13300 words
17/07/23 22:20 [ROT]
When I look back along myself, I find undocumented commitments a prior me made that I am proud to have stuck to and allowed to change me. Looking back, I'm pleased to discover a blend of theory and praxis where the ideas I encounter and find to be beautiful or drastic and important have slowly turned into actions that guide my body, my work, my routines, toward new directions. I’m pleased because I think it’s what we should expect of philosophers- that they mean what they say and let their doing follow from what they believe. The chapter title, ‘Re-orientations,’ is inspired by Sara Ahmed’s book “Queer Phenomenology,” where being “oriented” means to face a direction or object which is familiar or normative. Becoming ‘re-orientated’ involves a queer-ing, or a disruption to the normative, which results in un-usual objects, desires and directions providing the familiarity we need to feel we are facing the right way. I want this chapter to document these re-orientations; the ‘ways in which..’ I used to orient myself have been replaced by other ‘ways’ of approaching some aspects of the world. I’ll try to auto-ethnographically explain how the shifts in orientation came about by reconstituting myself at various moments. As I go along I will do my best to position what I'm saying amongst other authors with related ideas. Many of the reflections keep spilling out and became hard to bring into the confines of this thesis, they will be continued on the online version of this thesis: https://bit.ly/ListeningDairyCows
Grant me one last meander.
Contents
<aside> 🌒 Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned the earth much?
Have you practiced so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass
</aside>
26/06/23 [TOR]
My supervisor reminds me that I should do a better job of tracing the theoretical interactions that have left deep unwavering impressions on me. I thank him for handing me back to myself and reminding me that I started in places that I ought to return and give thanks to.
My relationship with one philosopher has nourished my work immensely, but a strong association forces me to answer for the problems that their work faces. I open my PDF of “Companion Species Manifesto” by Donna Haraway and find a document with occasional highlights from the top to its bottom. I can’t remember being here but clearly I have. The concepts and words that Haraway piles into unique configurations is often mysterious at first sight, but rich enough that the bits that do sink in will make a difference. Looking back over this text it seems like all I’ve done is let her convictions be carried by me, and after having my own experiences, reconstituted how Haraway might explain them, but in my own way. In particular, I’ve been inspired by her methods for writing and her ontology for life. I’ll describe how I have Haraway’s ontology has grown in my work, and then try to respond to criticisms on their ethical stance by replying from my (our) perspective.
Before that I’ll compare/contrast my concepts to other people’s work and from their frictions I’ll lay out pertinent contemporary questions that I’ll try to reply to. Regarding ontology, witnessing Haraway refer to humans as “humus” or “composters” in Staying with the Trouble put me onto thinking about mixtures and smudging boundaries across many scales. Her deployment of the ‘holobiont’ concept, which instructed me in the development of thread ontology, encapsulates her vision for natureculture- a merging of the reality of life and the practice of biology with a social constructivist attitude towards any epistemological framework: