Donna Haraway query

Diane Monaco dmonaco at pop3.utoledo.edu
Tue Oct 8 13:34:33 PDT 2002


I've been (re)reading Donna Haraway -- the earlier essays and some of the later -- for a class I'm teaching this semester. And I've come to the realization with this second reading (first time in the 1980s): 1) just what a profound thinker she was (and is), and 2) that I'm definitely a hybrid network of meat and metal -- a cyborg!

Anyway, Haraway tells us that boundaries between organisms/machines, nature/culture, individuals/worlds have been transgressed -- and the dominant thinking/writings in science, technology, and other disciplines is socially constructed. I can understand how feminists have latched onto the Haraway thesis that what is "natural" -- in the "modernist" sense (Descartes and followers) -- has actually been "constructed" through many sources and for many purposes...and...can therefore be deconstructed and reconstructed for other purposes. Haraway's thesis is NOT one of isolation/separation/alienation but rather one of connections/networks and the reconstruction uses these influences instead of rejecting them and wanting to go back to a pre-network era.

My question is this: Certainly the evolution of economic systems has involved all kinds of transgressions of the Haraway sort, is there a deconstruction and reconstruction story here to tell as well within the established connection/networks? Any suggested readings on the Haraway thesis and economic systems?

Ms. Cyborg



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list