One of the most influential contemporary authors of the new materialist turn in the social sciences is Karen Barad. Barad’s work in agential realism, based on her interpretations of quantum physics, has been widely cited within a growing body of new materialist publications. However, in translating Barad’s assertions into social domains, there has been increasing critical appraisal of the physics underlying her work and its relationship with non-quantum domains. In this paper, we contribute to this discussion by exploring aspects of agential realism through quantum decoherence and quantum Darwinism. We explore implications for Barad’s metaphysics and the relationship of the social with the rest of the material world.

社会科学中新唯物主义转向最有影响力的当代作者之一是凯伦·巴拉德（Karen Barad）。巴拉德在代理实在论方面的工作，基于她对量子物理学的解释，在越来越多的新唯物主义出版物中被广泛引用。然而，在将巴拉德的主张转化为社会领域时，越来越多的批评性评价是对她工作背后的物理学及其与非量子领域的关系。在本文中，我们通过量子退相干和量子达尔文主义探索代理实在论的各个方面，为这一讨论做出了贡献。我们探讨了巴拉德的形而上学的含义以及社会与物质世界其他部分的关系。