The Ubiquitous Female Voice
By: Dr. Jarryd Willis Phd
Tags: Social Psychology, Gynoid, Gender Socialization, STEM, Ai For Good

Ai of Rainbows

Michelle Bastian — Haraway’s Lost Cyborg and the Possibilities of Transversalism (2006)

Donna Haraway’s entire body of work is permeated by her interest in finding ways of allowing heterogeneous actors to work productively together. This interest weaves its way through the cyborg, the Modest_Witness, and now the companion species. Within all these figures lies the desire to develop “vulnerable, on‐the‐ground work that cobbles together non‐harmonious agencies and ways of living that are accountable both to their disparate inherited histories and to their barely possible but absolutely necessary joint futures” (Haraway 2003, 7).

Strangely enough, while Haraway’s comments on technology have been widely explored,

this important work on coalition building has been largely overlooked.

…it is equally important to understand the pain and fear that inevitably coincide with the attempt to critically evaluate one’s own subject position. Discussions of the difficulties of actually reworking our conceptions of subjectivity are limited in Haraway’s own work, so as a response to this problem I seek to bring Haraway’s theories into conversation with the theoretical aspects of transversal politics as they are expressed by Cynthia Cockburn and Nira Yuval-Davis. This theory of building coalitions for peace outlines some of the practical issues involved in learning how to perform the identity work necessary for interacting openly with others. Transversalism is a particularly apt conversation partner for Haraway…

Further, since both Haraway’s work and transversal politics start from the premise that conflict is impossible to eliminate, the community implied by the conjunction between them challenges common conceptions of community as the place of harmony and communion. Instead, social structures and subjectivities are developed that allow us to view disagreement as a productive opportunity rather than as something we need to abolish. In order to gain a clearer idea of how disagreement might be viewed in a more positive light, I turn to the work of Linnell Secomb and Jean-Luc Nancy, who, while coming from quite a different theoretical background to both Haraway and transversalism, nevertheless have important insights to offer to the conversation.

I conclude by emphasizing that, while adequate theories and techniques are needed for the possibility of more productive communication, what is also important is

a personal desire for change that is able to withstand the difficulties of being constantly challenged without growing defensive or self-protective.

Haraway’s most famous work is, of course, her essay titled “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1991b, 149–81). At the time of its development, Haraway was concerned that feminism was simply rejecting science as masculinist and therefore forfeiting the opportunity to define the features of the new integrated circuit of twentieth-century technoscience. In addition, mainstream feminism was criticized by women of color, who argued that the all-encompassing category of “woman” elided the lived realities of many women. Haraway’s notion of the cyborg was therefore conceived as a way of recognizing both of these critiques of hegemonic feminism…

(Page 1042): Transversal politics recognizes that the need to work together should not be confused with mutual affection, or even liking. Indeed, Cockburn describes friendship “as the last resort of an alliance” (1998, 228). Although she does not deny that friendship can make the process more enjoyable, an important aspect of transversal politics is the ability to interact without assuming the similarity that friendship entails. Thus, transversal politics does not rely on common identities in order to act.

Transversal politics does not claim to be able to solve all our problems. As Yuval-Davis reminds us, “Transversal politics are not always possible, as conflicting interests of people who are situated in specific positionings are not always reconcilable” (1994, 193).

An understanding of political action is produced that does not rest in a space of unproblematic knowledge of others or self-confident actions but, rather, constitutes what Diane Elam describes as a “realm of continual negotiation . . . in the absence of any accounting procedure” (1994, 81).

Transversal politics shows that acknowledging that we must act without certain frameworks does not imply that one must be either paralyzed or unprincipled and opportunistic.

(Page 1043): all participants in political work need to be listened to, negotiated with, and not silenced by the invocation of objective principles. Through the work of Haraway and transversalism, politics becomes understood as a process, as an unending work. Putting transversalism into practice will not result in a final unproblematic reconciliation between the parties involved. Nor can it save us from all difficulties in some vague future. It is rather “the difficult reality of unavoidable, unending, careful and respectful struggle” (Cockburn 1998, 216).

(Page 1044): “disagreement, difference, and passion mark the living community,” not the failed one (Secomb 2000, 148).

