Karen Barad

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Karen Barad (eigentlich Karen M. Barad) ist Professorin an der Feminist Studies Faculty der University of California, Santa Cruz.

Ihre Forschungsschwerpunkte sind (Natur-)Wissenschaftsforschung, Physik, Feministische Theorie, Philosophie der Physik, Epistemologie, Ontologie, Cultural Studies of Science, Feminist Science Studies, Poststrukturalistische Theorie -> Poststrukturalismus, Quantenphysik

Karen Barad publiziert mit naturwissenschaftlichem Fachhintergrund (Theoretische Teilchenphysik) zu Queer Theory. Barad diskutiert eingehend, was an Niels Bohrs 'Phänomen'-Begriff für ein neues Realismus-Konzept ('Agential Realism', s.u.) produktiv zu machen ist (1996) und bezieht [Donna Haraway]s Konzepte eines 'apparatus of bodily production' und der 'situated knowledges' mit ein.

Barad (1998 f.) würdigt Judith Butlers Konzept des Körpers als Prozess fortwährender 'Materialisierung', das Butler als Ausweg aus der Trennung von Materialität und Diskurs anbietet (Butler, dt. Körper von Gewicht, 1995, S. 31), und führt dieses Konzept einen entscheidenden Schritt weiter: Barad (1998), so Antke Engel, "berücksichtigt nicht allein, wie der Diskurs sich materialisiert, sondern auch wie Materie sich materialisiert. ... Auf dem Hintergrund technowissenschaflticher Epistemologie arbeitet Barad Butlers Begriff der Performativität als iterativer Zitation in ein Konzept iterativer Intra-Aktivität um, und begegnet damit dem Problem, dass Butler Materie dem Diskurs passiv unterordnet." Antke Engel, Wider die Eindeutigkeit. Sexualität und Geschlecht im Fokus queerer Politik der Repräsentation. Frankfurt am Main/ New York: Campus Verlag, 2002, S. 33, Anm. 17

In ihrer feministischen Rahmenkonzeption eines 'Agential Realism' geht es um die Untrennbarkeit (inseparability) von Sein und Wissen. Barad stellt damit die wissenschaftlich-disziplinäre Unterscheidung zwischen der Erkenntnistheorie (epistemology) und der Lehre vom Sein (ontology) in Frage. Sie nennt ihren Zugang epistem-onto-logy (1998:120, n.1) ? "the study of practices of knowing in being" (2003:829).

Vier Aspekte kennzeichnen 'Agential realism': (1) 'Agential realism' fundiert und situiert Wissensansprüche in lokaler Erfahrung: Objektivität ist im wörtlichen Sinne verkörpert; (2) 'Agential realism' bevorzugt weder das Materielle noch das Kulturelle: die Apparatur körperlicher Produktion ([Haraway]) ist materiell-kulturell und 'agential reality' ist es ebenso; (3) 'Agential realism' erfordert eine eingehende Befragung von Grenziehungen sowie kritische Reflexivität; (4) 'Agential realism' unterstreicht die Notwendigkeit einer Ethik des Wissens ? in dem Sinne, dass ein Sich-im-Wissen-Befinden ('Knowing') bedeutet, die existierenden Apparaturen zu denturalisieren, auf vielfache Weise in Frage zu stellen und zu destabilisieren, um Genz(ziehung)en zu verändern ('refigure') (Barad 1996:179, 183). "Agential realism is an account of technoscientific and other practices that takes feminist, antiracist, poststructuralist, queer, Marxist, science studies, and scientific insights seriously, building specifically on important insights from Niels Bohr, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Donna Haraway, Vicki Kirby, Joseph Rouse, and others" (Barad 2003:810-811). Barad (1998) entwickelt ihren Zugang an piezoelektrischen Kristallen. Sie beschreibt ein piezoelektrisches Kristall als ein materielles Instrument (a material instrument), als die "Seele" ("soul") einer beobachtenden Apparatur (of an observing apparatus), durch die nicht einfach nur Signale, sondern Diskurse im Foucaultschen Sinne vonstatten gehen (operate). Indem Barad die Verbindung dieses Instruments mit einer Reihe von Apparaturen untersucht, verwendet sie den piezoelektrischen 'transducer' als ein Werkzeug (tool) zur genaueren Betrachtung der allgemeineren Frage des Verhältnisses zwischen dem Materiellen und dem Diskursiven. Barad, so Christina Lammer "untersucht die Wechselwirkungen zwischen der Bildgebung und dem visualisierten Objekt, wobei der Körper, den sie ins Spiel bringt, nicht der menschliche ist, sondern ein piezoelektrischer Kristall" (Vorwort zu Barad 2001, Performing Culture, S. 10).

[Bearbeiten] Barad im O-Ton

"There are two common ways to attempt to deny responsibility for boundaries: (1) Claim that they are natural, or (2) claim that they are arbitrary partitionings of a holistic oneness, existing outside of human space and time. In contrast, agential realism explicitly shows that boundaries are interested instances of power, specific constructions, with real material consequences. There are not only different stakes in drawing different distinctions, there are different ontological implications" (Barad 1996:182).

"Agential realism includes practice witin theory: theory is epistemologically and ontologically reflexive of content" (Barad 1996:182).

"Agential realism is a form of social constructivism that is not relativist, does not reduce knowledge to power plays or language, and does not reject objectivity" (Barad 1996:186).

"Phenomena are the intra-actions of knowledge and being, word and world, culture and nature. Phenomena are material-cultural be-in's. Agential realism relies on a non-classical ontology. The material is not fixed and prior to discursive signification, but in it. ... Intra-acting is an activity that theorizes the mechanics of an embodied objectivity" (Barad 1996:188).

