Agential realism is a theory proposed by Karen Barad, in which the universe comprises phenomena which are "the ontological inseparability of intra-acting agencies".
This claim is based on the fact that Barad's agential realism is a way of understanding the politics, ethics, and agencies of any act of observation, and indeed any kind of knowledge practice.
According to Barad, the deeply connected way that everything is entangled with everything else means that any act of observation makes a "cut" between what is included and excluded from what is being considered.
Barad's notion of "phenomenon" has also been compared to analogous concepts in the work of Ian Hacking and Nancy Cartwright.
[4] Barad's work has generally been received more positively within feminist technoscience than within mainstream science, technology and society studies (STS).