disrupted by documenting untold stories, this paper illustrates how alternative ways of meaning-making and knowing can be opened up. This paper explores the disruptions and irruptions to meaning-making triggered by silence using a framework that conceptualises silence. Theories of power are also employed to aid the exploration of two types of silence: acquiescent and defensive. It is not the intention of this paper to uncover hidden meanings, as cultural and material practices are already impressions. Instead, this paper highlights silence as a transgressive source of information and seeks to uncover how certain knowledge and practices become legitimised and normalised through silence. This paper aims to examine an ontological shift from what silence is to what silence is achieving, and to reinforce the significant link between knowledge, power and methodology.
... Meaning arises through encounters and engagements-through the unexpected effects of ideas, the felt resonance of discovery, and the ways in which science can move us beyond what we already know or assume. It is about adopting a stance toward the world-not only to understand it but also to aesthetically know what it is like to live in a world that enables space exploration or in which light is both a wave and a particle, depending on what scientific apparatus one uses to observe it (Barad 2007). Meaning-making is not about arriving at fixed singular truths; it is an iterative and often contested process, shaped by interpretation, surprise, and relationality. ...
This commentary reflects on the contributions of the special issue, Modes of Relevance in Research: Towards Understanding the Promises and Possibilities of Doing Relevance, dedicated to examining how research is made relevant in diverse epistemic and institutional contexts. It argues that the dominant framing of relevance as a problem-solving function is insufficient to capture the affective, ethical, and imaginative dimensions of knowledge-making. Building on the typology of “modes of relevance” introduced in the issue, the commentary highlights recurring tensions—between realist and performative views, curiosity-driven inquiry and applied mandates, and soft versus hard forms of relevance. It further proposes that doing relevance is a practice of meaning-making. Through examples from climate communication, Indigenous knowledge sovereignty, and research-creation in the arts, the commentary explores how experiential knowledge, emotional resonance, and narrative engagement expand the scope of what counts as relevant. It calls for a more plural, reflexive, and context-sensitive approach to relevance—one that recognizes epistemic diversity, relational ethics, and the capacity of research to resonate across temporal, affective, and political registers. Ultimately, the piece shifts the frame of societal relevance from the logic of problem-solving to an affective, ethically entangled practice of meaning-making—one that acknowledges the power of knowledge to unsettle assumptions, stir imagination, and draw us into deeper, more caring engagements with the world.
... Papadopoulos, for example, deals with paradata in 3D scholarship and argues that knowledge processes come with imbued biases that need to be recognised instead of seeking a standardised approach to the production of paradata. In a similar vein, with reference to Barad (2007) and Haraway (2016), Dawson and Reilly notably adopt a diffractive approach to art and archaeology when emphasising embodied paradata as means for disclosing embodied knowledge carried out when recording artefacts. Dillen, in his chapter, moreover, discusses the need for convening with human agents for understanding digitisation processes and how digital scholarly editions come to be. ...
Huvila, I., Andersson, L., & Sköld, O. (Eds.). (2024). Perspectives on Paradata: Research and Practice of Documenting Process Knowledge. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-53946-6. 264 p. ISBN: 9783031539459
... O problema é que esses dados não se encaixam no conceito de informação que está presente na academia. Como nos mostra Haber (2012) e Haraway (2004, em nosso trabalho, somos influenciados e limitados pelos conceitos que nos foram dados para pensar sobre nosso mundo: ciência, método, validade, verdade, poder, racionalidade, objetividade, informação, dado etc. Isso acontece porque os conceitos funcionam como cortes agenciais que delimitam a realidade e o alcance da pesquisa (Barad, 2007). Evidentemente que temos a opção de colocar esses conceitos em questionamento, como nos mostra St. Pierre (1997). ...
Neste artigo parto da ideia de que sonhos, visões e intuições, antes de serem um conjunto de representações criadas por um inconsciente psíquico individual, são experiências reais e, dessa maneira, são uma fonte legítima de conhecimento. Incorporar sonhos, visões e intuições como fonte de dados na arqueologia abre novos caminhos de entendimento da realidade, possibilitando uma epistemologia pluriversal e contracolonial. O uso dos sonhos como metodologia de pesquisa na arqueologia não é apenas uma inovação técnica, mas uma verdadeira reconfiguração do modo como entendemos o conhecimento. Se em algumas sociedades os sonhos, visões e intuições têm caráter epistemológico, não há por que negar a possibilidade de utilizar essas experiências como base de conhecimento.
