This study presents a critical analysis of ethics in child and youth care (CYC) and a posthumanist-inspired approach to sustainable ethics in line with CYC’s commitment to do ethics. The study constructs the problem of the all-too-humanist-ethical-CYC-body and engages in a rhizodiffractive ethical-political experiment to (re)think/(re)view/(re)write how we come to practice ethics in CYC. Inspired by a posthumanist ontoepistemology, I employ Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of nomadism and becoming as tools to interfere with the current ethical framework in North American CYC. In global, neoliberal times, CYC needs an ethics that focuses, not just on dominant discourses that guide ethical conduct and decision making, but on ethical-bodies-becoming through the unique entanglements of every ethical encounter. What this body of work exposed for the ethical-CYC-practitioner is that taking a stand – one that challenges dominant one-way ethical models for practice – is a necessary precondition for living in global neoliberal times. / Graduate

In this dissertation I claim that Michel Foucault is a pro-enlightenment philosopher. I argue that his critical history of thought cultivates a state of being autonomous in thought and action which is indicative of a kantian notion of maturity. In addition, I contend that, because he follows a nietzschean path to enlightenment, Foucault’s elaboration of freedom proceeds from his critique of who we are, which includes a rejection of humanism’s experiential limits. At the same time, and perhaps most importantly, I also suggest that Foucault articulates a posthumanist conception of finitude and being. To begin with, I show that on humanism’s path to edghtenment, which is established by Rousseau, Kant and Hegel and currently advocated by Rawls and Taylor, a philosophy of the autonomous subject who desires self-actualisation through recogrution precedes the epistemologcal and political critiques which generate humanism’s objective, normative and subjective axes of experience. On the basis of Foucault’s archzological, genealogical and, when they operate together, critical historical critiques of these conditions of possibility for autonomy and recogrution, I maintain that humanism fails to teach us how to think or act freelythat is, as critical thought that delivers enhghtenment-and that humanism’s knowledge of the world and its justice in politics necessitate the confined exclusion of those who are different and the submission of subjectivity of those who are normal. In response to the immaturity that is at the heart of humanism, I illustrate that Foucault deploys archeology, genealogy and critical history to excavate his posthumanist, enlightenment alternatives of savoir, pouvoir and ethico-morality. After he relocates an explanation of cause and effect in the human sciences from savioir to the relations between savoir and pouvoir, I explicate how Foucault reconceives, firstly, the way pouvoir is exercised by productive mechanisms, which discipline the body and regulate the citizen, and, secondly, the nature of pouvoir, which he characterises as governmentality, or one’s action upon the actions of others. He then retlunks freedom as the vis-a-vis of pouvoir/savoir, and I demonstrate how critical history reveals that, prior to the hermeneutic relation to self wluch is at the centre of humanism’s conception of moral identity, ethical subjectivity in antiquity is formed through an ascetic, agonistic freedom that is based on a practical relation to self. Foucault uses this as a blueprint for the present, in which an ethico-political state of being autonomous in thought and action is constituted over against our limits of pouvoir/savoir. I thus claim that Foucault’s portrayal as an anti-enlightenment philosopher, who proffers nothing but anormative critique and amoral freedom, represents the perspective of those for whom to be anti-humanism is akin to being antienlightenment. These criticisms are exposed as misguided by the thesis that I verify in this dissertation, which is that critical history qua critique, thence an ontology, namely, Foucault’s critical ontology, brings about maturity and endorses an ehghtenment that is both contra- and post-humanism.

This thesis examines the existence of posthumanism in the dramas of Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare – the three most prominent playwrights of the early modern period. Posthumanist theory, which gives scholars the opportunity to look at past works in a new and unique way, attempts to re-locate the human in the diverse creatures and objects in the world we inhabit. By applying posthumanist theory to older works, we can better understand the early modern period and its writers as well as their relevance to the present. Their plays’ messages serve as warnings that work to guide humanity in the right direction if we are willing to listen. Current events show us the dangers of continuing down the path of our present course. In short, by looking to the past I hope to chart the course of posthumanist interpretation on literature and our own species in the future.

The developing knowledge of life sciences is at the crux of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake as she examines human promise gone awry in a near-future dystopia. This thesis examines aspects of posthumanism, ecocriticism, and feminism in the novel's scientific, cultural, and environmental projections. Through the trope of extinction, Atwood's text foregrounds the effects of human exceptionalism and instrumentalism in relation to the natural world, and engenders an analysis of human identity through its biological and cultural aspects. Extinction thus serves as a metaphor for both human development and human excesses, redefining the idea of human within the context of vulnerable species. Oryx and Crake reveals humanity's organic connections with non-human others through interspecies gene-splicing and the ensuing hybridity. In this perspective, Atwood's text provides a dialogue on humankind's alienation from the natural world and synchronic connections to the animal other, and poses timely questions for twenty-first century consumerism, globalism, and humanist approaches to nature. The loss of balance provoked by the apocalyptic situation in Oryx and Crake challenges commonplace attitudes toward beneficial progress. This imbalance signals the need for a new narrative: A consilient reimagining of humanity's role on earth as an integrated organism rather than an intellectual singularity.

