I printed Haraway off to read later but couldn’t resist a quick peek. Got hooked though and had to blog.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I really loved Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto. Why haven’t I read it before? Actually, I know why – I thought it was about cyborgs; but, as Haraway explains, her “cyborg myth is about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions and dangerous possibilities” (37). That sounds much more exciting. So, thanks Sian and Jen for the steer.
The Cyborg Manifesto evokes memories of obvious earlier political manifestos (Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto an obvious reference point as too is Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto). However, for me it has other echoes too – for example of Hélène Cixous’ The Laugh of the Medusa in its mix of lyricism, fantasy, polemic and provocation. Oh, and its unashamedly utopian stance (it’s a text about liberation).
Strangely, Haraway acknowledges the influence of the ‘New French Feminisms’ – “French feminists … know how to write the body; how to weave eroticism, cosmology, and politics from imagery if embodiment, and especially for Wittig, from imagery of fragmentation and reconstitution of bodies” (52) – but doesn’t name Cixous.
It’s really hard to summarise such a dense and complex text. I hesitate to decribe it as a ‘feminist’ manifesto as it’s more an ‘oppositional consciousness’ manifesto, an argument for the development of permanently shifting affinities no longer based on the perception of shared class, race or gender ‘identities’ . Haraway rejects wholeness, essentialism, stability of identity – her cyborgs are “wary of holism, but needy for connection” (36). What we might think of as being the foundation stones of our identity – as woman or working-class - are historical impositions:
Gender, race or class consciousness is an acheivement forced on us by the terrible historical experience of the contradictory social realities of patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism. (38)
Liberation can’t be acheived unless we move beyond such fixed notions of identity. Haraway argues that “[t]here are grounds for hope in the emerging bases for new kinds of unity across race, gender and class” (51).
Although Sian claims it’s a good text to help one think beyond binaries, it’s the boundary metaphor that struck more most. Haraway is arguing for permanent boundary transgressions. For example, she breaks from the Cartesian separation of man from the animal world (Descartes, like the Bible, argued man had dominion over animals) and articulates sympathy for the animal rights movement (”not irrational denials of human uniqueness … a clear-sighted recognition of connection across the discredited breach of nature and culture” (36)).
I found myself drawn to the section on the ‘homework economy’ outside the ‘home’ (46-9) and its claims of a New Industrial Revolution creating a “new worldwide working class”:
Work is being redefined as both literally female and feminized, whether performed by men or women. To be feminized means to be made extremely vulnerable; able to be disassembled, reassembled, exploited as a reserve labour force; seen less as workeds than as servers; subjected to time arrangements on and off the paid job that make a mockery of a limited working day; leading an existence that always borders on being obscene, out of place and reducible to sex. (46)
Although The Cyborg Manifesto is a Reagan-Thatcher era text – I enjoyed the reference to the “so unnatural Greenham women” (37) – it feels very relevant to today (rising unemployment, growth of super rich, casualised labour, G8 protests, Climate Camp etc.). The emphasis on new forms of political action based on affinity had a resonance for me too – just think of the different kinds of people who protested against GM foods a few years back.
Gotta go. Great stuff though; need to read it again as I skimmed bits (e.g. skirmish with Katherine MacKinnon).
Tony: Hi, I’m Silvana’s friend Judy–I’m finding my way around your course materials. I enjoyed your musings on Haraway. They resonated with my thoughts about her. An 80’s manifesto, but strange to read now and think that she was pre–www. Good wishes. Judy
Hi Judy, thanks for the comments – hope you’re enjoying your travels around this VLE-free module. Yes, pre-WWW – I hadn’t actually made that connection at all. My memory must be going – I find it hard to remember a time before iPods! It makes Haraway’s talk of affinity groups and networks all the more prescient. Best, Tony
Great blog posting Tony and a lucid and really helpful commentary on Haraway – particularly the connections with contemporary political preoccupations. You make me want to go back to the ‘new French feminisms’ and think again about the way Cixous, Irigaray et al wrote the body – it always seemed to me quite determinist and in that sense almost counter to Haraway’s boundary transgressing stance!
@Sian
Thanks Sian – it’s nice to be back in the fray after a 10-day absence. Need to dredge my memory bank but lots of differences between them and, from what I remember of The Laugh of the Medusa, Cixous is critical of the way in which biology is used to define, police and silence (there’s an odd line about “our beautiful mouths gagged with pollen”).
Tony, I find your take on Haraway refreshing. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I really loved Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto.” Wow.
For me, it was one of the heaviest texts I’ve read in a while. But Judy Davidson commented on her post that it’s not so much the text itself, its more what you do with it. So between you, you’ve helped me see more of the political irony behind Haraway’s metaphor of the cyborg.
With regards the evolution of a new working class – a homebased workforce – am I becoming feminized. Due to a change of job, I am now home based. The time previously spent commuting has more or less been replaced by domestic chores, since I’m not the partner going out to work. My work peers – if I can call them that – now see me purley in terms of what materials I produce. This fits in with Haraway -
“Work is being redefined as both literally female and feminized, whether performed by men or women. To be feminized means to be made extremely vulnerable; able to be disassembled, reassembled, exploited as a reserve labour force; seen less as workeds than as servers; subjected to time arrangements on and off the paid job that make a mockery of a limited working day; leading an existence that always borders on being obscene, out of place and reducible to sex. (46)”
In my opinion, if more people are to take advantage of technological communication to work from home, I think this is more likely to erode the traditional, domestic divisions of labour. Either we all become more feminized, or gender roles become less significant.
Cheers
I wish I had read this earlier, no wait I wish you had written it earlier, lol. Fantastic interpretation, in my reading I found the whole thing a bit too metaphorical to be useful – but maybe the distance was responsible for that attitude, 1985 is so long ago in terms of digital culture. I appreciated the ideas and ideals but felt almost sad, like we had already missed our chance at this particular utopia.
[...] position on the posthuman (I am drawn to Muri). However, Shields turns me on to Haraway and, having read Haraway I’m totally blown away. I still feel unsure where this block is taking me conceptually. Where does Haraway fit for [...]