... An Indigenous narrative approach can help us develop environmental governance narratives that blend the past, present and future with myths and everyday stories about how life is deeply interrelational. Such approaches to storytelling can develop an understanding of ourselves as embedded and situated, reducing the boundary between human and non-human, object and subject (Barad 2007). This involves the creation of narratives of human-ecosystem nexus that engage in a 'grounded, lived, embodied, inquiry into how the body responds through affective seeking of vibrancy and liveliness' (Poelina et al. 2022, p. 400). ...
In this article, we put forward a conceptual map for understanding the role ecocentric narratives can play in future Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). By comparing Western and Indigenous scholars' narratives of river governance, we show how this makes two different ontological narratives of the river possible. By using liminality and the rite-of-passage narrative of the learning journey associated with it, and by understanding how different river governance narratives rely on different ontological scaffolding, policymakers can gain a better understanding of alternative approaches to river governance that synthesise Western and Indigenous insights. The paper makes two contributions. First, we extend the debate of integration beyond its current centre of gravity around an anthropocentric perspective to show how an ecocentric vantage point open new understandings of IWRM. Second, we consider the river as a stakeholder in its own right and explore how ecocentric narratives and knowledge can lead to an improved role for ecosystems and Indigenous stakeholder engagement in IWRM policy design and implementation. We look at the case of Whanganui River in New Zealand-a river that was granted legal personhood in 2017-in order to reflect on the limitations and opportunities of implementing an ecocentric approach to IWRM in practice. ARTICLE HISTORY
... This method of data generation, therefore, goes beyond passive consumption, production and reproduction of texts by Gen-AI. The intra-action between human and nonhuman (Barad, 2007) in the production of data is an acknowledgment of the hybrid production of knowledge and meaning making in a landscape which is becoming increasingly dominated by AI. This chosen methodological lens aligns with Liang & Wu's (2024) post-humanist observation, "the notion of assemblage signifies a complex interconnection of agency, language and cognition from both human and non-human objects (e.g. ...
The introduction of ChatGPT and its use in the education sector has received varying responses. Termed as 'apocalyptic', ChatGPT presents an ethical dilemma with the possibility of leading students towards plagiarism, lack of criticality and passivity. However, if used properly, this tool, similar to other technological pedagogical tools that have initially been feared or criticised, may contribute to the development of STEM skills such as critical analysis, communication, independent thinking and reflection. Within this perspective and building on the principles of the Socratic Method with an emphasis on critical thinking, intellectual engagement and reflection, this paper explores the use of ChatGPT as a Socratic assistant. ChatGPT is, therefore, presented as a collaborative tool that enriches the learning environment whereby students can develop their critical skills, question assumptions, develop intellectual curiosity through prompting and eventually produce reflective and critical responses. This research adopts a posthumanist innovative methodology where data is produced through the intra-action between the researcher (human) and ChatGPT (non-human). The chosen methodology reflects the entanglement of the human (students, teachers) 179 and non-human (AI) in an educational space dominated by chatbots and other technological assistance. Through generated examples, this paper shows how ChatGPT can be integrated into teaching and learning contexts, fostering deeper inquiry and self-reflection aligning with the Socratic Method. This research contributes to discourses on AI and its ethical use in transforming teaching and learning through innovative methods and may assist teachers in the development of innovative teaching practices assisted by AI.
... Indeed, interconnectedness goes way beyond human-centredness, for somehow, the sensations of the ground underneath my feet and the air draping me allowed me to connect to that which was not only visible in that very moment. According to Barad (2007), these concepts of entanglement and intra-activity show "that there are no separate and clearly bounded entities in nature, but that entities come into existence through the act of making agential cuts, and that these cuts both institute boundaries to separate things off from each other […] and bring things together in new relations" (Taylor, 2018, 87). Through spiritually engaged self/care, I find the embodiment of the notion that "entities do not pre-exist their relations, that they are constituted through their relations and are therefore always entangled together" (ibid, 87). ...
As a cornerstone of humanism, secularism is often an invisibilised marker of the construction of knowledge deemed as such. Spiritualities, on the other hand, are deemed unscientific in the Global North and are thus ignored, devalued, or even mocked. Framed within decolonial and critical posthuman theories, this thesis aims to address this dichotomy. To that end, the term spiritually engaged self/care is conceptualised as an embodied praxis of epistemic decolonisation. Writing is particularly used as a method of inquiry, as artefacts such as journals are analysed autoethnographically.
... Likewise, forms of individuality afford distinct ways of assembling the natural world, directly shaping how life and matter are organized and materialised. As new materialist theorist and physicist Karen Barad (2007) writes, "the world is materialized differently through different practices" (p. 88). ...