The thesis is based on the ethnographic fieldwork done during February 2015 in a place where aspects of transitory life are configured in an effort to (re)humanize those migrants that have been exposed to harm and (dis)possession, and thus entangled within an undesirable physical reality. Empirical attention is dedicated to the ways and means in which a particular migrant shelter located in the border region of Mexico-US operates and fulfills its purpose. The theoretical framework relates to being of transit as the composition of the migrants’ emergent state of uncertainty and instability within their continuous transitory experience. This is juxtaposed with Karen Barad’s (2007) posthumanist performativity analysis of how discourse and the material markers that make up transitory Mexico-US are a composition of assembled actions of (dis)possession processes of social, political, and historical power relations constantly becoming in practice. Additionally, the focus expands on how more-than-human elements and material possessions are intra-acting with the migrants that became part of the study. Therefore, through the politics of mobility and violence, the thesis explores how the people, places and things that assemble transitory Mexico-US evidence such undesirable physical reality. That is to say, a ceaseless diffracting ebb and flow of co-constituted intra- acting humans and non-humans in constant momentum and positionality conceptualizing the phenomenon of being a migrant, thing, or place of transit.

Vi vill med det här kandidatarbetet inleda en konversation med havet. Tillsammans med Karen Barads posthumanistiska performativitet, agentiell realism, vill vi utmana och ifrågasätta den antropocentriska designerrollen där materialiteten ses som passiv och designern som ensam härskare över meningsskapandet i designprocessen. Med Barads onto-epistemologiska utgångspunkt undersöker vi hur design-processen uppstår i arrangemang av både mänskliga och icke-mänskliga aktörer, där mening framförhandlas genom relationer inom fenomen. Genom att tillämpa detta posthumanistiska förhållningssätt i lekfulla experiment tillsammans-med-havet kan vi se hur mening är situerad och skapas inom de materiell-diskursiva fenomen och apparater som utgör designprocessen.  Vi förstår designprocessen som ett ingripande i världens tillblivelse. Ett ingripande där ett kollektiv av aktörer står som medskapare, där mening, kroppar, subjekt och objekt uppförs och samformas genom intra-aktion. Detta förhållningssätt föder en medvetenhet om vårt ansvar i att ingripa i världens tillblivelse och vårt ansvar för de kroppar som skapas, en etik i handling. / In this Bachelor thesis we aim to establish a conversation with the sea. With Karen Barads posthumanist performativity, agential realism, as our companion we aim to challenge the anthropocentric role of the designer. In doing this we question the view of materiality as passive and the designer as the sole creator of meaning in the design process.  With Barads onto-epistemological standpoint we explore how the process of design is enacted in a performance of human and non-human actors, where meaning is negotiated through relations within phenomena. By putting this posthumanist notion into practice through playful experiments together-with-the-sea, we can understand how meaning is situated and shaped within the material-discursive phenomenas and apparatuses that is, and is part of, the design process.  We understand the design process as an intervening in the world’s becoming. An intervening where an assemblage of actors stands as co-creators and where meaning, bodies, subject and object is enacted and co-shaped through intra-action. This perspective gives us an awareness of our responsibility to intervene in the world’s becoming and our accountability for the bodies produced, an ethics in action.

This thesis aims to re-analyze the early twentieth century modern architecture, with in the frame work of posthumanism. Referring to the materialist and socioconstructive architecture of Hannes Meyer, the study proposes a shift from humanist ways of production and reception to posthumanism, where the centrality of human in the productive processes of both art and life is questioned. With this respect, the thesis proposes a historical continuity with the post 1960&amp / #8217 / s posthumanist involvement of the postmodern architecture with the early twentieth century modern architecture. Moreover, it is argued that the ideal of modern architecture&amp / #8217 / s break with tradition could be realized through a move towards posthumanism referring posthumanist shift occurred in the avant-garde modernism. Within this framework the thesis, via proposing the book by Michael Hays: Modernism and the Posthumanist Subject: The Architecture of Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Hilberseimer as a pretext, argues that the modern architecture&amp / #8217 / s ideal of break with tradition is realized through the Neue Sachlichkeit architecture of Hannes Meyer within which the architectural production is integrated with the social and productive determinants of life.

