The book focuses on companion species; Haraway defines these as not simply cats, dogs and gold fish, but also lab rats, feral cats, and farmed chickens. In fact, she says that she views companion species not as a definitive term but as “a pointer to an ‘ongoing with,’ to be a much richer web to inhabit than any of the posthumanisms on display after (or in reference to) the ever-deferred demise of man” (16-17).
Her primary project in this text is to explore the ways in which humans and companion species intertwine to shape each other. Each chapter is not only an exploration of these endless points of contact but Haraway also considers the impact of contemporary technology. She describes how mice used in breast cancer research will one day be connected to the women whose lives are saved by the relationship between the technology, the mice and the woman; how both dogs and laptops belong in the human lap; and even how feral cats captured, neutered, barcoded, and released to be barn cats reflect our present complicated place in the history of these points of human-animal, animal, and technological entanglements.
She says that true respect of our nonhuman counterparts is only fully possible when we look back at our history of how we are intermeshed with them and how they are entangled with us: “We are in a knot of species coshaping one another in layers of reciprocating complexity all the way down. Response and respect are possible only in those knots, with actual animals and people looking back at each other, sticky with all their muddled histories” (42).
As the wild animals that Bartram encounters do not normally live in a companion relationship with humans, the main concern of Haraway’s book not seem directly relevant to my project. Actually, on second thought, Bartram is a scientist and he does look at the animals. I cannot recall if he stops to reflect on the animals looking at him and respond to them. Could it be that Bartram gives the animals he sees human eyes because it his time only humans had the power to look at, examine? Is he empowering them with the ability to look back when he gives them human faces?
Though, I do think that Jay Jay could use Haraways’ theories from this book in her project. If I remember correctly, horses are the main mode of transportation in Madame Knight’s Journal. I remember being struck by the mechanical and abusive manner in which the horses are treated—like they are merely tools. I wonder what the failure to recognize her entanglement with the horse means?
As I type, my cat Gary is rubbing his chin on my laptop and my face. He is marking it and me with his scent glands which makes us familiar and comfortable smelling to him. He is licking my fingers as I type and also licking the keyboard because of its close proximity (it might also taste like the ham sandwich I ate while doing my homework the other day). When I bring my computer to class, I inevitability carry Gary’s black hairs in between the keys of my keyboard. Well, the typing noise as annoyed Gary as usual and he has left my lap.
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| An interspecies-technological knot: After leaving my lap and stepping on the laptop in his usual fashion Gary the house cat settles down in his favorite nap spot, the compartment over our cable box where the wood is warmed by the energy traveling into the device. Gary also carries a small microchip under his skin, which can be scanned to identify him if he is ever lost. I adopted Gary when I lived in Japan and he traveled half a world in a small dark box in the cargo area of an airplane to live with me now. Now, thanks to this blog, my digital camera, and love for photography, Gary and his cable box exist on the internet as another connection and assemblage of human, cat, and technology. His company makes my work peaceful; he wakes me up at the same time every morning before my alarm; and he greets me at the door when I come home by rolling on the floor. I hope that in turn I amuse him, comfort him, and clam him. His purring, playful, romps and curious gentle pawing at my face when I do not want to get up in the morning and realize that cats don’t have snooze buttons, assure me that we are each other’s companions. But what about the other animals . . . the ones who enter our homes on our plates, as “pests,” and as our clothes? Who will reflect upon and respect them? |
Haraway says that we need to not only appreciate the complexity of these relationships but we need to go further. I think she is asking us not just to appreciate but to understand and meditate upon these “sticky” encounters; to not just look at but to learn to look back at animals. I am sure better ways to interact with animals and technology (Haraway discusses animal experiments, dog breeding, and chicken farming among other topics) will be imagined if more people learn to see these relationships and respect animals as more than something Other but as inevitably intermeshed in our being.
~Blake and Gary the cat
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