Is this the kind of intervention that posthumanism writers refer to?  Disturbing the traditional boundaries, and getting people to think and rethink who humans really are, and perhaps their responsibilities in relation to the different connections they now become aware of?

If we were to relate this to the identity of an educator,  how different is this from the notion of being a reflective practitioner?  Is this calling for adaptability, flexibility and deconstructing the power relations of the educator and his students?  I believe that providing leadership and direction in learning is still the mainstay of the educator. His other identities should not erase the identity of the educator, it should enhance the person, and perhaps makes him more in tune and relevant? Perhaps.

The reconstruction of boundaries is prevalent when one is making sense of a more difficult subject.  Some of these areas are:

a) the comparison of the nonhuman with human subjects in Gough and other writers in the same continuum:

Essentially Gough’s rhizomANTic is example of anthropomorphism, where humans try to project their own perspective onto non-human things. We want to believe that there is something that connects us to each other, as part of a higher-order collective, and if ants can be seen this way, maybe human’s could, too.

As evidence of this claim of anthropomorphism, it is worth noting that most writers assume we can transfer observations from the ant world to the human world, without devoting any exploration to why such transferance doesn’t make sense. For example, ants do not have a written language. They transfer information through the exchange of chemical signals, and much behaviour is simply inherent in their genetics. An ant doesn’t have an education program to become an ant. An ant simply functions as an ant from birth.

In contrast, tragic examples from human history show that babies and children, must be extensively educated to gain language, and many critical life skills such as reading, writing and science. The wolf-boy of France who was found living in the wild did not have an innate ability to function in human society after growing up for so many years outside of it. Ants don’t face this learning investment, and so this is just one of many differences between the two types of societies which make comparisons and conclusions very limited.

In the last part of the essay, the author suddenly invokes the perspective of a student self-directed examination of the connections of things in ordinary life with distant sources and peoples as some how related to the concept of an ant colony. This is only possible if we believe that people function like ants, or that ant colonies represent some complex human interactions as an educational construct. Unfortunately, there is no investigation or explanation of such connections.

As a pedagogy, the self-directed exploration of connections is not stand-alone. It would never work unless students had already received extensive training in science, history, geography, biology and so-on previously – and we must agree that those skills would have been gained by traditional methods: demonstration of technique, discussion of theory, opportunity to practice and perfect new skills with coaching and assessment.

From a more charitable perspective, the suggested cyborg pedagogy is an example of putting in practice the integration of many skills and experiences. For example, the previous study of economics and supply chains (Angus et al, 2001) can be practically mixed with studies of ecology, sociology and environment. Ergo, following the commercial acquisition of coffee granules informs the study of the agricultural and social practices that provided it in context with the environmental impact and/or benefits. From this analysis, we can assert that cyborg pedagogy is more about finding connections between diverse studies, than it is about finding connections about the things themselves. Cyborg pedagogy does not operate on its own. At best, it is more like an imaginative creative writing course than a learning environment.

b) the decentring of the human or human factor seem to make sense at one level where the power of construction and reconstruction is given to the student rather than the teacher dictating the boundaries, however, is it suggesting that education that reflects this model should replace traditional methods?   Angus et al (2001) has demonstrated the process and the result of the experiment where the students make the connections between things, and see the relationships differently. Does the encouragement of this kind of exploration set students up for challenging the body of knowledge to the extent of revising history for example or question the existence of the self or the notion of right and wrong?  How does posthumanist view facts?

Reference:

Haraway, D. (2000). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century. in D Bell and A Kennedy, The Cybercultures Reader. Routledge.

Hayles, N.K. (1999). Toward embodied virtuality, chapter 1 of How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature and informatics. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. pp1-25

Edwards, R. (2010). The end of lifelong learning: A post-human condition? Studies in the Education of Adults, vol 42, no 1, 5-17.

Pedersen, H. (2010). Is the posthuman educable? On the convergence of educational philosophy, animal studies, and posthumanist theory. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, vol 31, no 2, 237-250.

Angus, T, Cook, I, Evans, J et al (2001) A Manifesto for Cyborg Pedagogy? International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, vol 10, no 2, pp.195-201.

Gough, N. (2004). RhizomANTically becoming-cyborg: performing posthuman pedagogies. Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol 36, no 3, 253-265

In Penderson, it is the reference of “instabilities of humanist traditions/ideals of education and “institutionalised production, mediation, and development of knowledge”. (Penderson, 2010; 241)

Instability conjures for me a sense that the foundations of the humanist traditions have some cracks and are slowly breaking up.  The position that Penderson takes is that it permeates in the production, mediation and development of knowledge.  Hence, a radically new way of looking at knowledge is called for.

The dualism that is under scrutiny is the one that frames most of humanist education- the divide between human and non-human.

Interpretation of posthumanism in education varies.  Some are more sympathetic to the humanist traditions, others see this as a paradigm shift.

