Do Signals Have Politics? Inscribing Abilities in Cochlear Implants

Mills, Mara

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195388947.013.0077

Cited by 119 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…No matter how one may judge such thoughts, it is certain that this is one of the many ways of conceptualizing the CI as a means of enhancement. The following paragraphs will dwell further on this dimension of the device while focusing on one of the Bdeaf futurists^ [59,336] and discussing a hacker logic as well as reflecting the so called transhuman abilities that could be potentially inscribed into the CI in the near future.…”

Section: Transhuman Configurations Of Hearingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…24 Such a constellation, which nowadays is already appropriated by market logic of wireless connectivity advanced by Med-El, Advanced Bionics, and others, demonstrates how CI users are presumed to be embedded in extended cybernetic circuits shaped by the technological condition [38,39]. Imagined as a futurist scenario only a decade ago [59,337], it is nowadays a seemingly Bconventional^position situated in an epoch of ubiquitous computing, wearables, and the like. This shift moves questions of disability and normalization further and further into the background [57,63].…”

Section: Transhuman Configurations Of Hearingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Human, Non-Human, and Beyond: Cochlear Implants in Socio-Technological Environments

2015

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The paper focuses on processes of normalization through which dis/ability is simultaneously produced in specific collectives, networks, and socio-technological systems that enable the construction of such demarcations. Our point of departure is the cochlear implant (CI), a neuroprosthetic device intended to replace and/or augment the function of the damaged inner ear. Unlike hearing aids, which amplify sounds, the CI does the work of damaged hair cells in the inner ear by providing sound signals to the brain. We examine the processes of the CI's genesis as well as its specific uses by and interrelations to the different and divergent actors that the CI assembles. We argue that the technological device and the implicated normalization process mobilize complex effects in varying socio-technical arrangements. The CI is conceived as a Bboundary object^[89] or a Bquasi-object^[49, 83], i.e., a metastabilized medium of translation that coordinates social, cultural, and technological (inter)action. Although intended to transform non-hearing or hard of hearing people into competent and Bnormal^hearing subjects, the CI system reproduces the asymmetrical structures of the disability discourse [14] through its function of Bdeveloping and maintaining coherence between intersecting social worlds^ [89, 393]. Additionally, it initiates controversial discourses that have resulted in new forms of biosocial collectivities ranging from cochlear implantees with (restored) normal human hearing to (trans)human configurations who have passed through (post)human enhancement. Our approach is thus situated at the intersection of disability and media studies and tackles the particular conditions technological media configurations impose upon the (re-)production of dis/ability.

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Section: Transhuman Configurations Of Hearingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Transhuman Configurations Of Hearingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human, Non-Human, and Beyond: Cochlear Implants in Socio-Technological Environments

2015

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“…Moreover, the reaction of the Deaf community has commanded the attention of historians and ethicists, who have tended to neglect the technical history of CI. 1 The invention of the CI went against the paradigm that an "opened" inner ear could no longer function. This paradigm was first weakened with the replacement of extracted stapes by an artificial prosthesis in 1956.…”

Section: See Invited Commentarymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Early History of the Cochlear Implant

Mudry

Mills²

2013

JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg

Self Cite

205

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“…Cultural productions can offer vocabularies, images, gestures, patterns, models, and designs to catalyze everyday practice (e.g., Rice et al, 2017;Schalk, 2018). As I explain below, Yi and other artists are using the technologies of art-making to theorize disability differently, positioning disabled people as producers of knowledge (Bailey & Peoples, 2017;Fritsch & Hamraie, 2019;Hendren, 2011;Miles, Nishida, & Forber-Pratt, 2017;Mills, 2011). More to the point, they are activating, interrogating, refusing, and repurposing medicalized aesthetics and technologies, finding within them inspiration and resources for their art practice.…”

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confidence: 99%

Crip Kin, Manifesting

Kafer¹

2019

Catalyst

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How might those who have experienced medicalized technologies as forms of neglect, intervention, and surveillance begin to cultivate alternative relations to technology? Drawing on the work of three artists-Lisa Bufano, Sunaura Taylor, and Chun-Shan (Sandie) Yi-I explore the possibility of framing technology as a site for crip kin-making. These artists are activating, interrogating, refusing, and repurposing medicalized aesthetics and technologies, finding within them inspiration and resources for their art practice. Rather than evaluating technologies on the basis of their ability to move bodies and minds into heightened productivity, efficiency, normalcy, and speed, they are creating objects and fostering relations that interrogate those very values. Building on scholars who recognize "kin" as encompassing more than the biological, reproductive, legal, and human, I discuss the possibilities of "crip kin," recognizing the queer possibilities of intimacy with other presences and entities.In Gloves for All, three rows of gloves hang across a gallery wall, and visitors are encouraged to try on the ones that most closely match their own hands.Although the gloves are all made of the same white fabric, they differ in size and shape. A few resemble socks, their curves unbroken by slots for fingers or thumbs. Consisting of eighteen pairs of zero-, two-, three-, four-, five-, and six-fingered gloves, the piece is part of the Project ImPerfect series by Kafer Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 5(1) 2

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Do Signals Have Politics? Inscribing Abilities in Cochlear Implants

Cited by 119 publications

References 7 publications

Human, Non-Human, and Beyond: Cochlear Implants in Socio-Technological Environments

Human, Non-Human, and Beyond: Cochlear Implants in Socio-Technological Environments

The Early History of the Cochlear Implant

Crip Kin, Manifesting

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