Author: Carter, Mason
ORCID iD: 0009-0004-6420-4114
Abstract
New materialist theory alters conventional understandings of agency, matter, and literary representation by affirming the active participation of material entities within networks of relation, thereby displacing anthropocentric frameworks that position matter as passive substrate subordinate to human intention. Drawing upon the theoretical interventions of Jane Bennett, Karen Barad, and related new materialist thinkers, alongside complementary insights from Peter Kropotkin and Murray Bookchin concerning mutual aid and organic complementarity, this essay examines the ways in which contemporary speculative and environmental fiction elaborates distributed agency across human and more-than-human assemblages. Through sustained analysis of works by Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia E. Butler, M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi, and solarpunk narratives, the essay demonstrates that literary representation becomes a site wherein matter acquires narrative vitality, agency appears as relational rather than exclusively human, and the boundaries between subject and object undergo continual renegotiation.
Keywords: new materialism, agency, matter, literary representation, Jane Bennett, Karen Barad, vibrant matter, intra-action, speculative fiction, distributed agency, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia E. Butler
(2) to analyse the textual mechanisms through which contemporary fiction elaborates the vitality of matter and the relational character of agency;
(3) to evaluate the implications of these theoretical and narrative experiments for conventional understandings of literary representation.
Table of Contents
New materialist theory alters conventional understandings of agency, matter, and literary representation through sustained affirmation of the active participation of material entities within networks of relation, thereby displacing frameworks that position matter as passive substrate subordinate to human intention and literary representation as the exclusive transcription of human consciousness. The significance of this alteration becomes particularly pellucid when examined through the theoretical interventions of Jane Bennett, Karen Barad, and related new materialist thinkers, alongside complementary insights drawn from Peter Kropotkin and Murray Bookchin concerning mutual aid, complementarity, and organic forms of organisation. Speculative and environmental fiction, in this respect, functions as a laboratory wherein the vitality of matter and the distributed character of agency receive extended narrative elaboration, revealing that literary representation itself participates in the ongoing reconfiguration of relations between human and more-than-human entities.
Theoretical Foundations: Agency, Matter, and the New Materialist Turn
Conventional understandings of agency have long positioned the capacity for intentional action as an exclusive attribute of human subjects, thereby relegating matter to the status of passive object or inert resource awaiting human utilisation. New materialist theory challenges this distribution by affirming that agency emerges through intra-action within assemblages that include human and more-than-human participants alike. Jane Bennett’s conception of vibrant matter posits that material entities possess a vitality that exceeds human design and intention, participating in events and effects that reshape the conditions of collective life (Bennett, 2010). Karen Barad’s notion of intra-action further elaborates agency as a relational achievement arising through the mutual constitution of entities within phenomena, rather than as a pre-existing property of bounded subjects (Barad, 2007). These theoretical interventions supply the conceptual ground upon which contemporary fiction elaborates distributed agency and the narrative vitality of matter.
Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid offers a complementary perspective, for cooperation appears as a fundamental evolutionary principle whose operation extends across animal societies and ecological systems, sustaining resilience through reciprocity rather than through the hierarchical subordination of matter to human ends (Kropotkin, 1902/2021). Bookchin’s social ecology likewise illuminates a logic of complementarity in which organic societies understand humanity and nature as participating within a shared nexus of relationships, and in which hierarchy itself constitutes a root of both social domination and ecological degradation (Bookchin, 2005). New materialist theory extends these insights by insisting upon the agentic capacities of matter itself, thereby opening literary representation to the elaboration of more-than-human vitality and the redistribution of narrative attention across assemblages that exceed the human subject.
Literary representation, under the influence of new materialist thought, undergoes a corresponding transformation. Conventional realist and humanist frameworks have tended to position the literary text as the expression of human consciousness, with material settings functioning as backdrop or symbolic resource for human drama. New materialist approaches affirm that matter participates in the generation of narrative effects, that non-human entities possess capacities to affect and be affected, and that literary form itself may enact distributed agency through the organisation of attention across multiple participants within an assemblage. Fiction becomes a site wherein the boundaries between subject and object, human and non-human, intention and material efficacy undergo continual renegotiation.
