Re-thinking Posthumanism across the Global South

Foreword

Post-humanism is the new critical eschatology that resists the traditional structuration of the centrality of ‘man’. With the formulation of man-centred ideation in terms of the functions of history and governance, there has been a continuation of attempts at positing ‘man’ as the centre of creation. The imaging of man has always been informed, since pre-Socratic times, by traditional philosophic positions of ‘centrality’, ‘totality’, ‘unity’, ‘uniformity’, etc.

With the shifting terrains of challenges against the uniform hierarchic socio-economic and cultural strata in post-Derridean age, culture comes to be open-ended and readings become gradually interdependent. With the development of soft powers led by Google, Microsoft, robotics, cybernetics and the overarching market economy, ‘interpretation’ itself becomes increasingly intriguing. The rise of machines inflected in the musical album ‘Man Machine’ in the 1970s or the Hollywood production of the Terminator series a little later became predictive of the collapse of the centrality of man. A new age of ‘multiformity’ or ‘inter-spatiality’ has set in, and consequently, it has brought down the politics of binaries, the strictly ideology-driven stasis in cultural theories, the hierarchic governance in political economy, the teleologic continuum of history and culture, etc. Moreover, it has brought up the issue of man’s simultaneity and co-extensivity with other beings like plants, animals, and even non-sensate objects. The shifts and disruptions in ontological perceptions were registered long back by Foucault (1994) in The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences, where he shows a definitive critical anxiety: “As the archaeology of our thoughts easily shows, man is the invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end” (p. 387).

But some critical thinkers imagine an intermediary phase. Joel Garreau, for instance, believes in the phase ‘transhuman’ that shows a gradual progression towards post-humanism. The ‘transhuman’ phase envisions a sense of completeness as well as saturation of the idea of universal man as satiated with truth, reason and intellection, thereby preparing the transitive phase into post-humanism.

Re-thinking Posthumanism across the Global South: An Introduction edited by Dr. Nikhilesh Dhar and Dr. Bapin Mallick, is an overwhelming rejoinder to the continuously expanding body of critical literature on post-humanism. This collection of critical essays strides across a large area of epistemic disciplines: heterogeneous cultural texts, Netflix Series, programmed algorithms in the interface of the digital and the human, plant-human liminality, contestations between ‘bodied’ and ‘disembodied’ discursiveness in the context of posthuman agencies and biocapitalism’s new relationship with the discursive patterns of post-humanism. This rich and varied display of post-humanist thoughts will, I am sure, contribute to more debates and discussions. I sincerely believe that both the editors’ scholarly endeavour is definitely praiseworthy.

Professor Deb Narayan Bandyopadhyay

Secretary, Indian Association for the Study of Australia, Eastern Region,&Chief Executive Director and Director, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies: Research and Innovation, Swami Vivekananda University, Barrackpore, North 24 Parganas District, West Bengal, India &Former Vice Chancellor, Bankura University, Bankura, West Bengal, India

Introduction

Scholarly attention to the concept of the posthuman has increased recently in response to pressing problems about what it means to be human and what distinguishes the human from the nonhuman, as well as the ongoing ecological catastrophe, recent technological breakthroughs, and the desire to address in new ways issues involving race, gender, and environment. In light of this, the editors of this volume hope that it will serve as a forum for discussing how the concept of the posthuman may have altered our interactions with the natural world and with one another, for delving into how we may have always been entwined with nonhuman others, and for speculating on how the posthuman may have repercussions beyond the academy.

Posthumanism is a plural, nonbinary, or post-dualist idea that challenges the view of the human, or certain humans, as superior to other humans and nonhumans by blurring traditional distinctions between humans and machines, action and inertia, subject and object, culture and nature. While posthumanism may begin with the prefix “post,” this does not imply a time after which the human body is no longer relevant (Wolfe, 2011). Instead, the end of a specific conception of humans is what this symbol represents (Hayles, 1999). In her book How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (1999), Hayles presents her perspective on technical posthumanism, examining people as cybernetic systems. She argues that posthumanism, characterized by the absence of subjective consciousness, challenges the limitations of physical existence.

First, the posthuman view privileges informational pattern over material instantiation, so that embodiment in a biological substrate is seen as an accident of history rather than an inevitability of life. Second, the posthuman view considers consciousness (…) as an epiphenomenon, (…) Third, the posthuman view thinks of the body as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate (…) Fourth, and most important, by these and other means, the posthuman view configures human being so that it can be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines. In the posthuman, there are no essential differences or absolute demarcations between bodily existence and computer simulation, cybernetic mechanism and biological organism, robot teleology and human goals. (Hayles, 1999, pp. 2–3)

The “self-fashioning” ethos of the Renaissance ideal of the “human” establishes a hierarchy in which the racial, sexual, natural, and technological others are subjugated to the privilege of the human subject. It is pertinent to note that the old notion of the “human” needs to be re-examined in the post-global ambiance, when the world is reeling under the looming threat of the climatic disaster and other critical issues. This paves the way for the development of the notion of the posthuman, which challenges the exclusivist premise upon which humanism rests, as Rosi Braidotti asserts that humans are already “fully immersed in a network of non-human (animal, vegetable, viral) relations” (Braidotti, 2013, p. 193). Posthumanism lays special emphasis on the subjective reality of those who are marginalized due to their race, gender, or species and simultaneously questions the validity of the claim of placing humanity at the center of the world.