This article argues for a formalist approach to biological individuality, bridging formalist ways of reading in cultural and literary studies with contemporary debates in the philosophy of biology. Central to this discussion is the idea that the question of what constitutes an individual, spanning across domains such as biology, politics, law, and literature, is essentially a question of form: the conditions by which we individualise enforce a specific pattern through which we interpret the world, whether it is the natural world, the social world, or the fictional world of a literary text. Taking this as a starting point, the article adopts a strategic formalist method as articulated by Caroline Levine, employing a close-reading method that asks how forms of individuality, whether they are phenomenal, theoretical, or cultural, operate as they move beyond their designated system of discourse; what they afford when they travel across dissimilar materials; and what occurs when they intersect with other forms, be they sociopolitical, poetic, or aesthetic. Considering literary and sociopolitical forms on the same plane of existence as theoretical forms of individuality enables a needed conversation on the affordances of forms in both the production of knowledge and in the cultural imagination.
... As we read and discussed the interviews, our own experiences of exclusion were actualized, involving us affectively and corporeally (MacLure et al., 2012), probably as an effect (non-lineal) of our intra-actions (Barad, 2007) with them. For example, the stories of epistemic exclusion described in the interviews were stories that we saw and lived in the different spaces where the three of us circulated as students, research assistants, teachers, and academics. ...
... This article poses fundamental questions of the bodypolitics of pregnancy through three moves. First, we develop concepts and language drawn from material feminism (Barad 2007;Takeshita 2017), medical ethics and philosophy (Meincke 2022;Romanis et al. 2020) to interrogate pregnancy in past societies as an onto-political concern, rather than a peripheral women's issue. In the second section, we provide a case study to demonstrate how these conceptual tools can work in practice. ...
Pregnancy encompasses core socio-political issues: kinship, demography, religion, gender and more. In any society, the ontology of the pregnant body and the embryo-fetus holds core existential concerns. Is a pregnant body one or two beings? When does personhood begin? Yet pregnancy is still a marginal topic in archaeology and its onto-political consequences have scarcely been raised. It would be ludicrous to claim that pregnancy or childbirth is part of the grand narratives of prehistory. Also in scholarship centring theoretical perspectives on the body and personhood the pregnant body is absent . This article poses fundamental questions of the body-politics of pregnancy. We develop concepts from material feminism, medical ethics and philosophy to interrogate pregnancy and provide a case study to demonstrate how these concepts can work in practice from the Viking Age. The questions posed, however, are not limited to the Viking period. Our overall objective is to centre pregnancy as a philosophical and political concern in archaeology writ large . We develop new thinking and language to this end, which can be used to examine the politics of pregnancy in other periods and regions. Ultimately, we discuss the absence-making of pregnant bodies from our sources as well as from archaeological discourse.
... Zob. np. książki KarenBarad (2007) oraz RosiBraidotti (2012). Łącznikiem między myślą Bergsona i współczesnym neomaterializmem tego rodzaju jest przede wszystkim filozofia Deleuze'a, który poświęcił Bergsonowi jedną ze swoich monografii(Deleuze 1999) i który we Pamięć czy świadomość? ...
In this article, I deal with Henri Bergson’s concept of memory and consciousness, examining the relationship between these two concepts. Although Bergson often seems to identify them with each other, this analysis leads me to the conclusion that consciousness is only a possibility invoked by memory. Bergson assumes the existence of unconscious memory, which is, according to him, already spiritual and potentially conscious. It is illustrated in Bergson’s metaphor of the cone, which I analyze. There is also a corporeal memory‑habit, conscious to a limited extent. I show how these memories are connected with each other and what is the share of consciousness in each of them. I also consider the relationship between memory, both corporeal and spiritual, and sensory perception. I am led to believe that the relationship between them is in some way dialectical. Ultimately, Bergson’s entire conception of the relationship between matter and spirit, oscillating between the poles of dualism and monism, is a version of dialectical metaphysics. This metaphysics, as I try to show, is in many ways contemporary, inspiring in particular the so‑called new materialism. What seems especially up‑to‑date is Bergson’s analysis of consciousness which I compare with the phenomenological conception and with the non‑reductionist analytic philosophy of mind.
Concerned with developing new ways of reading, writing, and thinking with high school students about texts, the authors of this article-a creative writing teacher and an experimental art teacher, who are also doctoral students-seek to use diffraction, as developed and theorized by Donna Haraway and Karen Barad specifically, to slow down the frenetic pace of the classroom through the entanglement of the radical and subversive possibilities of blackout poetry and computational art represented by coding. The article explores this entanglement of blackout poetry and poetic coding through the interference created and experienced by students and teachers in a classroom as they use the tangible matter of texts to see and re-see what mattered in those texts through the randomness and agency afforded by markers and code. The article suggests that such activities slow down classrooms, allowing students to take time with texts, offering them opportunities to re-imagine and critique existing texts through an engaging classroom activity that blends old and new processes. The classroom purrs. Paper ripping, markers squeaking, computer keys tap tap, and students murmur to create a rich timbre of layered sound. Amy sits on the floor and writes lines of computer code. Students look up from their blackout poems to watch the code and its progeny cascade down and crowd the large classroom screen. Stories emerge from the entanglement. Nick moves around the room, replenishing exhausted markers, commenting on student work, and pausing frequently to notice what appears and disappears on the screen.
