New materialist and posthuman research methodologies are quickly gaining traction in educational research. According to its proponents, new materialism takes us to radically new places of praxis as it reconfigures central notions such as data, researcher positioning and critique. Here I consider how the notion of ‘data’ is invoked in an example of new materialist research by education scholars. Through this critique, I come to question the extent to which the approach constitutes a reconfiguration or whether, instead, it is continuous with some old and problematic tropes. I wonder if the positioning of data as supremely agentic elides the new materialist insistence on intra-action and discuss some of the implications of that including the depoliticisation it entails.

中文翻译：

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“数据发现了我们”：对教育研究中一些新的唯物主义比喻的批判

新的唯物主义和后人类研究方法正在教育研究中迅速获得关注。根据其支持者的说法，新唯物主义将我们带到了全新的实践场所，因为它重新配置了数据、研究人员定位和批判等核心概念。在这里，我考虑了教育学者如何在新唯物主义研究的例子中援引“数据”的概念。通过这种批评，我开始质疑该方法在多大程度上构成了重新配置，或者它是否与一些陈旧且有问题的比喻相连续。我想知道将数据定位为至高无上的能动性是否忽略了新唯物主义对内部行动的坚持，并讨论了其中的一些影响，包括它所带来的去政治化。