Abstract:

I wish to discuss the challenges and potential that not only a post-positivist but also a post-humanist understanding of the formation of subjectivity, of sex/gender and of gendered positioning encounters when considering the intra-action of attempted technological imitations of the human and of sex/gender in the enactment of that imitation. I bring Judith Butler’s poststructuralism and Karen Barad’s post-human agential realism into this discussion. Technological imitations of the gendered human may be found in the ongoing production of social robots and in the avatars of video games, but also in the fictional universes of for instance movies. The question is whether such technological imitations remain imitations; or we rather witness the enactment of new kinds of fellow beings and perhaps even new forms of relational desires? The question is furthermore whether such enactments reinforce gender stereotyped reiterations of gender; or rather work as destabilizing forces in relation to the gendered socio-material and subjective patterns we know them?

Contact: Professor Dorte Marie Søndergaard, Danish School of Education, DPU.

The Gendering in Research Network provides a platform for gender researchers and students at Aarhus University to discuss, collaborate, and exchange ideas. For further information about the Gendering in Research Network, please contact:

• Lea Skewes, IMC
• Theresa Ammann, IMC