The somatechnics of perception and the matter of the non/human: A critical response to the new materialism

Abstract

Drawing on Sara Ahmed, this article confronts the often repeated claim that feminists and/or social constructionists -even those whose work appears to focus on 'the body'routinely ignore the materiality of corporeal life. This charge is often accompanied by the claim that poststructuralist feminists have, for connected reasons, also ignored 'non-human animal' life. This article critically interrogates the ways in which the somatechnics of perception and particular universalizing epistemic sexing practices feed into and out of one another in much contemporary work on 'animal sex'. It also aims to build on Ahmed's critique of the founding gestures of the new materialism in and through a close engagement with the work of a small number of theorists who identify with the new materialism.

Complete Issue

“…in Kulick 1997) and of forgetting the somatechnics of perception (Sullivan 2012) raise yet another kind of challenge. It is appropriate to ask whether some of these studies, such as Sullivan's, that criticize feminist scholarship inspired by nonhuman animal studies draw their argument from the human-centred assumption that nonhuman animals do not have culture.…”

“…Feminists dubbed as new materialist, mainly those inspired by the natural sciences, have noted the proliferation of poststructuralist approaches within feminist studies and argued that feminists also need to account for the 'materialization of matter', including nonhuman animals (Barad 2003; see also Birke et al 2004;Alaimo & Hekman 2008;Alaimo 2010;Wilson 2010Wilson , 2015Grosz 2011;). In response, cultural studies scholars have expressed concern about the ways in which natural science-based arguments have begun proliferating and about their implications for maintaining the nature-culture binary , Sullivan 2012. Some poststructuralist scholars have argued that a focus on scientific analyses of nonhuman animals particularly are not necessary for a feminist analysis of sex:…”

“…(Sullivan 2012: 308) In this paper's affective beginnings, I was both inspired and provoked by the article by Sullivan cited above, especially her way of reading the work she dubs new materialist -which I found unfair, even if I agree with many of her points (for more, see Irni 2013a). This paper, while acknowledging Sullivan's apt and important arguments, takes her article, The somatechnics of perception and the matter of the non/human (Sullivan 2012), as an example of reading in the spirit of a hermeneutics of suspicion. discusses such reading habits more widely, related to the moods and modes of academic critique.…”

Fluid Reading Practice: On the Queer Potential of Studying Nonhuman Animals

“…Feminists dubbed as new materialist, mainly those inspired by the natural sciences, have noted the proliferation of poststructuralist approaches within feminist studies and argued that feminists also need to account for the 'materialization of matter', including nonhuman animals (Barad 2003; see also Birke et al 2004;Alaimo & Hekman 2008;Alaimo 2010;Wilson 2010Wilson , 2015Grosz 2011;Kirby 2011). In response, cultural studies scholars have expressed concern about the ways in which natural science-based arguments have begun proliferating and about their implications for maintaining the nature-culture binary (Ahmed 2008, Sullivan 2012. Some poststructuralist scholars have argued that a focus on scientific analyses of nonhuman animals particularly are not necessary for a feminist analysis of sex:…”

“…(Sullivan 2012: 308) In this paper's affective beginnings, I was both inspired and provoked by the article by Sullivan cited above, especially her way of reading the work she dubs new materialist -which I found unfair, even if I agree with many of her points (for more, see Irni 2013a). This paper, while acknowledging Sullivan's apt and important arguments, takes her article, The somatechnics of perception and the matter of the non/human (Sullivan 2012), as an example of reading in the spirit of a hermeneutics of suspicion. Felski (2015) discusses such reading habits more widely, related to the moods and modes of academic critique.…”