Utifrån ett posthumanistiskt synsätt, och tillsammans med Karen Barads teori kring agentiell realism och performativitet, vill vi i det här kandidatarbetet bjuda in vår omvärlds fysiska fenomen som medskapare i vår designprocess. Med hjälp av dessa fenomen vill vi utmana och ifrågasätta den antropocentriska designerrollen genom att belysa materialitetens performativa förmåga till kunskapsproduktion och meningsskapande i designprocessen. Vi undersöker hur designprocessen och dess involverade val och handlingar uppstår genom mötet av både mänskliga och icke-mänskliga aktörer; vi beviljas ett inifrånperspektiv som placerar oss mitt i vår världs trassel av intra-aktioner och blir därmed en del i dess tillblivelse. Genom att tillämpa detta förhållningssätt i experiment som utforskar relationen mellan den analoga världen och den digitala, undersöker vi hur dessa möten kan bidra till utformandet av en gestaltande ljudinstallation. / With a posthumanist approach and based on the theory of agential realism and performativity by Karen Barad, we want, in this Bachelor Thesis, to invite the physical phenomena of our surrounding world as co-creators of our design process. With help from these phenomena we would like to challenge and question the anthropocentric designer role by illustrating the performative ability of materiality for producing knowledge and creating meaning in the design process. We explore how the design process and its involved choices and actions emerge through the concurrence of both human and non-human actors; we are granted a from-within perspective that places us in the midst of the entanglement of our world’s intra-actions and therefore become a part of its genesis. By applying this approach to experiments which delve into the relationship between the analog world and the digital, we explore how these concurrences can contribute to the designing of a sound installation.

Denna kvalitativa studie syftar till att synliggöra pedagogiska miljöers möjligheter att främja alla barns språk- och kommunikationsutveckling. Studien genomfördes på två förskolor på olika orter där respondenterna var förskollärare. Som datainsamlingsmetod valdes turistguidning. Hela studien präglas av den posthumanistiska teorin för att synliggöra hur miljön eller materialet agerar främjande för barnen. För att synliggöra miljöerna och materialens agens analyserades turistguidningen i två omgångar. Den första för att, ur ett posthumanistiskt perspektiv, synliggöra vilka visuella miljöer och material som existerar i den pedagogiska miljön. Den andra analysen genomfördes med fokus på respondenternas utsagor angående miljön och materialets agens. Koder, etiketter och kategorier framställdes därefter ur datan vilket skapade studiens analysmetod. I resultatet framställdes de språkfrämjande material och miljöer samt respondenternas tolkningar av material och miljöer som synliggjordes i de besökta förskolorna. De mest framträdande var: litteratur och läsmiljöer, pedagogisk dokumentation samt alternativ och kompletterande kommunikation. Av resultatet kom studien fram till slutsatsen att material och miljö kan agera språk- och kommunikationsfrämjande. / This qualitative study aims to highlight the opportunities for educational environments to promote all children's language and communication development. The study was conducted at two preschools in different locations where the respondents were preschool teachers. Tourist guidance was chosen as the data collection method. The whole study is characterized by the posthumanist theory to make it visible how the environment or the material acts to promote children's development. To make the environments and the agents of the materials visible, the tourist guide was analyzed in two rounds. The first to, from a posthumanist perspective, make visible which visual environments and materials exist in the pedagogical environment. The second analysis was conducted with focus on the respondents' statements regarding the environment and the material's agents. Codes, labels and categories were then produced from the data, which created the study's analysis method. The results presented the language-promoting materials and environments as well as the respondents' interpretations of materials and environments that were made visible in the preschools visited. The most prominent were: literature and reading environments, educational documentation as well as alternatives and complementary communication. From the results, the study came to the conclusion that materials and the environment can act to promote language and communication.

In reading The story of Edgar Sawtelle, this essay applies posthuman studies with animal studies and disability studies to analyse how the communication between species occur and how boundaries are expanded. Non-verbal language is closely examined and argued to be just as viable as verbal language in the making of relationships and subjects in literature. By applying posthumanism, biological research and a non-anthropocentric way of thinking one can evolve from the notion that humans are the only subjects which matter, something that has been verified because non-human animals never have been given a voice or an acknowledgment of a language. What happens in a novel when the main protagonist is lacking the ability to speak verbally, when verbal language is what has constructed human exceptionalism over all the other species? / Denna uppsats tillämpar posthumanistiska studier med djurstudier och funktionshinder-studier för att analysera hur kommunikationen mellan arter äger rum och expanderar gränser i David Wroblewskis roman The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Icke-verbalt språk undersöks och argumenteras vara lika betydande som verbalt språk vid skapandet av relationer och subjekt i litteratur. Genom att applicera posthumanism, biologisk forskning och ett icke-antropocentriskt sätt att tänka kan man avveckla tanken om att människan är det enda subjekt som räknas, detta är något som enbart verifierats eftersom icke-mänskliga djur aldrig fått någon agens eller bekräftande att de har rätten till en röst. Vad händer i en roman när protagonisten saknar förmågan till verbalt språk, när det verbala språket är central som verkning i mänsklig exceptionalism?