10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17296
application/pdf
2038-3460
17296
1
en
Giulia Selmi
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Margaret Grebowicz and Helen Merrick, Beyond the Cyborg. Adventures with Donna Haraway, Columbia University Press, 2013
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
7
Book Reviews
2016-07-08
2023-06-20
2016-07-08
2023-08-07
162-164
TS
Giulia Selmi
2016/07/08
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17296
162
Università di Verona
2038-3460
1
en
164
Margaret Grebowicz and Helen Merrick, Beyond the Cyborg. Adventures with Donna Haraway, Columbia University Press, 2013
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17296/16162
7
162                                                            Tecnoscienza - 7 (1)

   Margaret Grebowicz and Helen Merrick
Beyond the Cyborg. Adventures with Donna Haraway, New York,
Columbia University Press, 2013, pp. 206

Giulia Selmi Università di Verona
    As stated in the title, main goal of this book is to critically engage with
the thought of Donna Haraway going beyond the well-known metaphor
of cyborg. It’s an ambitious challenge indeed because, since the publica-
tion of the Manifesto for Cyborg in the early nineties, Haraway’s name has
been intertwined with this symbolic figure that constitutes an essential
reference both for feminist and science and technology scholars. I still
remember when I read it in my twenties as a young feminist and philoso-
phy student: back then I’m sure I failed to grasp the complexity of Hara-
way’s thought, but that metaphor stuck with me ever since giving me a
powerful tool to understand many of the cultural, social and political
changes that society was going through. Therefore, when I started reading
Grebowicz and Merrick’s book, I wondered why someone would want to
go beyond cyborg? The answers the authors provide in this text are really
worthy to be read.
    Before moving to the book analysis, I should focus on the adverb be-
yond. As well explained by the authors, going beyond cyborg doesn’t
mean to leave it behind by seeking for something new in Haraway’s theo-
ries, but rather to go in depth in the cyborg metaphor “to argue for and
hopefully effect a desedimentation of this figure, putting it to work in
ways that are more central to current feminist (and not only) concerns”
(p.7). According to the authors, putting cyborg to work has a twofold
meaning: it means trying to critically engage with Haraway’s thinking
looking to what in her theories and powerful metaphors is still at stake in
the challenges of contemporary society; and to explore how and to what
extent her contribution has been overlooked in the mainstream (but also
feminist) genealogy of critical thinking of the last thirty years questioning
the very process of knowledge production.
    The book develops around five (always plural) concepts: natures,
knowledges, politics, ethics and stories. The chapter on Natures examines
Haraway’s attempts to queer nature (or to explode the dualism nature-
culture and the predominance of the human) and, more interestingly to
me, in the to read these attempts against Judith Butler queer theory. Har-
away’s reflections on animals, sexual agency and human-animal kinship
are put in dialogue with Butler’s theories on sexuality, gender and queer
kinship providing a deep insight in the theoretical and political conse-
quences of the reframing of kinship relationships.
    The chapter on Knowledges focus on a critical examination of stand-
point theory and situated knowledges unfolding the usual ways Hara-
way’s work on these issues has been interpreted. Using the metaphor of
Book Reviews                                                              163
the “colonial organism” – one of the member of the companion species –
and creating a fictional dialogue between Haraway and Lyotard the au-
thors re-examine Haraway’s epistemology and her intellectual journey to
find “nonstable grounds of knowledge production” (Haraway 2004, 337).
The “democratic faith” that underlies the traditional feminist vision of
situated knowledge is here troubled in favor of an epistemology of dissent.
    The chapter on Politics examines her contribution to contemporary
political theory by proposing to read Haraway’s thinking on animals and
non-humans as a cyborg politics that challenges the traditional (and liber-
al) notion of democracy. By putting Haraway into dialogue with well-
know contemporary political thinkers like Toni Negri, Chantal Mouffe
and Bruno Latour – to name some – the authors propose to rethink the
cyborg as a tool to reframe the relationships among the technologically
mediated humans and the Political. Together with Latour, Haraway
wonders how to build a politic of alterity that seriously takes into consid-
eration the encounter with non-human others. In so doing, and again to-
gether with Latour, she neglects the idea of consensus as the compulsory
ground to build political relations and she moves the reflection forward:
how to build a political ground of dissensus that accounts for a common
space human and non human actors share? Exceeding the boundaries of
science feminist theory, through this chapter Grebowicz and Merrick re-
locate Haraway at the heart of contemporary political theory and shows
how her reflections are still worthy to be explored to understand the
characteristics (and failures) of contemporary democracies.
    The fifth chapter on Ethics explores how and to what extent her work
on the animal trouble both the traditional categories of ethics and those
developed within some feminist and post human works. Putting once
again Haraway’s thinking into dialogue mainly with Derrida, Butler and
Levinas the authors explore the encounter with the other and the mecha-
nisms of recognition (in Butler’s terms) are explored. The final chapter on
Stories examines the science fictional elements of Haraway’s work. While
for many readers – including me – Haraway’s engagement with science
fiction is one of the most interesting (yet challenging) feature of her style,
Grebowicz and Merrick taught me that this is not the case for many read-
ers, especially feminists. The authors then propose a reading of SF in
Haraway’s texts both a source of inspiration and metaphors and as a
methodological approach to theory and writing.
    As a gift for the reader, the book ends with the text Sowing Worlds. A
Seed Bag for Terraforming with Earth Others written on purpose for this
book by Donna Haraway. I won’t sum up nor discuss what Haraway
proposes in this text – for the fear of failing my interpretation and to give
you the pleasure to read it without any heads up. The metaphorical seeds
she plants throughout the text, however, are the proof (if any was need-
ed) that Haraway is still an inspirational thinker and that many ideas,
challenges and revolutions are waiting for us beyond the cyborg.
164                                                           Tecnoscienza - 7 (1)

References
Haraway, D. (2004) The Haraway Reader, New York, Routledge.




                                     ***


    Malcolm Nicolson and John E.E. Fleming
Imaging and Imagining the Fetus: The Development of Obstetric
Ultrasound, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 2013, pp. 336

Serena Naim Queen Mary, University of London

    Until fifty years ago, pregnancy could only be studied through its ef-
fects on the pregnant woman's body. Hidden from the medical gaze, the
fetus was a part of a process, more than a specific subject with its own
identity and rights. In the last fifty years, however, the fetus has acquired
a social status of its own. In their book Imaging and Imagining the Fetus,
Nicolson and Fleming investigate this changing perception of pregnancy
by analysing the development and diffusion of the ultrasound scanner, as
“both a major agent for and a potent symbol of the medicalization of
childbirth” (3), retracing in a very detailed manner the complex interac-
tions of social, medical, and technological conditions that led to the estab-
lishment of this new technology as a widely accepted medical instrument.
    The book benefits from a multidisciplinary approach, thanks to the
different backgrounds and perspectives of the two authors. Working side
by side, Malcolm Nicolson, Director of the Centre for the History of
Medicine at the University of Glasgow, and John E. E. Fleming, retired
engineer who was part of a team working on the ultrasound scanner's
prototypes, wrote a book that is both historically and technically accurate,
making it a compelling account of how technological innovation is a
winding and messy path, more than a straight line from one point to an-
other. By investigating the original documentation as well as by re-
enacting some of the experiments, Nicolson and Fleming manage to high-
light the complex and sometimes fortuitous sequences of connections and
coincidences that led to the diffusion and stabilization of the new tech-
nology.
    Between the 1950s and the 1970s, experiments on the medical appli-
cations of ultrasound were ongoing, more or less independently, in differ-
ent parts of the world. Nicolson and Fleming’s work focuses on the Brit-
ish context and, more specifically, on the role of Ian Donald, Regius Pro-
fessor of Midwifery at the University of Glasgow, and key figure in the
development of the ultrasound scanner in the UK. The book is a rich ac-
