The human, the non-human and the animal: Feminist theories and animal imagery in nanotechnology
Abstract
This presentation is part of the Metaphor and Vision track.\nNanotechnology is the manipulation of matter on the molecular and atomic scales. Some have projected that it will have broad economic and social benefits; including improved energy efficiency, computing power, medical treatments, and removal of environmental pollutants. ‘Nature’ has been identified as the ultimate nanotechnologist and design elements from animal bodies inspire new materials, including genetic manipulations to allow spider silk to be produced from goats’ milk, beetle cuticle wax that can provide clean water, and bandages inspired by the clinging properties of gecko toes. In Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Karen Barad worries that appeal to ‘natural’ design will elide ethical issues. She concludes that “[s]ome biotech companies have already enlisted biomimesis in their attempts to hoist themselves above the murky pool of ethical, legal, and social concerns, posing as benign inventors, if not downright all-natural Mother Nature-loving sustainability advocates” (365). Barad argues for the entanglement of knowing, being and values in what she terms her ethico-onto-epistem-ology of ‘agential realism’. Barad distinguishes her account from representationalism via the brittlestar—a creature whose skeletal system is also a visual system and which has inspired nanoengineered microlenses. Brittlestars “[…] challenge our Cartesian habits of mind,…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a theoretical / analytical, done in animal, not in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.
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