Sociocultural psychologist Wertsch lamented in 1991 that psychology and the other human sciences seemed unable to do anything consequential about the myriad inequalities and conflicts facing contemporary societies. Actor-network theorist Latour (2004: 225) was of the same opinion about the social sciences and humanities in general, and wondered if the critical de-constructionism of contemporary scholarship in general had a part to play in the current situation of ‘Wars. So many wars. Wars outside and wars inside. Cultural wars, science wars and wars against terrorism. ... Is it really the task of the humanities to add deconstruction to destruction?’ Like Latour, Wertsch and many others, philosopher Braidotti (2013) urged attention to income and educational inequalities, gender violence, racism, environmental violence and other threats to life, and proposed that scholars need to think in ways that acknowledge the links among these problems, and also need to examine these problems in ways that acknowledge the importance of not only human life and flourishing. The persistent calls for interor transdisciplinary and engaged research by many scholars recognise the entangled and material nature of humans, discourses, machines, other objects, other species and the natural environment (Frodeman et al., 2017). The growing scholarship that recognises these linkages refers to such a perspective as posthumanism, feminist materialism, process philosophy, relational ontologies or new materialism. I use the latter term in this book.

Feminist political theorists Coole and Frost (2010: 8) observed that a ‘trait of the new materialism is its antipathy to oppositional ways of thinking’, and that its prevailing ‘ethos ... is more positive and constructive than critical or negative’.