Anne Balsamo (1996) Reading cyborg women

Introduction and chapter 1

Notes:
The history of the body is a history of body building, of different modes of construction of the human body o The body is neither to be uncovered by a positivistic description, nor to be freed from a descriptive oppression to reveal some sort of innate quality. The body is instead a reality constantly produced, an effect of techniques promoting specific gestures, and postures, sensations and feelings. (Feher, Of bodies and technologies 159) 3 The natural body dramatically refashioned through the application of new technologies of corporeality 5 o Collapse of a perceived distance between present and a sci-fi future, where bionic bodies are commonplace o Cyborg a subject of postmodernity o Merge of two incompatible categories: organic/natural and technological/cultural Body reconceptualised: not a fixed part of nature a boundary concept Technological bodies are more real than real o Denizen of the high modernity encouraged to monitor intake of substances, bodies are broken into functional parts self-conscious self-surveillance The gendered body o Where is the location of gender in the fragmented body? o Female body primarily reproductive Male full-bodied, female reproductive capabilities o Gendered boundary between male and female heavily guarded Remains a naturalized marker of human identity o Contemporary discourses of technology rely heavily on a logic of binary distinction between gender-identity as an underlying organizational framework 9-10 o Ideology-in-progress: new technologies are invested with cultural significance in ways that augment dominant cultural narratives 10 A cyborg o A man machine hybrid o Two understandings A coupling between an organism and an mechanical or electronic apparatus Identity of organisms embedded in cybernetic information systems Boundary between technology and the body socially set inscribed and arbitrary, but functional o Cyborg bodies are definitively transgressive of a dominant culture order not because of their cultural constructed nature, but because of their indeterminacy and hybrid design 11

Foucaults understanding of technology: the process of connection between discursive practices, institutional relations and material effects that, working together, produce a meaning of a truth effect for the human body 21 o Articulates power relations, systems of communication and productive activities and practices Informatics of domination 39 o Communication technologies and biotechnologies are crucial tools re-crafting our bodies o Bodies must be interpreted in their materiality, must not be reduced to discursive representations