Vibrant Matter and Distributed Agency in Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin’s speculative imagination furnishes a sustained elaboration of distributed agency and the vitality of matter, constructing social and ecological formations in which land, scarcity, and material conditions participate actively in the shaping of ethical and political possibility (Le Guin, 1974/2014). In The Dispossessed, the arid ecology of Anarres functions as an active constraint and teacher, orienting Odonian social organisation toward mutual aid, the refusal of proprietary accumulation, and continual attentiveness to material limits. The planet itself participates in the formation of ethical subjectivity, rendering visible the extent to which human possibility remains embedded within material matrices that possess their own efficacy. Agency appears as distributed across human syndicates, voluntary associations, and the material conditions that sustain and limit collective life.
Jaeckle (2009) demonstrates that the novel embodies a complementary form of social organisation in which individual freedom and social responsibility remain unified by the practice of promising across temporal sequences. This complementarity extends toward material relations, for the practice of promising remains inseparable from attentiveness to the material conditions that make collective life practicable. Call (2007) contends that Le Guin’s work contributes to a postmodern anarchism capable of addressing the complexities of contemporary power; the novel’s elaboration of material agency further demonstrates that political possibility remains inseparable from the vitality of the more-than-human world. Davis and Stillman (2005) emphasise that the novel functions as a thought experiment testing the capacity of non-hierarchical organisation to sustain liberty, equality, and community under conditions of scarcity, thereby establishing the viability of social forms attentive to material constraint and efficacy.
The land and the sea could care for us.
Le Guin (1985)
This formulation, drawn from Always Coming Home, captures an ecological sensibility in which material entities function as active participants rather than as inert resources, signifying the subjective agency of living systems within the ethical horizon of the community (Le Guin, 1985). The narrative form of Always Coming Home itself enacts distributed agency, organising attention across stories, poems, recipes, and cultural descriptions rather than subordinating the whole to a singular human-centred perspective. Knowledge concerning seasonal cycles, cultivation techniques, and relations with living systems circulates horizontally, emphasising that expertise remains held collectively and oriented toward stewardship. Matter acquires narrative vitality through this formal distribution of attention, altering conventional understandings of literary representation as the exclusive transcription of human consciousness.
Material Agency under Conditions of Crisis in Octavia E. Butler
Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower elaborates the agency of matter under conditions of systemic ecological and social collapse, tracing the emergence of cooperative association whose capacity to endure derives from attentiveness to material limits and the cultivation of reciprocal relations within a damaged world (Butler, 1993). The novel’s near-future California appears as a landscape shaped by climate disruption, resource scarcity, and the consequences of extractive rationalities that have treated matter as an unlimited reservoir for human ambition. Lauren Olamina’s Earthseed community emerges through practices of mutual aid that recognise material interdependence as a condition of survival, orienting human action toward adaptation, diversity, and the careful stewardship of remaining living systems.
Butler’s narrative repeatedly substantiates the principle that agency emerges through intra-action within assemblages that include human and more-than-human participants. The travelling company and the eventual settlement at Acorn sustain themselves through shared labour oriented toward food production, water conservation, and the maintenance of fragile ecological supports. Material conditions participate actively in the determination of what remains possible, shaping the ethical and practical horizons of the community. Decision-making proceeds through consensus that includes consideration of material constraints, rendering the community a practical demonstration of Kropotkin’s contention that solidarity constitutes the foundation of resilience within shared environments (Kropotkin, 1902/2021). Whatcott (2021) observes that the text proposes survival and flourishing through networks of solidarity that exceed the austerity projects of neoliberal agendas; these networks extend toward material relations, affirming that collective responsibility includes attentiveness to the agency of the more-than-human world.