The former  is reflected in Stables and Scott’s (2001) vision of posthumanist environmental education curricular which to Penderson is still rooted in the humanist regimes:
“…reworking of a humanist assumptions with greater valorisation of non-human….increasingly recognising non-human life as necessary and not just as desirable and self-renewing resource (pp277-278)

The latter proposes that human, nonhuman including machines should be placed on the same continuum rather than as separate poles, one which Penderson describes as anti-speciest approaches.   Drawing on Pickering (2005)  “…mutual becoming’ of the human and the nonhuman requires a shift in the unit of analysis…where he sees posthumanism as a tool to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries…a dialectic that produces a new kind of posthuman object, or assemblage, with a certain kind of inner unity.”

Citing Gough (2004), he  imagines teaching and learning as

“material-semiotic assemblages of sociotechnical relations embedded in and performed by shifting connections and interactions among a variety of organic, technical, ‘natural’ and textual materials.” (2004:2)
Interestingly, this has resonance with the dystopic views which also indicates that it is philosophy couched in the less positive view against commodifying (Capitalist agenda), or privileging the privileged, exclusionary politics.

So where does this leave the educator of the present and the future?  What can I draw from this as a curriculum designer, or a teacher for example? Do we need to untangle or choreograph the pedagogies from the different mix and mashed up influences and relationships with interspecies assemblages and dominant agendas?

Reference:

Pedersen, H. (2010). Is the posthuman educable? On the convergence of educational philosophy, animal studies, and posthumanist theory. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, vol 31, no 2, 237-250.

Haraway’s writing was a struggle, and I decided to set it aside and try to look at any descriptions or visuals to help unravel the posthuman concept and I found “A Sum of Parts: Posthuman Humans“  and the Posthuman Future which demystified some of the academic articles.  This is a part of the assembling process, which takes things which are related but in a different modality to help build a picture of a topic you are studying.  The ability to branch out in the comfort of one’s home, and with the aid of google search, is something which I would define part of the enabling provided by technology.

Reading secondary articles of Edwards and Angus et al provided some practical examples of how posthuman pedagogy is applied.  The first reading of the pedagogic applications were rather unsettling particularly the placing of humans and nonhuman on the same continuum.  The language of posthumanism permeates in the literature and I am trying to find a way to conceive in my mind how it would work in an education system or curriculum.

The week ended with investigations on the premise of Haraway’s writing, which surfaced more questions about the validity of the arguments presented. I am inclined to challenge the assumptions and perhaps attempt to redefine what an alternative Cyborg or Posthuman pedagogy could look like which will eventually be part of my final assignment question.

Reference:

Angus, T, Cook, I, Evans, J et al (2001) A Manifesto for Cyborg Pedagogy? International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, vol 10, no 2, pp.195-201.

Edwards, R. (2010). The end of lifelong learning: A post-human condition? Studies in the Education of Adults, vol 42, no 1, 5-17.

Haraway, D. (2000). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century. in D Bell and A Kennedy, The Cybercultures Reader. Routledge.

So here’s me trying to make sense of it all – I hope the application of these in Week 10 will help alleviate the difficulty reading through the materials.

Towards embodied virtuality, Hayles (1999)

If I look at the set of notes I took from pages 2-3 of Hayles, I begin to get an idea of posthuman as a machine, but has a consciousness without depending on the body, and if the limbs are there, it is to be manipulated by the informational pattern and consciousness. It has an identity, and its’ relationship with intelligent machines is seamless.

The description below seems to have appeared in Haraway (2007), Hayles (2005) and Pickering (2005)

“The Posthuman subject is an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction”(p3)

But this quote below suggests to me that a posthuman is closer to being a human yet with the possibilities of information technologies, and it has the concept of agency and choice.

…my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity….”(p5)

If it is not referring to human, why use the word post-human? Perhaps the confusion is the inclusion of the word human? Or are these just concepts trying to reconceive what being human really is? And the inclusion of Haraway’s writing is really about making sense of the world of human beings in the digital environment? As Amy has kindly explained, from the feminist tradition, it is a challenge to look at the world, not from a man’s or in Haraway’s writing a ‘white’ man’s viewpoint, with the Christian tradition of being cast out of the garden. In the feminist perspective, things are not in straight lines but it grows organically, not in some neat boxes. Things are messy, in Amy’s words.

Reference:

Haraway, D. (2000). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century. in D Bell and A Kennedy, The Cybercultures Reader. Routledge.

Hayles, N.K. (1999). Toward embodied virtuality, chapter 1 of How we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature and informatics. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. pp1-25

Pickering, A. (2005). Asian eels and global warming: a posthumanist perspective on society and the environment. Ethics and the Environment, 10(2), 29-43.

From ethnographies to philosophies of cyborgs and posthuman.

To put myself in the shoes of a feminist, humanist, posthumanist and activist, all at the same time is quite a big ask!

Thanks to Amy Woodgate, I think I have put on the right lenses, and I am coming close to some understanding and interpretation of Haraway.

I will be back to do follow on write ups, this is just to say, I am still around.

P.S Send me some supplies!

Reference:

Haraway, D. (2000). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late 20th Century. in D Bell and A Kennedy, The Cybercultures Reader. Routledge.