Donna Haraway Situated KnowLedges

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Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of PartialPerspectiveAuthor(s): Donna HarawaySource: Feminist Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 575-599Published by: Feminist Studies, Inc.

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SITUATEDKNOWLEDGES:THESCIENCEQUESTIONIN FEMINISM

AND THEPRIVILEGEOF PARTIAL

PERSPECTIVE

DONNAHARAWAY

Academicand activist feminist inquiry has repeatedlytried to

come to termswith the questionof what we mightmean by the

curiousand inescapableterm"objectivity."We have used a lot of

toxic ink and treesprocessedinto paperdecryingwhat theyhave

meantandhow it hurtsus.The imagined"they"constitutea kind

of invisibleconspiracyof masculinistscientistsand philosophers

repletewith grantsand laboratories.The imagined"we"are theembodiedothers,who arenot allowednot to have a body,a finite

pointofview, and so aninevitablydisqualifyingandpollutingbias

in any discussionof consequenceoutside our own little circles,where a "mass"-subscriptionjournalmightreacha few thousand

readerscomposedmostly of sciencehaters.At least, I confess to

theseparanoidfantasiesandacademicresentmentslurkingunder-

neath some convolutedreflectionsin printundermy namein the

feministliteraturein the historyand philosophyof science.We,

the feministsin the debatesaboutscienceandtechnology,aretheReagan era's "special-interestgroups"in the rarified realm of

epistemology,wheretraditionallywhatcan countas knowledgeis

policed by philosopherscodifyingcognitivecanonlaw. Of course,a special-interestgroupis, by Reaganoiddefinition,any collectivehistoricalsubjectthat daresto resistthe stripped-downatomismof

Star Wars, hypermarket,postmodern,media-simulatedcitizen-

ship.Max Headroomdoesn'thavea body;therefore,he alonesees

everythingin the greatcommunicator'sempireof the GlobalNet-

work.No wonderMaxgetsto have a naive sense of humoranda

kind of happilyregressive,preoedipalsexuality,a sexualitythat

FeministStudies14, no. 3 (Fall1988).? 1988by FeministStudies,Inc.

575



576 Donna Haraway

we ambivalently-with dangerousincorrectness- hadimaginedto

be reservedfor lifelonginmatesof female and colonized bodiesand maybe also white male computerhackers in solitaryelec-tronicconfinement.

It has seemed to me that feminists have both selectivelyand

flexibly used and been trapped by two poles of a temptingdichotomyon the questionof objectivity.CertainlyI speak for

myself here, and I offerthe speculationthatthere is a collectivediscourseon these matters. Recentsocial studiesof science and

technology,forexample,have madeavailablea very strongsocialconstructionistargumentforall formsof knowledgeclaims,most

certainlyandespeciallyscientificones.' Accordingto thesetempt-ingviews, no insider'sperspectiveis privileged,because all draw-

ings of inside-outsideboundariesin knowledgeare theorizedas

powermoves, not moves toward truth.So, from the strongsocialconstructionistperspective,why should we be cowed by scien-tists'descriptionsof theiractivityandaccomplishments;they andtheirpatronshave stakesin throwingsandin our eyes. They tell

parablesaboutobjectivityand scientificmethod to studentsin thefirstyearsof theirinitiation,but no practitionerof the highscien-tific artswould be caughtdead actingon the textbookversions.Socialconstructionistsmake clearthatofficialideologiesaboutob-

jectivityand scientificmethod areparticularlybadguidesto howscientificknowledgeis actuallymade.Just as for the rest of us,whatscientistsbelieveorsay theydo andwhattheyreallydohavea very loose fit.

The onlypeoplewho endup actuallybelievingand,goddessfor-bid, actingon the ideologicaldoctrinesof disembodiedscientific

objectivity-enshrinedin elementarytextbooksandtechnoscienceboosterliterature-arenonscientists,includinga few very trustingphilosophers.Of course,my designationof this lastgroupis prob-ably just a reflectionof a residualdisciplinarychauvinismac-

quiredfromidentifyingwithhistoriansof scienceand fromspend-ingtoo much timewith a microscopein earlyadulthoodin a kindof disciplinarypreoedipaland modernistpoetic moment when

cells seemedto be cells andorganisms,organisms.Pace,GertrudeStein.Butthen camethe law of the fatherand its resolutionof the

problemof objectivity,a problemsolvedby alwaysalreadyabsentreferents,deferredsignifieds,split subjects,and the endlessplayof signifiers.Who wouldn'tgrow up warped?Gender,race, the



