Contemporary culture abounds with stories about how new technologies are radically altering human existence. In many respects it seems intuitively obvious that there is nothing new in this, and that new techniques for doing things change social relationships. Indeed, this has been a common refrain in the modern world. Yet there is something strange about the most recent variations of how the social impact of technological change is understood. In the early twenty-first century, new technologies are argued to have changed our daily lives so much so that what we take as the most fundamental features of human experience can no longer be assumed. Specifically, in its more contemporary articulation, the argument that new technologies have radical social consequences insists that the human subject is undergoing a fundamental transformation into something entirely different: the cyborg or posthuman. This thesis offers an exploration of some of the assumptions that underpin contemporary accounts of new technologies and their presumed impact on human experience. Using a textual analysis methodology, this thesis takes up discussions from various areas; feminist technology studies, technology studies, the history and politics of technology as well as continental philosophy to explore changing perceptions about 'technology' and 'the human'. In addition, this thesis examines some curious examples from this diverse field in order to highlight some of the inherent ambiguities and paradoxes that endure when technology is assumed to be a detachable supplement. Assisted reproductive technologies, animal tool-use, automata, stem-cell research and human cloning, all indicate that the criteria which typically define 'the human' or 'technology' are far more amorphous than is usually presumed. What comes out of these deliberations is an intriguing tension between how both technology and human subjectivity are understood which complicates our understanding of the difference between humans and machines, nature and culture, and agency and instrumentality. In turn, this raises certain questions about the experiential implications for contemporary subjectivity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/187911 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Harvey, Olivia, School of Sociology & Anthropology, UNSW |
| Publisher | Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Sociology and Anthropology |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Olivia Harvey, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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