Doing interpretation differently with posthumanism and new materialism: Reconceptualizing what data does in postqualitative research

This chapter focuses on doing interpretation differently in postqualitative research using posthumanism and new materialism, indicated by strikethrough: interpretation. Using three examples of data – an interview transcript extract, a photograph, and a government report excerpt – with seven analytical techniques we illustrate how meaning materializes through theoretical encounters with empirical materials. The seven techniques problematize humanist practices of interpretation-as-usual, illuminating how meaning-making, as a materially entangled theory-practice, is emergent, situated, and contextual, leading us to propose posthumanist new materialist interpretation as a mode of producing knowledge differently. This chapter demonstrates that data are lively; that human-nonhuman materials entangle theory-practice in novel ways; and that, in keeping data on the move, posthuman and new materialist methodological practices generate new possibilities regarding interpretation.