[Introduction to Entity: Where Orientalism and Feminist Science Intersect]

Integrating discussions of Orientalism through the work of Sara Ahmed, this research paper will explore fractured identities that materialize into Donna Haraway’s Feminist Science using The Cancer Alien as subject around this discussion. By reviewing the theoretical examples of Othering in Ahmed’s “Queer Phenomenology” and Cyborg in Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto”, we will be able to better conceptualize the material and contextual qualities of The Cancer Alien. What are these examples of Othering and the Cyborg in The Cancer Alien and how does Orientalism and Feminist Science inform a Non-Binary Pedagogy in these examples? Haraway’s analysis goes beyond mythical understandings by invoking “..the cyborg as a positive monster that can help us reimagine human consciousness, modes of identity and sexuality.” (Basile 2017) Even though the Positive Monster is designed for this “post-gendered world” (Basile 2017) This paper will argue the act of Othering produces a Cyborg Of Neutrality as apposed to the proposed Positive Monster. According to Haraway the Cyborg is “..a mixture of machine and organism..” (Haraway 1984) These examples of Othering exist not just within words of the commentator and the comment section of the video but also the invention of the title itself. The invention of title paradoxically produces an identity that exists outside of the gender binary. Within this media artifact, examples of cyborg exist not just around the subject it is critiquing but also the encompassing context surrounding the subject; such as video games and taking issue with the medical technologies. Important to note that these are only a few examples that support a Non- Binary Pedagogy. The Cancer Alien possibly creates new concepts of cyborg identities instead of an individual cyborg identity. Furthermore, the cyborg is not an individual but a doing, an act of constant assembling and disassembling of self. This state of impermanence allows the materialization of A Non-Binary Pedagogy. This paper will highlight the distinction between feminism and feminist science in order to encompass a more complicit Non-Binary Pedagogy in order to include non-human identities. Specific comments made on The Cancer Alien will highlight a production of identities but also a production of entities. Making these four core distinctions give way for a cyborg of neutrality. Concluding the paper will outline the material and contextual evidence of Orientalism and Feminist Science of The Cancer Alien and leave some unanswered questions, such as whether this cyborg of neutrality is capable of being racialized and does with propose need for a more complicit Non-Binary Pedagogy. The objective of this paper is to act as an introduction to a larger conversation or thesis on the prejudice and discrimination, fractured identities and entities may face in the future.

[What is Non-Binary Pedagogy?]

The purpose of this first section is to explain Finn A. Enke’s paper entitled “Stick Figured And Little Bits: Toward a Nonbinary Pedagogy” through distinctions within the study of Queer Youth Education. “Over a decade of addressing this issue both as an educator and as a trans person has convinced me that there is no single or universal “right”, “best”, or problem-free solution to the pronoun challenge in the classroom.” (Enke 2016) Enke discusses Non-Binary Pedagogy through; ‘Stick Figures and Little Bits’ explains the issues around of gender neutral bathrooms, ‘Gender Neutral Bits’ dives into Non-Binary pronouns such as they, them,their, ze,hir,zir,em,em’s,per,per’s,xe,xem,xir: or using a person’s name instead of pronouns, ‘From Neutral To Non-Binary Bits In The Classroom’ which discusses the issues of stigmatization, ignorance, and disclosure, and lastly ‘Play’ which explains the complexities of how to help make educational environments more welcoming to trans and non-binary youth. Enke’s explanation could be structured as a Non-Binary Pedagogy focusing on the institutional, linguistic, climate, and accessibility of gender. Might be worth noting that Enke’s explanation are introductions to one of many frameworks of a Non- Binary Pedagogy that focuses on the discourses of gender spectrum through material understandings of masculine and femininity. (..stick figure is not a static representational entity that simply points to “real” entities outside of itself (males, females; binary gender system), but rather, the signs themselves produce binary gender.” (Enke 2016) The conversation of entities and the other spectrum within discussions of Non-Binary Pedagogy; organic and artificial will be discussed in another essay. (An Introduction to the X-AXIS: Correlations between The Fashion Model and Non-Binary Pedagogy) by Wu Ming Bong | 胡明

邦

[Othering as Orientalism]