"According to agential realism, reality is sedimented out of the process of making the world intelligible through certain practices and not others. Therefore, we are not only responsible for the knowledge that we seek, but, in part, for what exists" (Barad 1998a:7).

"Agential realism is a feminist intervention in debates between realists and social constuctivists. It provides an understanding of the nature of scientific practices which resognizes that objectivity and agency are bound up with issues if responsibility and accountability. We are responsible for what exists not because it is an arbitrary construction of our choosing, but because agential reality is sedimented out of particular practices that we have a role in shaping" (Barad 1998a:7).

"... agential realism is as solid as a table (the latter of which is also a material-discoursive phenomenon)" (Barad 1998a:8, n.8).

"Agency is the space of possibilities opened up by the indeterminacies entailed by exclusions. The reworking of exclusions entail changes in the topology of spacetime. Interior and exterior, past and future, are iteratively enfolded and reworked, but never eliminated. The boundary between interiority and exteriority is what makes the past and the future possible.? (Barad 2001a: 93) ?Agential realism figures agency in terms of the possibilities and accountability entailed in refiguring apparatuses of bodily production, including the boundary articulations and exclusions that are marked by those practices." (Barad 2001b:110)

"Agency is not an attribute but the ongoing reconfigurings of the world." (Barad 2003: 818)

"Agential realism's relational ontology enables the further reworking of the notion of materialization that acknowledges the existence of important linkages between discursive practices and material phenomena without the anthropocentric limitations of Judith Butler's theory." (Barad 2003:822, n.26)

[Bearbeiten] Wissenschaftliche Laufbahn

seit Juli 2005 Professor of Feminist Studies, with affiliations in History of Consciousness and Philosophy

1999 - 2005 Professor of Women's Studies and Philosophy at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, U.S.A

State University of New York, U.S.A., Ph.D.

Brandeis University, U.S.A., B.A.

[Bearbeiten] Arbeiten

Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway. Duke University Press. (Erscheinen lt. Autorin endgültig für März 2007 vorgesehen)

Barad, Karen. 2003. "Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter," in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol.28, No.3 (Spring), pp. 801-831 (Dieser Aufsatz ist in Originalsprache ebenfalls zu finden in: Materialität denken. Studien zur technologischen Verkörperung - Hybride Artefakte, posthumane Körper. Hrsg. v. Corinna Bath, Yvonne Bauer, Bettina Bock von Wülfingen, Angelika Saupe, Jutta Weber, Bielefeld: transcript, 2005, S. 187-216)

Barad, Karen. 2001a. "Re(con)figuring Space, Time, and Matter," in Feminist Locations: Global and Local, Theory and Practice, edited by Marianne DeKoven. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 75-109 (p. 105, n. 6, Barad: 'much of this presentation [of Bohr] ist extracted from [1998a]')

Barad, Karen. 2001b. "Performing Culture / Performing Nature: Using the Piezoelectric Crystal of Ultrasound Technologies as a Transducer Between Science Studies and Queer Theories," in Digital Anatomies, edited by Christina Lammer. Vienna: Turia & Kant, pp. 98-114 (darin S.7, Barad: 'Portions of this essay are published in my paper "Getting Real..."'[1998], s.u.)

Barad, Karen. 2001c. "Scientific Literacy -> Agential Literacy = (Learning + Doing) Science Responsibly," in Feminist Science Studies: A New Generation, edited by Maralee Mayberry, Banu Subramaniam, and Lisa Weasel. NY: Routledge Press. (Abridged version of 2000b)

Barad, Karen. 2000a. "Agential Realism," in Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories, edited by Lorraine Code. NY: Routledge Press.

Barad, Karen. 2000b. "Reconceiving Scientific Literacy as Agential Literacy, or Learning How to Intra-act Responsibly Within the World," in Doing Science + Culture: How Cultural and Interdisciplinary Studies are Changing the Way We Look at Science and Medicine, edited by Roddy Reid and Sharon Traweek. NY: Routledge Press.

Barad, Karen. 1999. "Agency without Agents," in Power, Practice, Agency: Working Papers from the Women in the Public Sphere Seminar 1997-1998, edited by Marianne DeKoven, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Institute for Research on Women.

Barad, Karen. 1998a. "Agential Realism: Feminist Interventions in Understanding Scientific Practices," in The Science Studies Reader, edited by Mario Biagioli. NY: Routledge Press, pp. 1-11

Barad, Karen. 1998b. "Getting Real: Technoscientific Practices and the Materialization of Reality," in differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, vol. 10, no. 2 (Summer 1998), pp. 87-128

Barad, Karen. 1996. "Meeting the Universe Halfway: Realism and Social Constructivism Without Contradiction," in Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science, edited by Lynn Hankinson Nelson and Jack Nelson. Dordecht, Holland: Kluwer Press, pp. 161-194 (this is a more detailed account of Barad's Niels Bohr interpretation done in 2001a, see 2001a reference p. 105, n.16)

Barad, Karen. 1995a. "Meeting the Universe Halfway: Ambiguities, Discontinuities, Quantum Subjects, and Multiple Positionings in Feminism and Physics," in Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science: A Dialog, edited by L.H. Nelson and J. Nelson. Norwell, MA: Kluwer Press.

Barad, Karen. 1995b. "A Feminist Approach to Teaching Quantum Physics," in Teaching the Majority: Breaking the Gender Barrier in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering, edited by S.V. Rosser. New York: Teachers College Press.