This paper provides an elaboration and comparison of two main streams of
"sociomateriality" research within Information Systems (IS) discipline.
Through the rapid and controversial emergence of discussions around
sociomateriality, IS research has become entangled with the radical
ideas derived from quantum mechanics. The philosophical elaboration of
the implications of quantum mechanics, as formulated by
physicist/philosopher Karen Barad, has provided a source of inspiration
and a basis on theorizing for many IS scholars. Agential realism (AR)
questions the Cartesian assumption of inherent and fixed demarcation
between matter and meaning, and reworks many taken-for-granted
assumptions underpinning much of IS research. In contrast, some IS
scholars have sought to preserve the more conservative and established
assumptions, and (re)turned to critical realism (CR) in order to fit
sociomateriality to IS theorizing without radically reworking the
Cartesian assumption. Thence, while both make references to
'sociomateriality', their conceptions build on largely different
foundations, and use very different vocabulary to describe the
phenomenon of interest that easily leads to confusion and to
philosophically incongruent theorizing. By elaborating and juxtaposing
the two perspectives of sociomateriality and related concepts
(ontology/epistemology, matter, agency, time and space), this paper
extends and contributes to the prior discussions (1) by providing
generic research frameworks; (2) by outlining and explaining the related
lexicons; (3) and by foregrounding challenges and opportunities to
conduct sociomateriality research.