Among protective equipment, test tubes and spectrometers: material dysfunctionality and how matter matters

This study examines academic chemistry environments and demonstrates how both daily consumables and specialized research instruments interact with students and teachers. In such an environment—a laboratory, a classroom, a staff room—language, discourse, culture, and matter are entangled, without the possibility of clearly distinguishing them as separate entities. It is this entanglement that the present article aims to illustrate. By applying Barad’s feminist theory of agential realism and the concept of “culture” to empirical data collected during fieldwork in which chemistry professors were shadowed and chemistry teaching was observed, I investigate and discuss what the entanglement of matter and discourse produces. Using examples from the empirical data, how matter comes to matter is shown as part of the emergence of material-discursive practices, and how such an “agency” sometimes has effects that extend far beyond the intended purpose and scope, sometimes creating limits on what is possible. In both cases, there are consequences for participants who are either co-creators of the practice or who suddenly find themselves in an already existing one. In the article, I introduce the concept of material dysfunctionality and demonstrate that the absence of material awareness poses a significant risk, primarily for students and other subordinate participants, of finding themselves in non-optimal or even impossible situations. Participants who, due to the material dysfunctionality of an educational or work environment, end up in a performance-unfavorable position can be identified as incompetent and not recognized as potential members of the discipline and culture. Such negative adhesion is more likely if the participant’s perceived shortcomings are reinforced by her status as a woman in a male-dominated environment. Other categories of differences may have similar consequences if perceived as challenging in the prevailing culture.