Donna Haraway 577

world itself-all seem the effects of warp speeds in the play of

signifiersin a cosmic forcefield.In any case, social constructionistsmight maintainthat the

ideologicaldoctrineof scientificmethod and all the philosophicalverbiageaboutepistemologywere cookedup to distractour atten-tion from gettingto know the world effectivelyby practicingthesciences.Fromthispointof view, science-the realgamein town-

is rhetoric,a seriesof effortstopersuaderelevantsocialactorsthat

one'smanufacturedknowledgeis a routeto a desiredformof very

objectivepower.Suchpersuasionsmust take accountof the struc-tureof facts andartifacts,as well asof language-mediatedactorsinthe knowledge game. Here, artifactsand facts are parts of the

powerfulart of rhetoric.Practiceis persuasion,and the focus is

very much on practice.All knowledgeis a condensednode in an

agonisticpower field. The strong programin the sociology of

knowledgejoins with the lovely andnastytoolsof semiologyanddeconstructionto insiston the rhetoricalnatureof truth,includingscientifictruth.Historyis a storyWesternculture buffs tell each

other;science is a contestabletext anda powerfield;the contentisthe form.2Period.

Somuch forthoseof us who would still liketo talkaboutrealitywith more confidencethan we allow to the ChristianRightwhen

they discuss the SecondComingand theirbeing rapturedout ofthe finaldestructionof the world. We would like to thinkourap-peals to realworldsare more than a desperatelurchaway from

cynicismand an act of faith like any othercult's,no matterhowmuch

spacewe

generouslygive to all the richandalwayshistori-cally specific mediationsthroughwhich we and everybodyelsemust know the world. But the further I get in describingtheradical socialconstructionistprogramand a particularversionof

postmodernism,coupledwith theacidtoolsof criticaldiscourseinthe humansciences,the more nervousI get.Theimageryof forcefields, of moves in a fully textualizedand coded world,which isthe working metaphorin many argumentsaboutsociallynegoti-atedrealityforthe postmodernsubject,is, just forstarters,an im-

ageryof high-techmilitaryfields, of automatedacademic battle-fields,whereblipsof lightcalledplayersdisintegrate(whata meta-

phor!)each other in orderto stay in the knowledgeand powergame.Technoscienceand science fictioncollapseinto the sun oftheirradiant(ir)reality-war.3It shouldn'ttake decadesof feminist



578 DonnaHaraway

theoryto sensetheenemyhere.NancyHartsockgotallthiscrystalclearin her conceptof abstractmasculinity.4

I, and others,startedout wantinga strongtool fordeconstruct-

ing the truthclaimsof hostilescienceby showingthe radicalhis-toricalspecificity,and so contestability,of everylayerof the onionof scientificandtechnologicalconstructions,and we endupwith akind of epistemologicalelectroshocktherapy, which far from

usheringus into the high stakes tablesof the game of contestingpublictruths,lays us out on the tablewith self-inducedmultiple

personalitydisorder.We wanted a way to go beyond showingbiasin science (thatprovedtoo easy anyhow)and beyond separatingthe goodscientificsheepfromthe badgoatsof biasandmisuse.Itseemed promisingto do this by the strongestpossibleconstruc-tionistargumentthat left no cracksforreducingthe issuesto biasversus objectivity,use versus misuse, science versus pseudo-science. We unmaskedthe doctrinesof objectivitybecausetheythreatenedour buddingsense of collective historicalsubjectivityandagencyand our "embodied"accountsof the truth,andwe end-

ed up with one more excusefor not learningany post-Newtonianphysics and one more reasonto drop the old feminist self-helppracticesof repairingour own cars.They'rejust textsanyway,solet the boys have them back.

Some of us tried to stay sane in these disassembledand dis-

semblingtimesby holdingoutfora feministversionof objectivity.Here,motivatedby manyof the samepoliticaldesires,is the otherseductive end of the objectivityproblem.Humanistic Marxism

was polluted at the source by its structuringtheory about thedominationof naturein the self-constructionof man and by its

closely related impotence in relationto historicizing anythingwomen didthat didn'tqualifyfora wage.But Marxismwas still a

promisingresource as a kind of epistemologicalfeministmental

hygienethatsoughtour own doctrinesof objectivevision. Marxist

startingpointsoffereda way to get to our own versionsof stand-

pointtheories,insistentembodiment,a richtraditionof critiquinghegemony without disempoweringpositivisms and relativisms

anda way to get to nuancedtheoriesof mediation.Someversionsof psychoanalysiswere of aid in this approach,especiallyanglo-phone objectrelationstheory, which maybe did more for U.S.socialistfeminismfor a time thananythingfrom the pen of MarxorEngels,much less Althusseroranyof the latepretendersto son-