Before we can explain the material and contextual evidence located in the Cancer Alien it is necessary to describe this process of Othering that Ahmed articulates. “Rather than othering being simply a form of negation, it can also be described as a form of extension.” (Ahmed 2006) This process of Othering is simply one example of Sara Ahmed’s Orientalism. Other examples of Ahmed’s Orientalism include discussions of the orientation of the body itself. “In other words, the racial and historical dimensions are beneath the surface of the body described by phenomenology, which becomes, by virtue of its own orientation, a way of thinking the body that has surface appeal.” (Ahmed 2006) Phenomenology as science of phenomena, shows Ahmed’s interest in Orientalism through a queerness that goes beyond racial and historical dimensions. This section of the essay will focus on racial and historical material evidence of the Cancer Alien that produces this Othering and not Orientation. Ahmed described this Othering as this negation where the body is extending its reach into “not” “where the ‘‘not’’ involves the acquisition of new capacities and directions..” (Ahmed 2006) which focuses our attention on where the body becomes situated when being othered through comments such as “they want to remove it because of all this pronoun, non binary fucking gender fluid crap.” (Youtube Comment 2017). “They” is not in respect of gender neutral pronouns in this setting but a distancing into subjects of non- binary existence with an implication of the comment distancing themselves from the subject, the subject being The Cancer Alien. This is an example of historical material evidence for the fact that the comment also implies a historical absence of non-binary and gender queer identities in current mainstream temporality. The word ‘Crap’ could be taken as a disposal or a write off of such identities in our current time period therefore show symptoms of Othering. Contextual Evidence Othering in The Cancer Alien looks at creation of the title itself. Visual assumptions without seem to be the stem of this creation where Cancer attached with Alien forms a newly formulated caricature that associates itself with groups of particular concepts and ideas. A dictionary defines Cancer as “A disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body.” (Oxford 2017) and Alien as “Belonging to a foreign country.” or “Unfamiliar and disturbing or distasteful.” or “Supposedly from another world; extraterrestrial.” which raised many possible questions to the contextual motivations behind the creation of Cancer Alien. These questions do not include questions of the positionality of the creator. When is more discursively clear are negative connotations rooted in this motivation. In Ahmed’s Orientalism, they remind us by quoting Afro-Caribbean psychiatrist Frantz Fanon that many may not take on a dualist approach making a distinction between the identities that reside in mind and how one expresses their body. “As Fanon further states: ‘‘Below the corporeal schema I had sketched out a historic-racial schema. The elements that I used had been provided for me not by ‘residual sensations and perceptions primarily of a tactile, vestibular, kinesthetic, and visual character,’ but by the other, the white man, who had woven me out of a thousand details, anecdotes, stories’’ (Ahmed 2006) This corporeal schema can push into corporeal expectation that ones gender identity must match or correspond simultaneously with ones physical gender expression. This may be one explanation for the motivations behind this creation of the Cancer Alien. Concluding this section, the existences of material and contextual evidence of Ahmed’s Othering show signs of Non-Binary Pedagogy. These signs show through means of clear resistance against a thinkings behind Non-Binary Pedagogy but also manifest constructions of Non-Binary linguisticity which affect larger perpetuations of institution, climate, and accessibility normativities.

[Neutral and Positive Monster]

This intersection of Ahmed’s Orientalism meets Haraway’s Feminist Science when making a distinction between the existences of identities through functions of corporeal schemas. Identities falling outside of this schemas introduce the Positive Monster mentioned in the introduction “..modes of identity and sexuality.” (Basile 2017) These modes of identity are not identities but entities that exist outside of this corporeal schemas because these modes of identity realms into consciousness that exist without inhabiting bodies. “Furthermore, communication sciences and modern biologies are constructed by a common move - the translation of the world into a problem of coding.” (Haraway 1984) Making this distinction between communication sciences and modern biologies explains “The cyborgs populating feminist science fiction make very problematic the statuses of man or woman, human, artefact, member of race, individual entity, or body.” (Haraway 1984) how Othering or assumptions of this “common move”...produce Entities that exists in The Cancer Alien. But as discussed in the previous section, what’s produced is not a Positive Monster or a Cyborg Of Neutrality but a Mode Of Neutrality that correlate with modes of identity. This is precisely the intersection between Ahmed’s Othering and Haraway’s Cyborg that allow us now to find material and contextual evidence of the Cyborg. Before doing this we must first make a distinction between what we understand Feminism to be and Haraway’s Feminist Science. Oxford Dictionary defines Feminism as “The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.” (Oxford 2017) and coming from a socio scientific perspective this may be problematic. Taking from Kevin Nixon’s analyzation of Feminism from the course Social Sciences of Sexuality, a brief understanding of Feminism can be viewed through multiple perspectives. These perspective include liberal, radical, marxist, socialist, black, postcolonial, third world, post-structural, and queer feminism but Haraway’s feminism deems a feminism outside of social constructions by this “translation of the world into a problem of coding” (Haraway 1984). This is most likely the main distinction. Material examples of the Cyborg lie in the visuals themselves which include visualization of the number of comments made on the video and in where the statement “alien pills” (Youtube 2017) were used by the commentator as an example of assumption that this projection of identity either wishes to become an alien or exists as an alien that rely’s on medication to survive. Other examples of cyborg lie in the game play footage of video games which connect associate The Cancer Alien with “..think through the social relations of science and technology, including the systems of myths and meanings structuring our imaginations” (Haraway 1984) feminist science. The reasons these are material evidence and not contextual evidence is because of it’s material existence. The communication of these ideas are needed to be expressed through audio and visualization of linguistics and climate. This visualization supports a Non-Binary Pedagogy for it’s material practices. Contextual evidence goes beyond the creation of the Cancer Alien as a Cyborg but through the context of video. The context of the video produces this institutional expectation of normality which isn’t just focus of foreign practices of transitioning but the comments on accessibility. “..a doctor in Canada is helping..” (Youtube 2017). This is also evidence of criticism of other “social relations of science and technology” (Haraway 1984) through matters of medical technology and controversy of transgender and non binary accessibility to healthcare. Concluding, this section passes this intersection of Ahmed’s Orientalism and Haraway’s Feminist Science into a Mode Of Neutrality that in fact manifest Entities into existences that contradict assumptions, criticisms, othering. If understanding the modality of Identities produces Entities then this informs a Non-Binary Pedagogy.

