How do we imagine a world outside dominant ways of knowing and living? And if we do imagine differently, how might we achieve these imagined futures, in particular, ones that extend our notion of communities to include the plant, animal, mineral and other non-human persons with whom we share the planet?
"We must find another
relationship to nature besides reification, possession, appropriation
and nostalgia. No longer able to sustain the fictions of being either
subjects or objects, all the partners in the potent conversations that
constitute nature must find a new ground for making meanings
together." (Haraway,2004b, p. 126)
My response to the above questions, and to Haraway's injunction, is to research through a dialogic method(ology) and multi-media hypertextual representation. Since this method(ology) relies heavily on letting go of the thinking mind in order to access other ways of knowing, it is often more effective to demonstrate, than explain. Thus, instead of relying on extended explanations, I worked to interrupt the privileged place of thought to foreground opportunities for the reader to engage their own re-animated perception (Bai, 2009) – hopefully in ways that just might enable readers to experience meaning-making through an animist ontology.
let go
of a desire
for coherence
in the performance of
...self.
in the performance of
dissertation,
in the performance of
graduate student
of
human.
This dissertation is a dance across boundaries that have kept humans in superior and hierarchical relations vis-à-vis non-human Others. Demonstrating the development of the method(ology) that has facilitated this dance, has become
its primary focus.
Even
"the most subjective reading imaginable is never anything but a
game played according to certain rules…come from the age-old
logic of narrative, from a symbolic form which constitutes us even
before we are born." (Barthes, 1986, p. 31)
Some narratives, and forms, however, appear to be more acceptable than others.
A stack of books Sits.
on the corner of my desk,
waiting................................. is it my Turn....to speak?
.*
