The 300 Colson Collective Manifesto

This is a posting of the 300 Colson Collective, joining the tradition of feminist collective groups like the Combahee River Collective. Feminism has a history, in collectives, of trying to address issues of sexuality, race, class and gender, and due to the theme of post-modernity, we hope to provide multiple intersections to the readings. In a sense the hybridity of our voice makes it impossible for the reader to ever have the illusion that there is one authentic identity or voice that is speaking to them.

Technology is a force that renders all humans as impaired by being only human. While this impairment is in no way equal, it adds a layer to the already problematic idea that “everyone is disabled.” This can be seen from things as disparate as the bare foot vs. Converse vs. the Air Jordan and/or the hearing aid vs. normate vs. the Stealth Secret Sound Amplifier.

This still creates a hierarchy which is problematic, but it indicates the ways in which BioPower has always been suplemented with technology. The ever receeding horizon of a technological utopia places our contemporary conception of normate and impaired as so close together as to be impossible to differentiate between. In looking at these lists we see minor examples of what Haraway speaks of concerning the cyborg.

“The cyborg, a half-human, half-machine creation that embodies and materializes the breaking of traditional patriarchal distinctions between human and machine, physical and non-physical. The cyborg is simultaneously a living being and a narrative construction. As both a technological object and a discursive formation, it embodies the power of the imagination as well as the materiality of technology.” (Corker and Shakespeare 12)

 

We can see a technological evolution from the self-propelled wheelchair to the electric wheelchair, but there is still a lack of ramps and curb cuts. And how much work is being done to make power wheelchairs’ battery life last longer? How much effort is being put into making them into all-terrain vehicles? Self-propelled wheelchairs may invoke a greater sense of able-bodiedness than do electric wheelchairs, but only because the elusive normate is still the standard of comparison. The more technology there is, the greater the allowance for impairment, and the more we move toward the cyborg ideal.

However,Technology has moved the normate beyond reachable goals with mere human capabilities. For example, in flight, in nano-surgery, in the da Vinci Surgical System, and in infared vision (in fact, the military is one of the prime places to see movement in technology).

 

We have the technology to meet the needs of our society, and yet we don’t utilize it because of our illusory normate ideals which hinder our application of technology to respond adequately to the needs of the disability community. For example, progress is being made toward designing soft cities and soft cars, since there is no reason to build cars to go as fast as they do while being as hard as they are. There are ways to create cars that are mostly foam and plastic, but our auto designs continue to represent the idealized normate within our capitalist consumer culture.  Mitchell Joachim is working to create this foam and plastic architecture as well as drastically altering the way we view city scapes.

South African Runner Oscar Pistorius aka “Blade Runner” raises the question, as we move from “human” to “cyborg,” do we in some way move outside of humanity? Are we forced to reconceptualize humanity, and at what point do we have to ask ourselves, “do androids dream of electric sheep?” It’s possible that the ways in which me might reconceptualize “human” would be more inclusive.

One of the problematics with cybernetics is its emphasis on a normate mind, and those with cognitive disabilities and cognitive impairments have been largely underrepresented in our class so far.

We are looking forward to expanding this idea in the “future bodies” section in our next post!

Love,

Colson 300

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