DonnaHaraway 579

ship treatingthe subjectof ideologyand science.5

Anotherapproach,"feministempiricism,"also convergeswithfeminist uses of Marxianresourcesto get a theory of sciencewhichcontinuesto insiston legitimatemeaningsof objectivityandwhich remainsleery of a radicalconstructivismconjugatedwith

semiologyandnarratology.6Feministshaveto insistona betterac-countof the world;it is notenoughto show radicalhistoricalcon-

tingencyand modes of constructionfor everything.Here, we, as

feminists,find ourselvesperverselyconjoinedwith the discourse

of many practicingscientists, who, when all is said and done,mostlybelievetheyaredescribinganddiscoveringthingsbymeans

of all theirconstructingand arguing.EvelynFox Kellerhas been

particularlyinsistenton thisfundamentalmatter,andSandraHar-

dingcalls the goalof theseapproachesa "successorscience."Femi-nists have stakesin a successor scienceprojectthat offers a more

adequate,richer,betteraccount of a world, in orderto live in itwell andin critical,reflexiverelationto ourown aswell as others'

practicesof dominationandthe unequalpartsof privilegeandop-pressionthat make up all positions.In traditionalphilosophicalcategories,the issue is ethics and politics perhaps more than

epistemology.So,I thinkmy problem,and "our"problem,is how to havesimul-

taneouslyan account of radical historical contingency for all

knowledge claims and knowing subjects,a criticalpracticefor

recognizingour own "semiotictechnologies"formakingmeanings,and a no-nonsense commitment to faithful accountsof a "real"

world, one that can be partiallysharedand that is friendlytoearthwide projects of finite freedom, adequate materialabun-

dance,modestmeaningin suffering,and limitedhappiness.Har-

ding calls this necessarymultipledesire a need for a successorscience projectand a postmoderninsistence on irreducibledif-ference and radicalmultiplicityof local knowledges.All compo-nents of the desire areparadoxicalanddangerous,and their com-binationis bothcontradictoryandnecessary.Feministsdon'tneeda doctrineof objectivitythatpromisestranscendence,a storythat

loses track of its mediationsjust where someone mightbe heldresponsibleforsomething,andunlimitedinstrumentalpower.Wedon'twant a theory of innocentpowers to representthe world,where languageand bodiesboth fall intothe blissof organicsym-biosis. We also don't want to theorize the world, much less act



580 DonnaHaraway

within it, in termsof GlobalSystems,but we do need an earth-

wide network of connections,includingthe ability partiallytotranslateknowledgesamongverydifferent-andpower-differenti-ated- communities. We need the power of modern criticaltheoriesof how meaningsand bodies get made, not in order to

deny meaningsand bodies,but in order to build meaningsandbodies that have a chancefor life.

Natural,social, and human sciences have always been impli-cated in hopes like these. Science has been about a search for

translation,convertibility,mobilityof meanings,anduniversality-which I callreductionismonlywhen one language(guesswhose?)must be enforcedas the standardfor all the translationsand con-versions.Whatmoney does in the exchangeordersof capitalism,reductionism does in the powerful mental orders of globalsciences. Thereis, finally,only one equation.Thatis the deadlyfantasythatfeministsand others have identifiedin some versionsof objectivity,those in the service of hierarchicaland positivistorderingsof what can count as knowledge.That is one of the

reasons the debates aboutobjectivitymatter,metaphoricallyandotherwise.Immortalityandomnipotencearenotourgoals.Butwecoulduse someenforceable,reliableaccountsof thingsnotreduci-ble to powermoves andagonistic,high-statusgamesof rhetoricorto scientistic,positivistarrogance.Thispoint applieswhether weare talking about genes, social classes, elementary particles,genders,races, or texts; the point applies to the exact, natural,social,and humansciences,despitethe slipperyambiguitiesof the

words"objectivity"and"science"as we slidearoundthe discursiveterrain.In oureffortsto climbthe greasedpole leadingto a usabledoctrineof objectivity,I andmostotherfeministsin theobjectivitydebates have alternatively,or even simultaneously,held on toboth ends of the dichotomy,a dichotomywhich Hardingdes-cribesin termsof successorscienceprojectsversuspostmodernistaccountsof differenceandwhich I have sketchedin this essayasradicalconstructivismversus feminist criticalempiricism.It is, of

course,hard to climb when you areholdingon to both ends of a

pole, simultaneouslyor alternatively.It is, therefore,time toswitch metaphors.



