Cyborgs! Donna Haraway

Alright Donna Haraway, enough with the cyborgs!!  First off, what is a cyborg?  Throughout this piece, it seemed that she wrote about a cyborg having a million different meanings.  Dictionary.com says a cyborg is “a person whose physiological functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device.” hmmm.  The beginning of this piece starts out by defining blasphemy and cyborgs.  A little way down the page, Haraway then goes into something that seems pretty interesting.  She talks about the idea of modern medicine.  She says that “modern medicine is also full of couplings between organism and machine, each conceived as coded devices, in an intimacy and with power that was not generated in the history of sexuality.”  I may be throwing this around a little bit, but to me, it seems that she is saying modern medicine can only be created with machines and human help?  I might need some help on this one.  

Another interesting/confusing section I found was on 2271.  Here, Haraway talks about “the boundary between human and animal…”.  She says this gap has been “thoroughly breached.”  She then goes on to say that people no longer see a separation between the two categories.  (this made me think of that commercial that’s always on…the one with the guy who lives with the wolves now and claims that he is “one of them”…who knows, I always change channels when that comes on).  Well all in all, those were a few of the confusing parts for me.

As for a few parts that I think I may have understood a little more…

I liked the section “Fractured Identities” in 2275.  From this section I think I saw some of Rubin, Butler and maybe even Althusser.  Haraway says “There is nothing about being ‘female’ that naturally binds women.  There is not even such a state as ‘being’ female, itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices.”  From this, it seemed that although women have struggled to gain access to higher status and power (like that of men) they should be in the same category of men.  They have struggled for equality but it seems like she is saying they shouldn’t be struggling, they shouldn’t even be in their own category…they should all be in the same category.  I can see this relating to Butler because she talks about the “two biological sexes” and argues the feminist discussion of men and women in different groups.  As for Althusser, I think this may fit in as well because he talks about the wages of different class/status/and gender roles (I think I’m thinking of the right theorist).  This also comes up on 2276, “…a Chicana or U.S. black woman has not been able to speak as a women or as a black person or as a Chiano.  Thus, she was at the bottom of the cascade…”  as in class struggle maybe..?

“The Informatics of Domination”  was pretty interesting.  The list of objects that are “natural” and not-natural was pretty neat.  As I read through them, some were pretty funny…like star wars, hehe.  

As for all of this science and biology talk, I guess it makes me think of Deleuze and Guattari which really didn’t do much for me…

The last part that caught my eye was the Homework Economy.  Although I didn’t get a really strong handle on this, I think it seems pretty interesting and hopefully the class discussion will help me out!

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