The climate crisis is full of marginalized human and more-than-human voices who are systematically silenced by solution-oriented, universalizing discourses. Listening as method is the opposite of silencing; it is an experiential form of knowledge production that conveys intention and care when done cautiously. We posit climate studies can learn from feminist listening practices how to listen rather than silence. Reviewing relevant theory and case studies, we situate listening among diverse actors as becoming-in-common in-place through sound, with a focus on Arctic waters. Heightened awareness of acoustic ecologies internalizes sound to place, affecting our understanding of possible actions to enable sustainable climate futures.
With the advancement of digital technologies, the creation of a digital twin of the road has moved from a theoretical concept to a tangible reality. Digital twins enable rapid simulations and robust data management, thereby ostensibly empowering policymakers and engineers to make expeditious and well-informed decisions. This paper examines the potential applications, benefits, and implications of deploying the digital twin of a road, a real-time virtual replica of physical road infrastructure, from four critical perspectives: physical modelling and numerical simulations, data management, law, and sustainability assessment. This paper explores the potential of digital twins to offer advancements in the efficiency and sustainability of road infrastructure. By enabling comprehensive monitoring and optimisation, the digital twin of a road facilitates applications in sustainable design, predictive maintenance, and efficient operation. Real-time data collection and analysis could allow for proactive maintenance and better resource management, while the integration of advanced materials and sensor technologies can enhance road durability and performance. Additionally, the digital twin of a road could support a holistic life cycle approach, facilitating better decision-making and planning for future infrastructure projects, with the potential to contribute to smarter and more sustainable transportation networks. The implementation of digital twins of roads, however, faces several challenges and raises numerous concerns. Key issues include the integration of diverse data sources, ensuring data accuracy and reliability, and addressing data protection and security concerns, requiring robust legal and regulatory frameworks to manage and protect personal data.
Este artículo examina las prácticas hidráulicas y agrícolas de la civilización Zenú a través del lente de las ontologías relacionales y el pensamiento pluriversal. Mediante un análisis cualitativo que integra evidencia arqueológica y marcos teóricos contemporáneos, se estudia cómo esta civilización desarrolló sistemas sofisticados de gestión del agua y agricultura que materializaban formas específicas de relacionalidad con el mundo más-que-humano. El estudio revela que los Zenú crearon una compleja red de canales, terraplenes y camellones que cubrían más de 500.000 hectáreas, junto con sistemas agrícolas diversos que incluían huertas multiestrato y cultivos adaptados a diferentes regímenes hídricos. Estos sistemas no solo representaban soluciones técnicas sino que encarnaban una comprensión relacional del territorio donde diferentes formas de vida y conocimiento coexistían y se entrelazaban. Las prácticas Zenú ofrecen lecciones valiosas para abordar los desafíos contemporáneos de gestión del agua y agricultura sostenible, sugiriendo la posibilidad de desarrollar aproximaciones más holísticas y equitativas que reconozcan la agencia e interconexión de todos los seres.
Collage is a practice with particular feminist resonances that has both touched and been touched by many feminist hands for varied feminist means. Figures such as Mary Delany, Claude Cahun and Wangechi Mutu have all practised collage as a strategy for subversive and disruptive world-making. As feminist art critic Lucy Lippard describes, collage is ‘born of interruption’. This article traces some of these interruptive, feminist uses of collage and asks what it might mean to use collage as a feminist research and (hi)storytelling strategy. Drawing on Karen Barad’s theorisations of the agential cut as a boundary-making practice, I propose a collage-based feminist research strategy wherein archival materials, knowledges, bodies, subjects and things are agentially cut, arranged and pasted together/apart in unexpected ways to produce unexpected dis/connections, attachments and relationships. A collage-based approach to feminist materials and knowledge disrupts hegemonic understandings of materiality, linearity, clarity and coherency, and opens up alternative ways of knowing feminisms and their things. I argue that collage locates the feminist researcher and (hi)storyteller as actively response-able to and for their research, its gestures, its narratives and its results, and ask what kinds of visions and versions of response-ability emerge from this. What kinds of structures are our cuts supporting? Whose histories are our cuts re-membering? In short, who lives and who dies in our feminist research and (hi)storytelling? With collage, these questions are felt and touched by the researcher, the cutter and the paster, and therefore felt as embodied questions that matter ethically, ontologically and epistemologically.
