Book chapter
OA Policy
French

Cyborg

ContributorsGardey, Delphineorcid
Published inJuliette Rennes (Ed.), Encyclopédie critique du genre. Corps, sexualité, rapports sociaux, p. 192-203
PublisherParis : La Découverte
Publication date2016
Abstract

A hybrid being, a mixture of living being and artefact, the cyborg has long been the stuff of science fiction. The techno-scientific transformations of the last fifty years (robotics, artificial intelligence, computing, biotechnologies) have made the cyborg a possible figure of our contemporary world, both in fantasy and in reality. Initially associated with the highly technological and military worlds of men, and embodying the Promethean myths of a science capable of producing its own artificial chimeras, the cyborg was taken up in the mid-1980s by feminist theorist Donna Haraway to represent the potentiality of a subject escaping natural determinations and endowed with new capacities for individual and collective action. Suggesting the possibility of empowerment through mediation and technological transformation, the cyborg questions the forms of embodiment and sexuation of individuals. An ironic icon of a possible engineering of the self and the world, the cyborg stands at the convergence of structural capitalist transformations, notably between the information sciences and life technologies. As a realistic figure in our ways of being in the world, can the cyborg still be a feminist and humanist promise of emancipation?

Keywords
  • Cyborg
  • Post feminism
  • Donna Haraway
  • Corps
Citation (ISO format)
GARDEY, Delphine. Cyborg. In: Encyclopédie critique du genre. Corps, sexualité, rapports sociaux. Juliette Rennes (Ed.). Paris : La Découverte, 2016. p. 192–203.
Main files (1)
Book chapter (Published version)
accessLevelPublic
Identifiers
  • PID : unige:91205
ISBN978-2-7071-9048-2
506views
142downloads

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