New Materialisms

New materialism is a contested term, as its theoretical approaches diverge from each other while overlapping with many other theories in the nonhuman turn. This essay introduces new materialist theories and their relation to posthumanism by outlining their distinguishing characteristics, such as the conceptions of material agency. It centers new materialism in feminist science studies, especially the work of Donna Haraway and Karen Barad. The essay also takes up the question of whether or how new materialism is political, by analyzing the intersections between new materialisms and a range of other theories, topics, and orientations, including environmentalism, race, indigeneity, postcolonialist science studies, and disability studies.