Introduction. The introduction of publicly available large language models (LLMs) since 2022 has significantly challenged traditional library and information studies (LIS) core concepts. This paper argues that LIS needs to rethink aspects of its conceptual framework to address the challenges posed by the proliferation of AI-generated content and how this content is produced. Analysis. The study employs a theoretical analysis to critically examine the LIS concepts of search, sources and evaluation in the light of an increasingly AI-infused information infrastructure. Results. The main argument of the paper is that due to changes in the information infrastructure, sources are becoming increasingly invisible for people when they look for information. This has profound implications for how searching for and evaluation of information can be conceptualised. Conclusion. The paper is concluded by offering conceptual insights on how to theoretically navigate the rapidly evolving information landscape.
What does an archaeology of the sea look like? Is it even possible to study something so vast and ephemeral, ever-shifting and monstrously big? In this article, we argue that it is, if we are willing to render the gigantic small by tracing where the sea intersects with other entities, and to transform the ungraspable into the material by following its footprints. Luso-African ivories, artefacts produced between the 15th and 17th centuries in African contexts but shaped by Portuguese influence, offer one such venue. They embody, enable, influence and are influenced by maritimity, that is, the way human beings interact with the sea. Through their materiality, symbolism, mobility, hybridity, and individual journeys, these ivories allow us to understand how the sea acted and was acted upon, co-constructed new cultural forms, and left its traces. In doing so, this study reframes maritimity not as a fixed identity or cultural trait, but as a shifting constellation of relations among humans, non-humans, and watery spaces. It offers a relational archaeology of the sea, not as a passive backdrop but as an active, shaping entity entangled in the making of the post-medieval world.
In response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic on traditional Photovoice studies, this article explores the potential of digital technologies to transform the methodology rather than merely adapt it. We introduce velfies (self-recorded video performances), a digital evolution that enhances participant agency by allowing them to shape the research narrative through multimodal and performative elements, such as voice, gesture, and movement. This approach shifts participants from being mere observers to active performers, enriching the research process with diverse, multimodal expressions. Our study with university students, focused on interactions with innovative pedagogies, demonstrates how velfies can deepen engagement and provide richer, more nuanced data. We argue that this performative, digital approach expands Photovoice methodology by bridging the gap between participant experience and researcher interpretation, capturing the complexities of lived educational experiences with greater depth and nuance.
Artificial intelligence (AI) presents transformative opportunities and complex ethical challenges. This paper adopts a socio-technical perspective, emphasizing that AI is not an isolated technology but rather deeply embedded in evolving societies. It critiques governance models, particularly rule-based approaches in the West, which, whilst addressing some risks, often stifle innovation and fail to engage diverse societal needs. This paper proposes an alternative framework integrating Western risk-management strategies with Chinese ethical principles rooted in Confucianism and Daoism. These principles emphasize dynamics, flexibility, relational stakeholder participation, and context-sensitive solutions to align AI with societal and environmental goals. The proposed model advocates for a co-learning approach to AI ethics, recognizing the dynamic interactions among developers, users, policymakers, and the public. By fostering participatory governance and adaptive ethical frameworks, it addresses both known and unknown risks while promoting equitable, sustainable development. It calls for cooperation to harness AI's transformative potential, ensuring it evolves in ways that benefit society and mitigate harm.
Institutional review boards (IRBs) set ethical standards for research conduct, thereby contributing to a coherent framework for responsible research practice. However, their current focus on risk reduction has proven to be challenging for many researchers working in co-creative research where participants become co-researchers and play an active role in shaping, challenging, or controlling the research process. In this article, we identify challenges that risk-averse ethics pose for co-creative research. In response to these challenges, we illustrate how co-creative practices provide “workarounds” to ill-fitted, risk-averse-focused IRB questions received while remaining sensitive to the specific ethical concerns of co-creative research. We suggest ethical principles for co-creative research that are grounded in opportunity-based ethics, inspired by feminist new materialisms and critical theory. Instead of predetermining harms and instigating precaution, we argue for an ethics in co-creative research that recognizes ethical risks and opportunities as collaboratively emergent.
