Event Title
The human, the non-human and the animal: Feminist theories and animal imagery in nanotechnology
Start Date
25-6-2010 10:45 AM
End Date
25-6-2010 11:45 AM
Description
This presentation is part of the Metaphor and Vision track.
Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter on the molecular and atomic scales. Some have projected that it will have broad economic and social benefits; including improved energy efficiency, computing power, medical treatments, and removal of environmental pollutants. ‘Nature’ has been identified as the ultimate nanotechnologist and design elements from animal bodies inspire new materials, including genetic manipulations to allow spider silk to be produced from goats’ milk, beetle cuticle wax that can provide clean water, and bandages inspired by the clinging properties of gecko toes. In Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Karen Barad worries that appeal to ‘natural’ design will elide ethical issues. She concludes that “[s]ome biotech companies have already enlisted biomimesis in their attempts to hoist themselves above the murky pool of ethical, legal, and social concerns, posing as benign inventors, if not downright all-natural Mother Nature-loving sustainability advocates” (365). Barad argues for the entanglement of knowing, being and values in what she terms her ethico-onto-epistem-ology of ‘agential realism’. Barad distinguishes her account from representationalism via the brittlestar—a creature whose skeletal system is also a visual system and which has inspired nanoengineered microlenses. Brittlestars “[…] challenge our Cartesian habits of mind, breaking down the usual visual metaphors for knowing along with its optics of mediated sight” (379).
It is the positioning and use of animal bodies—both by nanotechnologists eager to find the next “smart” material and by feminist science studies scholars like Barad who problematize the technoscientific project to create ‘natural’ forms—with which I am concerned. Nanotechnology engages with animal issues in several ways—bio-nanotechnological manipulations create what some consider monstrosities, yet other developments may eliminate animal testing. For my purposes, I wish to explore the implications of the fragmentation of animal bodies to produce both visions of nanotechnology. In part this springs from my personal background as an animal behavioral ecologist. I can point to the development of water solutions using studies of beetle cuticle wax or other examples as justification for the practical implications of what many consider an impractical area of study. Though I am drawn to the potential to encourage further study of animals, I am concerned about the particular kinds of animal models that will arise. Will they be reductive and focused on fragments of the animal body? Will they actually further understanding of animals?
Of key concern to me will be the contestations of the term anthropomorphism and its relationship to the complexities inherent in using animal bodies and minds as model systems to understand humans or to create materials for human use. I will draw upon self-identified feminist biologist Marlene Zuk’s Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can’t Learn About Sex From Animals for a review of some of the complexities of the selection of model systems, particularly pertaining to gender and feminism. Though Zuk’s argument relies upon the representationalist assumptions rejected by Barad, I believe that Barad’s agential realism can provide a system for the developing the kind of knowing about animals that Zuk desires. I argue that Barad’s account of performativity, along with those proposed for feminist studies of animals in works such as Donna Haraway’s Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness and developed by Lynda Birke, Mette Bryld, and Nina Lykke in “Animal Performances: An Exploration of Intersections between Feminist Science Studies and Studies of Human/Animal Relationships” provide a diffractive lens within which to reclaim Zuk’s reverence for the non human from the representationalist trap. I will use this reworking of Zuk’s argument to problematize usage of ‘the animal’ as a mediator between the human and the non-animal. I argue that biological theories/models of animal behavior, physiology, and evolution ground scientists’ attempts to understand/explore the nanoscale. Thus, I attempt to expand feminist theoretical engagement with the non-human with an analysis of a boundary within that field–the animal/non-animal. To examine this I will consider the employment by science fiction writers of animal-based imagery to visualize the nanoscale in works such as Michael Crichton’s Prey where scientists use animal behavior ‘rules’ from to program a swarm of nanobots and Neal Stepenson’s The Diamond Age where nanobots follow evolutionary ‘rules’ to change in ways unpredicted by their designers. I will contrast these rather straightforward importations of scientific theories with Rebecca Ore’s more ethically complex Gaia’s Toys, which places the technoscientific project and its outcomes, including resultant theories, within socio-historical structures. In contrast to the nano-paranoia of Crichton’s Prey and the nano-wonderment that grounds Stephenson’s The Diamond Age—which leads both these works to compartmentalize science, nature and culture—Ore interrogates the relationships between technoscience and power and she uses her animal imagery to deconstruct this relationship. Ore demonstrates the limits of individual actions, writing from the perspective of economically disadvantaged groups and her characters are quite cognizant of how technology maintains and supports power in society—as well as how it can be co-opted for political purpose. Thus, her work provides a means to answer Barad’s call to “[…] meet the universe halfway, to take responsibility for the role that we play in the world’s differential becoming” (396).