For Secomb, community is best understood “as productive disagreement” (2000, 134). She argues that disagreement “holds a space open for diversity and for freedom. It is not disagreement, resistance, and agitation that destroy community. It is rather the repression or suppression of difference and disagreement in the name of unity and consensus which destroys the engagement and interrelation of community” (2000, 134). Secomb therefore resists the notion that the proper task of politics is to create a unified community. Instead, she insists that understanding a society as fractured is beneficial not only in that it would recognize structurally the importance of difference but also in that it would “also overcome stagnation and complacency, and generate transition and transformation” (2000, 137).

(Page 1045): As Nancy says, this type of community “is not a work to be done or produced. But it is a task, which is different — an infinite task at the heart of finitude” (1991, 35). Here Nancy is referring to Maurice Blanchot’s notion of unworking. For Blanchot, part of the possibility of creating a work is the impossibility of completing the transferral of inspiration to a finished form. He writes that this incompletion prevents one from being able to view one’s work and say “at last it is finished, at last there is nothing” (1981, 30)

the condition of possibility for community is that its tendencies toward unity are always apart from it, never materialized but constantly retreating in front of our efforts to live peacefully together. If it were to become fixed in place, we would no longer have community but rather the end, the finish.

Instead of connection being seen as an end point, connection must be rethought as process.

Ahmed suggests precisely this when she argues that “collectivities are formed through the very work that has to be done in order to get closer to other others” (2000, 17).

Nancy’s argument, which Secomb also refers to, suggests a similar notion: “It is not a matter of making, producing, or instituting a community. . . . It is a matter of incompleting its sharing. . . . For a complete sharing implies the disappearance of what is shared” (Nancy 1991, 35).

However, Secomb argues that Nancy fails to present a picture of how this incompletion might be enacted or sustained. In addition, she argues, this vision of sharing must be balanced with an emphasis on “the defiance and non-conformity of being-together” (Secomb 2000, 143). The figuration of the fractured community is therefore produced in order to provide a form that emphasizes both.

(page 1046): An Ally Community is one that exists in a “yet hopeful fashion as that which it is not, at least not yet.”

“In order to commit to actively and self-critically developing the tools that allow one to be less threatened by others, the longing for change must permeate one’s lived everyday habits. Only then might we become the honest, compassionate subjects that this suspiciously generous politics calls for. As bell hooks writes, “To have a non-dominating context, one has to have a lived practice of interaction. And this practice has to be conscious. . . . In reality this non-exploitative way to be with one another has to be practiced; resistance to the possibility of domination has to be learned” (1994, 241).

Practicing to be a cyborg means taking action for collective social change, based on both our own goals and the goals of others. In particular, one’s sphere of responsibility or accountability must be extended to see not only how we are oppressed but also the way in which our actions maintain other people’s subjection. Becoming cyborgian therefore entails taking on the terrifying task of working toward justice, not a calculable justice that would hope one day to be complete but a Levinasian justice that is never ending, such as Diane Elam describes: “Justice does not involve paying one’s debts. Believing that one’s debts can be paid is a fundamentally irresponsible belief; the desire to wash one’s hands of responsibility to others. Rather, justice involves recognition of the debts that cannot be paid, the debts that set a limit to one’s autonomy. To recognize such debts as unpayable is not to write them off, either — it is rather to commit oneself to an endless work of reparation without the final solace of redemption” (1994, 111).” “{The difficulties of embracing heterogeneous subjectivity as a consciously enacted strategy}”

(Page 1047): Thus, the playfulness of Haraway’s work can now be rewoven into the theoretical pattern created by this article as the brightly colored thread that draws and entices other players to the game:

a game of cat’s cradle that, as Haraway writes, “invites a sense of collective work, of one person not being able to make all the patterns alone” (1994, 70)

Thus, through the cyborg, Haraway proposes a subject who does not participate in creating opposing others — named enemies — or in fixing others in stereotyped categories. This form of subjectivity points to a vastly different way of conceiving coalition work, one that requires “the recognition that one cannot know the other or the self, but must ask in respect for all of time who and what are emerging in relationship” (Haraway 2003, 50).