Dialogue with Magdalena Górska

This chapter analyzes dusty lungs syndrome and prosodies of phone-sex breathing in order to articulate how the quotidian material agency of bodies is not only a political issue but also enacts politics. By introducing the concept of matter-work as an articulation of the everyday work that bodies do in metabolizing natural-cultural worlds, the book develops a non-universalizing and politicized understanding of embodiment in which human bodies are conceptualized as agential actors of intersectional politics. In this conversation with Magdalena Gorska, the authors discuss the development of her PhD dissertation: Breathing matters: Feminist intersectional politics of vulnerability. Thus, while the notion of intra-action is one of the concepts that’s most often cited from Barad’s work, the author thinks the notion of difference – and differencing as a form of dynamism – is just as crucial for agential realism.