The human, the non-human and the animal: Feminist theories and animal imagery in nanotechnology
This presentation is part of the Metaphor and Vision track.
Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter on the molecular and atomic scales. Some have projected that it will have broad economic and social benefits; including improved energy efficiency, computing power, medical treatments, and removal of environmental pollutants. ‘Nature’ has been identified as the ultimate nanotechnologist and design elements from animal bodies inspire new materials, including genetic manipulations to allow spider silk to be produced from goats’ milk, beetle cuticle wax that can provide clean water, and bandages inspired by the clinging properties of gecko toes. In Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Karen Barad worries that appeal to ‘natural’ design will elide ethical issues. She concludes that “[s]ome biotech companies have already enlisted biomimesis in their attempts to hoist themselves above the murky pool of ethical, legal, and social concerns, posing as benign inventors, if not downright all-natural Mother Nature-loving sustainability advocates” (365). Barad argues for the entanglement of knowing, being and values in what she terms her ethico-onto-epistem-ology of ‘agential realism’. Barad distinguishes her account from representationalism via the brittlestar—a creature whose skeletal system is also a visual system and which has inspired nanoengineered microlenses. Brittlestars “[…] challenge our Cartesian habits of mind, breaking down the usual visual metaphors for knowing along with its optics of mediated sight” (379).
It is the positioning and use of animal bodies—both by nanotechnologists eager to find the next “smart” material and by feminist science studies scholars like Barad who problematize the technoscientific project to create ‘natural’ forms—with which I am concerned. Nanotechnology engages with animal issues in several ways—bio-nanotechnological manipulations create what some consider monstrosities, yet other developments may eliminate animal testing. For my purposes, I wish to explore the implications of the fragmentation of animal bodies to produce both visions of nanotechnology. In part this springs from my personal background as an animal behavioral ecologist. I can point to the development of water solutions using studies of beetle cuticle wax or other examples as justification for the practical implications of what many consider an impractical area of study. Though I am drawn to the potential to encourage further study of animals, I am concerned about the particular kinds of animal models that will arise. Will they be reductive and focused on fragments of the animal body? Will they actually further understanding of animals?
Of key concern to me will be the contestations of the term anthropomorphism and its relationship to the complexities inherent in using animal bodies and minds as model systems to understand humans or to create materials for human use. I will draw upon self-identified feminist biologist Marlene Zuk’s Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can’t Learn About Sex From Animals for a review of some of the complexities of the selection of model systems, particularly pertaining to gender and feminism. Though Zuk’s argument relies upon the representationalist assumptions rejected by Barad, I believe that Barad’s agential realism can provide a system for the developing the kind of knowing about animals that Zuk desires. I argue that Barad’s account of performativity, along with those proposed for feminist studies of animals in works such as Donna Haraway’s Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness and developed by Lynda Birke, Mette Bryld, and Nina Lykke in “Animal Performances: An Exploration of Intersections between Feminist Science Studies and Studies of Human/Animal Relationships” provide a diffractive lens within which to reclaim Zuk’s reverence for the non human from the representationalist trap. I will use this reworking of Zuk’s argument to problematize usage of ‘the animal’ as a mediator between the human and the non-animal. I argue that biological theories/models of animal behavior, physiology, and evolution ground scientists’ attempts to understand/explore the nanoscale. Thus, I attempt to expand feminist theoretical engagement with the non-human with an analysis of a boundary within that field–the animal/non-animal. To examine this I will consider the employment by science fiction writers of animal-based imagery to visualize the nanoscale in works such as Michael Crichton’s Prey where scientists use animal behavior ‘rules’ from to program a swarm of nanobots and Neal Stepenson’s The Diamond Age where nanobots follow evolutionary ‘rules’ to change in ways unpredicted by their designers. I will contrast these rather straightforward importations of scientific theories with Rebecca Ore’s more ethically complex Gaia’s Toys, which places the technoscientific project and its outcomes, including resultant theories, within socio-historical structures. In contrast to the nano-paranoia of Crichton’s Prey and the nano-wonderment that grounds Stephenson’s The Diamond Age—which leads both these works to compartmentalize science, nature and culture—Ore interrogates the relationships between technoscience and power and she uses her animal imagery to deconstruct this relationship. Ore demonstrates the limits of individual actions, writing from the perspective of economically disadvantaged groups and her characters are quite cognizant of how technology maintains and supports power in society—as well as how it can be co-opted for political purpose. Thus, her work provides a means to answer Barad’s call to “[…] meet the universe halfway, to take responsibility for the role that we play in the world’s differential becoming” (396).