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.

在一个连续不断地在社会物质实践中制定和重新配置的世界中，研究人员的角色是什么？在这个世界中，假设对象和客体，结构和机构，身体和心灵，知性和已知在本体论上是不可分割的？在本文中，我将借鉴自己重新考虑本质主义和代表主义假设并成为社会物质研究者的经验，来探讨这个问题。我的探索借鉴了我在瑞典移民局进行定性纵向案例研究的经验。具体而言，我展示了“邀请实质性”参加面试，通过追踪实践的家谱研究以某种方式成为可能的条件，以及以关系而非分类的方式参与数据的含义。通过考虑我在这些实践中的经验，我旨在发展和阐明对社会材料方法所基于的本体论立场对认识论意味着什么，以及我们如何能够更创造性地行动（或更确切地说是行动中）。负责任的社会材料研究人员。此外，我强调在知识的种类上存在差异，即以关系和执行本体论为基础的社会材料方法与以批判现实主义为基础的社会材料方法所产生的知识有关组织实践的发展，特别是实践正在发展在瑞典移民局的接待区。本文为当前关于社会材料方法的辩论做出了贡献，