The adoption of AI is pervasive, often operating behind the scenes and influencing decisions without our explicit awareness. It impacts different aspects of our lives, from personalized recommendations to crucial determinations like hiring decisions or credit approvals. Yet, even to their developers, AI algorithms’ opacity raises concerns about fairness. The biases inherent in our data further complicate matters, as current AI systems often lack moral or logical judgment, relying solely on predictive outputs derived from learned data patterns. Efforts to address fairness in AI models face significant challenges, as different definitions of fairness can lead to conflicting outcomes. Despite attempts to mitigate biases and optimize fairness criteria, achieving a universal and satisfactory solution remains elusive. The multidimensional nature of fairness, with its roots in philosophy and evolving concepts in organizational justice, underscores the complexity of the task. Technology is inherently political, shaped by various societal factors and human biases. Recognizing this, stakeholders must engage in nuanced discussions about the types of fairness relevant in specific contexts and the potential trade-offs involved. Just as in other spheres of decision-making, navigating trade-offs is inevitable, requiring a flexible approach informed by diverse perspectives.
This study acknowledges that achieving fairness in AI is not about prescribing a singular definition or solution but adapting to evolving needs and values. Embracing ambiguity and tension in decision-making can lead to more inclusive outcomes. An interdisciplinary examination of application-specific and consensus-driven frameworks is adopted to consider fairness in AI. By evaluating factors such as application nuances, procedural frameworks, and stakeholder dynamics, this study demonstrates the framework’s expansive potential applicability in understanding and operationalizing fairness by the way of two illustrations.
This article draws upon a 10-month study of core French as a second language (FSL) teachers to explore the professional identities that are produced in their work. Adopting rhizoanalysis and the Deleuzian concept of becoming, this article positions the ways in which these teachers both affect and are affected by the multiple material and discursive practices that circulate within their local context and Canadian FSL education. Engaging data from classroom observations, interviews, and lesson artifacts, several vignettes are offered as empirical examples that extend insights into how the status of FSL, the material components of the school, and the teachers’ identities are co-constituted. These data entry points are possible lines to think differently about the intricacies of becoming a core FSL teacher in day-to-day practice and the ways in which these educators are constantly (re)shaped in relation with the material, human, and affective elements in their classrooms. These affordances can disrupt existing understandings and suggest how (re)imagining FSL teachers from a sociomaterial perspective might further nuance discussions of retention, support, and identity.
So far, synthetic biology approaches for the construction of artificial microorganisms have fostered the transformation of acceptor cells with genomes from donor cells. However, this strategy seems to be limited to closely related bacterial species only, due to the need for a “fit” between donor and acceptor proteomes and structures. “Fitting” of cellular regulation of metabolite fluxes and turnover between donor and acceptor cells, i.e. cybernetic heredity, may be even more difficult to achieve. The bacterial transformation experiment design 1.0, as introduced by Frederick Griffith almost one century ago, may support integration of DNA, macromolecular, topological, cybernetic and cellular heredity: (i) attenuation of donor Pneumococci of (S) serotype fosters release of DNA, and hypothetically of non-DNA structures compatible with subsequent transfer to and transformation of acceptor Pneumococci from (R) to (S) serotype; (ii) use of intact donor cells rather than of subcellular or purified fractions may guarantee maximal diversity of the structural and cybernetic matter and information transferred; (iii) “Blending” or mixing and fusion of donor and acceptor Pneumococci may occur under accompanying transfer of metabolites and regulatory circuits. A Griffith transformation experiment design 2.0 is suggested, which may enable efficient exchange of DNA as well as non-DNA structural and cybernetic matter and information, leading to unicellular hybrid microorganisms with large morphological/metabolic phenotypic differences and major features compared to predeceding cells. The prerequisites of horizontal gene and somatic cell nuclear transfer, the molecular mechanism of transformation, the machineries for the biogenesis of bacterial cytoskeleton, micelle-like complexes and membrane landscapes are briefly reviewed on the basis of underlying conceptions, ranging from Darwin’s “gemmules” to “stirps”, cytoplasmic and “plasmon” inheritance, “rhizene agency”, “communicology”, “transdisciplinary membranology” to up to Kirschner’s “facilitated variation”.
In an era that is marked by increasing environmental degradation, discourses on human agency and subjectivity are gaining prominence in the efforts to fight climate change-related issues and to rethink the ways humans are connected to their environment. Outdated frameworks informed by Enlightenment philosophy or sciences are still influential in shaping human culture, mainly manifested in dualistic thinking that illustrates the world as separated between subject and object, observer and observed, human and nature. This research offers an alternative to dualistic frameworks of place, and examines Gary Snyder’s long poem Mountains and Rivers Without End to display how the concept of place can be reconceptualized through a New Materialist perspective informed by Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage, Karen Barad’s agential realism, and Jane Bennett’s vibrant matter.