Earthseed’s assertion that God is change further challenges conventional understandings of agency by positioning transformation itself as a fundamental principle of material and social life. Human subjectivity becomes oriented toward continual adaptation within dynamic material systems, refusing the illusion of permanent human mastery over living processes. Individual initiative therefore includes the capacity to recognise interdependence with material systems, while collective responsibility includes the obligation to cultivate relations of care toward the more-than-human world. The persistence of mutual aid under conditions of extreme precarity accentuates this distributed agency, for assistance emerges from communal cohesion attentive to material limits rather than from extractive ambition that treats matter as unlimited resource.
- Recognition of material agency within conditions of ecological disruption
- Emergence of human initiative oriented toward adaptation and reciprocal care
- Formation of communities grounded in mutual aid and material attentiveness
- Development of ethical frameworks that recognise change and interdependence
- Continual negotiation of human and more-than-human relations through practices of stewardship
Material Assemblages in Everything for Everyone
M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi’s Everything for Everyone constructs a post-insurrectionary social world in which the agency of matter receives extended elaboration through the deliberate organisation of ecological restoration as a collective practice (O’Brien & Abdelhadi, 2022). Residential communes, free assemblies, and cooperative production councils organise care, conflict resolution, and cultural life while simultaneously orienting collective labour toward the repair of damaged ecosystems. Material entities participate actively in the reconstitution of collective life, corresponding to Bennett’s conception of vibrant matter and to Barad’s insistence upon intra-action within phenomena (Barad, 2007; Bennett, 2010).
The novel’s formal organisation as a series of oral-history interviews enacts a distributed narrative authority that parallels the distribution of agency across human and material participants. Interviewees discuss the practical organisation of urban agriculture, the restoration of damaged landscapes, and the cultivation of reciprocal relations with living systems, rendering visible the extent to which post-capitalist social forms remain inseparable from attentiveness to material efficacy. Dey (2022) observes that the novel draws upon traditions of communisation while remaining attentive to the specificities of gender, sexuality, race, and colonial history; these attentions extend toward the material histories of extraction and degradation that have shaped contemporary ecological conditions, grounding the elaboration of material agency in the particular struggles of those whose experiences inform the ethical priorities of the communes.
Agency within this social world appears as distributed across human assemblies, material infrastructures, ecological processes, and the ongoing labour of repair. Individual initiative includes the capacity to participate in material restoration, while collective responsibility includes the obligation to sustain the conditions under which diverse forms of life may flourish. The residual desire for extractive control remains a persistent possibility that the assemblies actively address, rendering the negotiation of human and material agency a continual rather than concluded achievement. Literary representation itself participates in this negotiation through the polyvocal form that distributes narrative attention across multiple sites of material and social practice.
Solarpunk and the Narrative Vitality of Matter
Solarpunk fiction extends the elaboration of material agency through sustained attention to ecological repair, renewable energy, and participatory systems that prioritise collective and more-than-human flourishing (Gillam, 2023). These narratives frequently construct social formations in which technology remains oriented toward sufficiency and reciprocity rather than toward the domination of living systems, corresponding to Bookchin’s social ecology while integrating a more explicit affirmation of material vitality. Becky Chambers’s A Psalm for the Wild-Built offers a particularly pellucid example of a world in which human communities live in attentive relation with autonomous robots and the natural world, emphasising care, sufficiency, and voluntary association across the boundaries of the human and the material (Chambers, 2021).
Gillam (2023) identifies anarchism, ecology, and justice as guiding principles that orient the solarpunk project, whereby the rejection of hierarchy coincides with the cultivation of reciprocal relations between human and more-than-human worlds. Weik von Mossner (2024) further examines the mobilisation of hope within solarpunk narratives as a collective practice oriented toward emancipation from both capitalist extraction and hierarchical command. Matter acquires narrative vitality within these works through the depiction of renewable systems, ecological repair, and the agentic capacities of non-human entities. Personal freedom includes the capacity to recognise interdependence with material systems, while collective responsibility includes the obligation to sustain ecological conditions that support diverse forms of flourishing. Cadwell Turnbull’s No Gods, No Monsters signals continuing intertextual engagement with these traditions through its worker-owned bookstore named Anarres, situating contemporary elaborations of material agency within the longer lineage of anarchist and environmental speculative fiction (Turnbull, 2021).
