Putting new materialist and posthuman theory to work in bystander evaluations: a diffracted reading

Roberts and Marsh (under review) drew on US and UK evaluations (Coker et al., 2016; Fenton and Mott, 2018; Gainsbury et al., 2020; Johnston et al., 2018; Jouriles et al., 2018; Katz and Moore, 2013; Kettrey et al., 2019; McMahon et al., 2015; McMahon et al., 2018; Senn and Forrest, 2016) arguing being and becoming an active bystander is fraught with tensions, concluding definitive lines between acceptable or unacceptable behaviours cannot always be established. Most commonly they found this was entangled with binary logic. This opened up a Deleuze and Guattarian (1987) entry point within the confines of the current debate to (re)think and (re)imagine bystander evaluations with/in/alongside (Sellers, 2015) New Materialism and Posthuman philosophies (including Barad, 2007; 2003; Bennett, 2016; 2010; Braidotti, 2011; 2006; 2006a; 2002; St. Pierre, 2013, 2010; 2004; 1997). Through a diffracted reading (Barad, 2007) of the qualitative evaluation data (Roberts and Marsh, under review) we argue the binary boundaries of being and becoming a bystander are ephemeral, porous and fluid (van der Tuin and Dolphijn, 2010). Building on ‘the foundations of the old’ we offer up a provocation of problematising harm to (re)think social justice and (re)make bystander evaluations as a ‘spacetimemattering’ (Barad, 2007, p.234).