On becoming a sociomaterial researcher: Exploring epistemological practices grounded in a relational, performative ontology

Abstract

What is the role of the researcher in a world that is continuously enacted and reconfigured in sociomaterial practices, a world in which subject and object, structure and agency, body and mind, knower and known, are assumed to be ontologically inseparable? In this article, I explore this question by drawing on my own experiences of reconsidering essentialist and representationalist assumptions, and becoming a sociomaterial researcher. My exploration draws on my experiences of conducting a qualitative longitudinal case study at the Swedish Migration Board. Specifically, I show what it can mean to ‘invite materiality’ into interviews, examine the conditions of possibility to become in certain ways by tracing the genealogy of practices, and engage with data relationally rather than categorically. By accounting for my experience of working through these practices, I aim to develop and articulate an understanding of what the ontological position underlying a sociomaterial approach implies for epistemology, and of how we can act (or, rather, intra-act) more creatively and responsibly as sociomaterial researchers. Moreover, I highlight differences in the kinds of knowledge that a sociomaterial approach grounded in relational and performative onto-epistemologies, as opposed to a socio-material approach, grounded in critical realism, produce about the unfolding of organizational practices—specifically, the practices unfolding in the reception area of the Swedish Migration Board. The paper contributes to the current debate on sociomaterial approaches, and in particular to the development of practices available to draw upon for researchers taking a sociomaterial approach.