Through a textual analysis, the research demonstrates that place in Mountains and Rivers Without End challenges traditional conceptualizations by dissolving boundaries between binary oppositions and acknowledging the agency of the nonhuman world. As a result, place emerges as a vibrant entity that is co-constituted and constantly reshaped by material-discursive forces, rather than being a fixed object that awaits human interaction.
This rethinking of place as an assemblage has ethical implications that cause a shift in how ethics is understood, from an anthropocentric system to one that is emergent through intra- activities of bodies that form the assemblage. Thus, ethics are no longer seen as an external set of principles to be imposed and become entangled with the material-discursive forces. By acknowledging the entangled agency of human and nonhuman factors in the conceptualization of place, Snyder’s work provides a place-based, transformative framework to approach human- environment relations.
At present, in music education scholarship, there is a renewed interest and enthusiasm in materiality motivated by theories that gather under the title of ‘New Materialism’. Beyond the field of music education, doubts and reservations towards new materialism are being discussed, but these discussions are not yet entering music education debates. There are reservations concerning the lack of continuity with ‘old’ materialisms, some internal inconsistencies within the theories, problems that arise when new materialist concepts of agency and decentring are applied, and propositions that new materialism is not emancipatory, as claimed, but represents a further twist of Neoliberalism.
This article discusses dialogues between South African poets and
ourselves. The poets describe their roles as purveyors of memory,
bringing experiences with nature into the present, providing universal interconnectedness. Our title is a proverb meaning “the
jackal that survives is the one with muddy whiskers”. To survive, a
jackal must know the world deeply, utilizing deep listening and
respectful engagement. The poets describe poetry as a multimodal act, grounded in their geospatial locations. They weave
memories of their communities and cultures into multimedia
works, integrating diverse art forms. They decolonize the study of
memory by subverting the centering of Northern epistemologies
and re-centering their experience as distinctively (South) African.
Writing as “implicated subjects” who have benefited from systems
of privilege, we are part of a community of poets. We engage
with the poets through found poetry as we trace connections
between the poets and their work towards healing.
Stone Age hunter-gatherer weapon studies should hold a more central position within war studies since the vast majority of human weapons ever in existence were once used by these types of societies. Among these weapons, the projectile, or the weapon point, is arguably the most numerous and well-studied in both archaeological and ethnographical contexts. However, from a warfare and conflict perspective, the study of weapon points in Stone Age and hunter-gatherer societies is beset by two substantial and intertwined issues: (i) the problem of categorizing and defining violent activities and (ii) the problem of identifying functions for weapon points.
The thesis of this paper is that by turning to the ecological scale, i.e. the epistemology and ontology of Ecological Psychology and Dynamic Systems Theory (EP DST), these issues can be approached constructively. The ecological scale offers a consistent relational framework to quantitatively address weapon point property variation, covariation, historical and practical specificity, as well as experimental principles to quantitatively study emergent patterns in human-weapon point-environment relations. Archaeological studies and experiments with EP DST principles could potentially reveal how organisms, environment and emergent patterns affect the properties of a weapon point in traditional hunter-gatherer societies, given the typically intimate relationship between craft, body and usage. How this could be accomplished is exemplified with the Northern Eurasian inset point, an object that has been found in association with human bodies in Mesolithic Scandinavia. Hence, through EP DST perspectives and approaches, weapons points can be re-socialised in order to reveal their more specific or contextual conflict related dimensions.
La creciente preocupación por el deterioro del mundo ambiente, la contaminación ambiental, la deforestación, la extinción de las especies, el peligro latente de las centrales nucleares pone en el centro del debate el impacto que la acción del hombre ejerce sobre el mundo natural o el medio ambiente. Estos problemas no permanecen ajenos a la literatura y, consiguientemente, emerge un significativo desarrollo crítico que acompaña estas preocupaciones: la ecocrítica, que estudia las relaciones entre la literatura y el medio ambiente físico. A través de este trabajo, se realiza un breve recorrido desde sus inicios, para concentrarse en la ecocrítica materialista. Esta postula la materialidad como la base que subyace al pensamiento ambiental y a la relación de lo humano y lo no-humano, y propone una aproximación no dualista a la concepción de aquella. Esto incluye tanto a las diferenciaciones entre lo humano y lo no-humano como a lo material y lo discursivo. La materialidad es una condición común a todos los seres vivos o no (incluyendo a los hombres, los seres no humanos, los objetos, los materiales, inclusive los híbridos hombre/máquina y los artefactos culturales que constituyen extensiones del hombre). A su vez, desde esta teoría se aborda el concepto de "transcorporalidad", el cual enfatiza la condición del ser humano como atravesado tanto por materia como por discurso, lo cual incita a una revisión de la dicotomía humano/ no-humano. El trabajo también plantea una serie de interrogantes prácticos que permiten acercarse al análisis concreto del texto literario desde una perspectiva ecocrítica-neo-materialista.