The discussion over the replacement of anthropocentrism is distinct and related to a separate lineage of analysis compared to the criticism of humanism, but there are some points of overlap between the two. The examination of the belief in the superiority of humans and their domination over nonhuman organisms introduces another avenue of criticism regarding the characteristics that define the human species. The concept of “man” is criticized for embodying a hierarchical and violent species whose insatiable greed and aggression are intensified by the convergence of technological progress and global economic dominance. A study by Ferrando (2020) clearly demonstrates that both the concept of “man” as the universal standard for everything and the notion of Anthropos as the dominant species are unable to establish their primary role in the process of intellectual contemplation. Within the current global context, known as posthuman convergence, cognitive abilities are shared among various species and frequently carried out through technologically facilitated systems for generating information. These systems are operated by networks and computer processes. The advancement of biogenetics and computational technology has posed a challenge to the traditional distinction between bios, which refers to human life, and Zoe, which encompasses the lives of animals and nonhumans.

The ramifications of this transition have substantial political significance. If feminist, queer, antiracist, ecological, and postcolonial critiques have strengthened the empowerment of sexualized and racialized individuals who are still considered human, the problem of Anthropos now involves the inclusion of those who are considered “others.” Various living organisms, including animals, insects, plants, cells, and bacteria, as well as the planet and the universe, are being transformed into battlegrounds for political conflicts. The nonhuman creatures are of great importance in the domain of posthumanism, as they are thoroughly examined and reimagined as conceptual personae. Their main purpose is to question the line between nature and culture and, in doing so, assert the exceptionalism of human beings. What is remarkable about Ferrando’s work is her ability to find joy in the profound differences of nonhuman animals. Instead of feeling afraid or trying to dominate them, she sees their diversity as something to appreciate.

When confronted with the current climatic disaster, degraded ecology, extinction of species, socio-political shifts, unprecedented progress in technology, artificial intelligence, and replacements of human organs through digital devices, the very identity of “human” seems to be blurred, as Pramod K. Nayar argues that the posthuman self is an assemblage that coevolves with robots, animals, and congeries (Nayar, 2018). Our current paradigm of knowledge production, ethically and methodologically, therefore, needs to be completely reconstructed in the face of these unimaginable crises. Posthumanists believe that it is imperative to re-think one fundamental issue regarding the question of “human,” since the notion of “human” is getting interconnected with the nonhuman others. As a result, posthumanism encompasses different forms of subjugation [Dalit discourse, gender issues, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT), disability studies, colonial discourse, and animal studies] and blurs the boundary between “human” and “nonhuman.” As a result, the very identity of humans has been shifted to the domain of post-dualism, in which humans and nonhuman others are ontologically linked or interwoven.

Posthumanism is an idea in continental philosophy and critical theory that tries to raise a counter discourse to the fundamental Western beliefs and practices, as Donna Haraway perceives it to be a rejection and a reconstruction of the ideals of the classic humanist subject (Haraway, 1992). It is a radical approach to reframing the human subject in terms of its broad connection to the natural world. In The Animal That Therefore I Am, Derrida and Marie-Louise (2008) first argues against the anthropocentric “master identity model” that tends to dominate the Western metaphysical field. The foundations of contemporary society and an underlying “modern constitution” are severely shaken by this transition of human agency from its biological entity to its geological one. Therefore, concepts such as human autonomy, privilege, morality, and reciprocity, which are primarily responsible for the formation of modernity, need to be reinterpreted.

When the concept of humans itself is called into question, the traditional approaches to thinking about politics and society are disrupted, blurring the boundaries between humans and nonhumans. In her book, Philosophical Posthumanism, Francesca Ferrando (2020) sees philosophical posthumanism as being comprised of three main ideas: posthumanism, postanthropocentrism, and postdualism. Nonhuman others, therefore, are no longer confined to passive observers as they reassert their own assertive capabilities previously reserved solely for humans. Under the present scenario, the edited volume titled Re-thinking Posthumanism across the Global South: An Introduction makes an endeavor to revisit the literary representation of the “human” and the manner in which the authority of the human is challenged from a variety of perspectives in order to explore different critical issues that exist in our contemporary world.

Aishwarya Das Gupta in her paper interrogates the categories of the non(/in)-human and the construction of alternative subjectivities through a posthumanist analysis of an episode titled “Good Hunting” from the popular Netflix series Love, Death & Robots (Volume I) (2019) (stylized as Love, Death+​Robots). It explores how the episode has ruptured the solid boundaries separating the human from the non(/in) human, dealing with the themes of transcorporeal subjectivity, the issue of monstrosity, and the discourse of difference on which the ideal of the “human” as separate and superior to the animal, the technological, and the earth’s others is formed.