Barad-inspired, via Thinking with Sound (CHI ‘24), used there alongside micro-phenomenological interviews.
What it is for
Not coding data into themes. Instead, theory and data are passed through one another — the theory works as a prism, and what is being observed is the pattern the data makes after it is bent.
The claim underneath it is that “extracting” themes pretends the analyst was not there. Diffraction makes the analyst’s frame part of the instrument, on purpose.
Why I recorded it
Because the paper it comes from is the most epistemologically consistent thing I have read: its theory of experience, its interview method and its analysis all assume the same thing about where meaning lives. That internal consistency is a standard to be held to, separately from whether I adopt this particular method.
Why I will probably not use it
Two reasons, and both are practical rather than principled.
It comes attached to Barad’s agential realism, which is a large ontological commitment to make in order to license one analytical move. And it is difficult to defend to a reader who has not accepted that commitment — whereas thematic analysis arrives pre-legitimised.
I expect to cite this at the epistemological level and still code with RTA. Which is a compromise worth naming rather than hiding: it means my method will be less consistent than the paper I admire it for.
Status
Not used. Kept as a standard, and as a live objection to my own default.