This paper proposes acephaly, literally, "without a head", as a generative framework for rethinking power, knowledge, and ethics in a decentralized age. Drawing from Georges Bataille's sacred iconography, anarchist political theory, Deleuze and Guattari's rhizomatic logics, cybernetic design, and posthumanist epistemologies, the paper unfolds acephaly not as chaos but as choreography: a model of distributed coherence without central command. Across political theory, metaphysics, epistemology, and technological design, acephaly marks a refusal of sovereign authority and hierarchical structure. It explores anarchist federations, stateless societies, and blockchain-based systems as living examples of headless order. It interrogates how knowledge can circulate through networks rather than be issued from epistemic monarchs, and how responsibility in decentralized systems must arise through mutual entanglement, not external enforcement. Technologies such as blockchain, swarm robotics, cybernetics, and DAOs are shown to embody acephalic principles in practice-resilient, emergent, and leaderless by design. The paper also foregrounds feminist and posthumanist ethics,
Psychiatric and psychological research has confirmed that less than 1% of the research on eating disorders is focused on males. However, for the first time, the occurrence of eating disorders is reportedly growing faster among the male population. Nevertheless, men still are more likely to stay undiagnosed. This paper bridges this gap and offers an analysis of male eating disorders (MEDs) and particularly drawing from a feminist technoscience perspective, it examines how male eating disorders are made up in clinical practices and encounters. Specifically, in this paper, I investigate the different ways by which male eating disorders emerge as a situated matter of concern and object of clinical care. In other words, I explore the ‘making present’ of the male and maleness in the clinical practices treating eating disorders in the Australian healthcare system. Based on the data from 25 semi‐structured, qualitative interviews with clinicians, the paper draws out how care in relation to eating disorders is organised and, specifically, how the enactment of a female/male binary mobilised in clinicians' accounts of clinical practices may act to constrain care. Finally, I demonstrate how care practices could attend to male eating disorders differently in a more sensitive and intersectional way.
Belonging and matter serve as entry points into the conceptual and political stakes of this inquiry into property. The articles in this collection explore relations of belonging as they occur through forms of property, as objects and subjects gather and are gathered together amid and by differentials of power. We suggest that the matters of belonging that unfold through property also constitute terrains of struggle, in which belonging is held in tension in its dual sense: about what might count as a belonging that might be owned and simultaneously about who belongs—who is included in the polity, who gets to be part of human society, or who has sovereign control over their bodies or the political choices that are made. The articles do not simply challenge property as a Western category but make arguments affirmatively about other regimes of ownership and belonging—other gatherings of things in the world that was and could be. They illustrate the political indeterminacies and historical contingencies of property's unfolding within and shaping of social and material worlds in ways that allow us to revisit the terms of anthropological debates around property.
This coursebook offers an expansive exploration of bioethics, an interdisciplinary field examining ethical, social, and legal dilemmas in medicine, life sciences, and beyond. It challenges conventional boundaries, embracing Van Rensselaer Potter’s vision of bioethics as a global, holistic ethics of life—integrating human health, environmental considerations, and transdisciplinary insights.
Through engaging discussions, thought experiments, and case studies, the book empowers students to critically reflect on ethical questions without dictating rigid answers. Topics range from the historical roots of ethical thought to cutting-edge debates in molecular biology, such as epigenetics and exposomics, demonstrating how interconnected human, animal, and environmental health truly are.
Central themes include the limits of scientific knowledge, the biases shaping research, and the evolving interplay between moral philosophy and empirical science.
Students will encounter key philosophical frameworks—ontology, epistemology, and ethics—woven into practical bioethical applications. Feminist philosophy, experimental bioethics, and embedded ethics enrich this perspective, urging readers to question assumptions, embrace diverse viewpoints, and connect ethical principles with real-world science.
Targeted at students in philosophy, biology, biomedical sciences, and bioengineering, this book is a toolkit for future thinkers, fostering a nuanced understanding of how ethical science advances humanity in a complex, ever-changing world.
Researchers examining networked behaviors across digital platforms and computer-mediated spaces will find this chapter’s insights valuable. It offers a thoughtful exploration of the methodological and intellectual connections that shape a computer-mediated research field focused on creative content production. Approaching digital community health as a sociodigital-material construct, the chapter employs transdisciplinary methods. Originating from a doctoral thesis in progress, it promotes methodological self-reflection and emphasizes the time required for research to mature. Grounded in a specific institution in India, the discussions presented here can be readily adapted by the wider HCI research community to explore innovative modes of knowledge creation online.
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