[CONCLUSION - Identity and Entities]

What this essay has done is analyze the material and contextual evidence of Othering and Cyborg in The Cancer Alien. Through looking at Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology and Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto we have gained a particular understanding of Orientalism and Feminist Science that possibly informs Finn Enke’s Non-Binary Pedagogy. The practice of Othering in The Cancer Alien causes us to making distinctions between The Positive Monster and A Neutral Monster that provokes a Mode Of Neutrality. This Mode Of Neutrality introduces a mode of Identity which causes us to question this distinction between Identity and Entities. The reason that Entities is used and not Entity is because Entity has been historically defined as “A thing with distinct and independent existence.” or “Existence; being.” (Oxford 2017) Identity has historically been defined as a name or specification “individuality, self, selfhood, ego, personality, character, originality, distinctiveness, distinction, singularity, peculiarity, uniqueness, differentness” (Oxford 2017). The issues with these definitions is that Identity is typically associations and categories connected to the state of being human and the issue with Entity is that it is still associated with human experience by virtue of the definition. Humans are beings that have constituted what is a thing, what is distinct, what is independent, and what is existence. By discussing this progression from Identity to Entities instead of (Identity to Entity then perceiving Entities as groups of Entity) we make clarification of Non-Linear progression. This Non-Linear Progression is explored in the essay (Informing Entities: An Introduction to Entropy - Singularity or Dispersal) by Wu Ming Bong | 胡明邦 which explores Entropy as a process of dispersal. This dispersal is an Involution not an Evolution. Regardless, this essay serves to introduce the concept of Entity (singular) into spaces of psychoanalysis as apposed to identities and discourses.

[DISCUSSION NOTES]

I put this section into the essay as a means for self-reflexivity. This is because there is a copious amount of things I have learned this term as my first year back from being out of school for over 8 years. The most profound things I learned this year were; Intersectionality, Positionality, and Assemblages. But Queer Of Colour Critique has taught me something that these three concepts didn’t, which was particularly the distinctions between the discursive and the corporeal through Patrick Johnson’s reading. This distinction between not the mind and body but guilt in obsessing over subject to subject can cause forgetting the actual multiplicity in material bodies that inhabit theory creation. This is really what Dai Kojima has communicated so well in the course. This distinction between theory versus practice. It brings me to tears really, because Dai has forced me to look within the text instead of projecting my own biases on to a text. Looking at what the text is actually saying. So that I must thank them. This discussion note is an act of self-reflexivity, when I wrote this proposal for this essay it was originally going to be called A Process of Unracialization, because that’s exactly how I felt when I found this video making fun and criticism of me. It was so cool to have so many people interested in this body that existed in a very particular mode of temporality but of course it hurt. Being called ugly everyday for two years because you felt that shaving your head was the best means of non-binary gender expression. I still think it’s the best mode of non-binary expression haha, but that’s another essay. Unracialization; because I couldn’t fathom how“others” couldn’t fathom that I still lead a material life, with a chinese family, friends, a car and mortgage, dates and a still..very active sex life. To reduce another individual to caricature and mental illness is how I felt was a process of Unracialization. This is evidence I think, a beginning to a long line of discrimination towards not individuals wishing to remove gender, race, or human from their own consciousness but evidence of a different kind of reaction that goes deeper than fear or humour. Really though, what will happen when you have humans actively mutating and designing themselves not just in cognitive dissonance but corporeal dissonance. What HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) does is essentially a combination of (medical technologies) drugs that when used...change your gene expression. This change in gene expression physically alters the body on the spectrum of what we perceive masculinity and femininity. Through means of hair growth and fat reduction or breast tissue growth and muscle discinagration..medically transitioning serves new meaning to material practices. Soon with CRISPR another medical technology, we will be able to alter our actual gene in order to change eye colour, hair and skin texture, height, etc. (At the moment it is used to cure certain kinds of cancer) New means for reproduction without the use of egg or sperm cells serves different arguments and solutions in Queer Of Colour Critique that go beyond race. Doesn’t this go beyond race because..if from a click of the button we can alter our state of mind and now body...it forces us to question what constitutes being human. Then again, there is a lot of practices in privilege, oppression, assemblages in this discussion note...but I guess that’s why they call it self-reflexivity and not self-determinism.

MEDIA ARTIFACT

• The Cancer Alien - Cyber Violence [Mirror] - Harmful Opinions Archives - Youtube (2017) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_g_P4Kl2YE

BIBLIOGRAPHY OR REFFERENCES

Enke, A. Finn (2016), Stick Figures and Little Bits: Toward a Non-binary Pedagogy.
Haraway, Donna (1984), A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, technology and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century
Oxford (2017) Cancer https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cancer
Oxford (2017) Alien https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/alien
Oxford (2017) Feminism https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/feminism
Oxford (2017) Entity https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/entity
Oxford (2017) Identity https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/thesaurus/identity