Literary Representation and the Redistribution of Narrative Attention
New materialist theory alters conventional understandings of literary representation by affirming that matter participates in the generation of narrative effects and that literary form may itself enact distributed agency. Conventional humanist frameworks have tended to position the literary text as the expression of human consciousness, with material settings functioning as backdrop or symbolic resource. New materialist approaches open representation to the elaboration of more-than-human vitality, requiring formal strategies that distribute narrative attention across multiple participants within an assemblage. Le Guin’s ethnographic collage, Butler’s journal form attentive to environmental change, and O’Brien and Abdelhadi’s polyvocal oral history each enact this redistribution, organising attention in ways that parallel the horizontal material relations they depict.
Form becomes a site of prefigurative practice, inviting the reader to experience, through the organisation of the text, a mode of attention that operates through multiple perspectives and material sites rather than through subordination to a singular human-centred voice. The reader’s own interpretive labour thereby participates in the reconfiguration of agency, extending attentiveness to material vitality beyond the fictional world into the act of reading itself. Literary representation, under the influence of new materialist thought, becomes a practice of intra-action through which human and more-than-human entities mutually constitute the conditions of narrative meaning.
Residual Anthropocentrism and the Continual Labour of Material Attention
Across these works, contemporary fiction consistently demonstrates that the alteration of conventional understandings of agency and matter remains a site of ongoing negotiation rather than achieved transcendence. Residual instrumental rationalities, the persistent temptation to treat material entities as passive resources, and the difficulties of sustaining attentiveness across the boundaries of the human continually test the distributed agency that the texts affirm. Le Guin’s insistence upon the agency of land and sea, Butler’s attention to material limits under conditions of collapse, and the frank recording of restoration labour within O’Brien and Abdelhadi’s oral histories all render visible the continual labour required for the maintenance of material attentiveness (Davis & Stillman, 2005; Jaeckle, 2009).
These tensions induce theoretical and narrative profundity rather than imaginative weakness, whereby legitimacy is generated through practices of stewardship and the incorporation of material agency into the ethical and formal horizon of the text. Bookchin’s conception of organic society as a unity of diversity finds repeated textual manifestation in the capacity of these fictional communities to recognise differences across the boundaries of the human without permitting those differences to crystallise into hierarchies of value (Bookchin, 2005). The novels thereby model a vigilance consistent with new materialist ethics: anthropocentric frameworks remain inventive, and the communities and forms that affirm material agency must remain equally inventive in their practices of reciprocity and collective attentiveness.
Conclusion
New materialist theory alters conventional understandings of agency, matter, and literary representation through sustained affirmation of the active participation of material entities within networks of relation. Le Guin’s Anarres and Kesh communities demonstrate the embedding of human social organisation within material matrices that possess their own efficacy; Butler’s Earthseed community reveals the emergence of cooperative association oriented toward adaptation and stewardship under conditions of material constraint; O’Brien and Abdelhadi’s New York Commune constructs a post-insurrectionary vision in which ecological restoration appears as integral to collective practice; solarpunk narratives explore participatory arrangements that prioritise material vitality and interspecies flourishing. Across these experiments, agency appears as distributed across human and more-than-human assemblages, matter acquires narrative vitality, and literary representation becomes a site of intra-action through which the boundaries between subject and object undergo continual renegotiation. By fulfilling the stated objectives of examination, analysis, and evaluation, these theoretical and narrative experiments expand the repertoire of representational possibility, affirming that agency, matter, and literary form remain mutually constitutive within assemblages that exceed the human subject.
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