What Does it Mean to “Make Kin”? A Neo-Phenomenological Critique of the Social Philosophy of the New Materialism

Abstract This article attempts to analyse the socio-philosophical foundations of New Materialism. Drawing mainly on the work of Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, and Karen Barad, it highlights that New Materialism can be read as a critique of ontological approaches that always take the particularity of worldly entities as their starting point. The authors counter this with their focus on interconnectivity and fluid boundaries. However, as the analysis progresses, it becomes apparent that although New Materialism is guided by the understandable motive of avoiding conceptual essentializations in view of current ecological crises, its theoretical foundation remains ambivalent, as it is not clear to what extent boundaries can be drawn arbitrarily (or not) and thus become relativistic (or not). As an alternative, the neo-phenomenological concept of situation is introduced, which is able to satisfy the legitimate impulses of New Materialism without participating in its problematic (socio-)ontological implications. The concept of the situation allows plurality and anti-constructivism to be combined and forms of non-anthropocentric connectedness to be understood without ending up in mere metaphorical turns of phrase.