Donna Haraway 581

THE PERSISTENCEOF VISIONI would like to proceed by placing metaphoricalrelianceon amuch malignedsensory systemin feministdiscourse:vision.7Vi-sion can be goodfor avoidingbinary oppositions.I would like toinsiston the embodiednatureof all visionandso reclaimthe sen-

sory systemthathas been usedto signifya leapout of the marked

body and into a conqueringgazefromnowhere. This is the gazethatmythicallyinscribesall the markedbodies,thatmakesthe un-markedcategoryclaimthe powerto see andnotbe seen, to repre-

sent while escaping representation.This gaze signifies the un-markedpositionsof Man andWhite,one of the manynastytonesof the word "objectivity"to feminist ears in scientificand tech-

nological, late-industrial,militarized,racist, and male-dominant

societies,that is, here, in the belly of the monster,in the UnitedStatesin the late 1980s.I would like a doctrineof embodiedob-

jectivity that accommodatesparadoxicaland critical feministscienceprojects:Feministobjectivitymeansquitesimplysituated

knowledges.The eyes have been used to signifya perversecapacity-honedto perfectionin the history of science tied to militarism,capi-talism,colonialism,and male supremacy-to distancethe know-

ing subject from everybody and everythingin the interestsofunfetteredpower. The instruments of visualizationin multina-

tionalist,postmodernistculturehavecompoundedthesemeaningsof disembodiment.The visualizingtechnologiesare without ap-parentlimit.The eye of any ordinaryprimatelike us can be end-

lessly enhanced by sonography systems, magnetic reasonanceimaging, artificialintelligence-linkedgraphic manipulationsys-tems, scanningelectronmicroscopes,computedtomographyscan-

ners, color-enhancementtechniques, satellite surveillancesys-tems, home andofficevideo displayterminals,camerasfor everypurposefromfilmingthe mucousmembraneliningthe gut cavityof a marineworm livingin the vent gaseson a faultbetweencon-tinentalplatesto mappinga planetaryhemisphereelsewherein thesolarsystem.Visioninthistechnologicalfeastbecomesunregulatedgluttony;allseemsnotjust mythicallyaboutthegodtrickof seeingeverythingfromnowhere,but to haveput the myth intoordinarypractice.And like the god trick,this eye fucks the world to maketechno-monsters.Zoe Sofoulis calls this the cannibaleyeof mas-culinistextra-terrestrialprojectsfor excrementalsecondbirthing.



582 Donna Haraway

A tributeto this ideologyof direct,devouring,generative,and

unrestrictedvision, whose technologicalmediationsare simulta-neously celebratedand presentedas utterlytransparent,can befoundin the volumecelebratingthe 100thanniversaryof the Na-tional GeographicSociety.The volume closes its survey of the

magazine's quest literature, effected through its amazingphotography,withtwojuxtaposedchapters.The firstis on "Space,"introduced by the epigraph,"The choice is the universe-or

nothing."8Thischapterrecountsthe exploitsof the spaceraceand

displaysthe color-enhanced"snapshots"of the outer planets re-assembledfromdigitalizedsignalstransmittedacrossvastspacetolet the viewer"experience"the momentof discoveryin immediatevision of the "object."9These fabulousobjectscometo us simulta-

neously as indubitablerecordingsof what is simplythere and asheroic feats of technoscientificproduction.The next chapter,isthe twin of outerspace:"InnerSpace,"introducedby the epigraph,"Thestuffof starshas come alive."10Here,the readeris broughtin-to the realmof the infinitesimal,objectifiedby meansof radiation

outsidethe wave lengthsthat are"normally"perceivedby hominidprimates, that is, the beams of lasers and scanning electron

microscopes,whose signalsareprocessedintothe wonderfulfull-colorsnapshotsof defendingT cells and invadingviruses.

But, of course,that view of infinite vision is an illusion,a godtrick. I would like to suggesthow ourinsistingmetaphoricallyonthe particularityand embodimentof all vision (althoughnot ne-

cessarilyorganicembodimentandincludingtechnologicalmedia-

tion),andnot givingin to the temptingmythsof vision as a routeto disembodimentand second-birthingallows us to construct a

usable, but not an innocent, doctrineof objectivity.I want afeministwritingof the body that metaphoricallyemphasizesvi-sion again,becausewe need to reclaimthatsenseto findourwaythroughall the visualizingtricks and powersof modem sciencesand technologiesthat have transformedthe objectivitydebates.We need to learnin ourbodies,endowedwith primatecolor and

stereoscopicvision,how to attachthe objectiveto ourtheoretical

andpoliticalscannersin orderto name where we areandarenot,in dimensionsof mentalandphysicalspacewe hardlyknow howto name. So, not so perversely,objectivityturnsout to be about

particularand specificembodimentand definitelynot about thefalse visionpromisingtranscendenceof all limits andresponsibili-



Donna Haraway 583

ty. The moralis simple: only partialperspectivepromises objec-tive vision. All Western culturalnarrativesaboutobjectivityareallegoriesof the ideologiesgoverningthe relationsof what we callmind andbody,distanceandresponsibility.Feministobjectivityisabout limited location and situatedknowledge,not abouttrans-cendence and splitting of subject and object. It allows us tobecome answerablefor what we learnhow to see.

These are lessons that I learnedin partwalkingwith my dogsandwonderinghow the worldlookswithout a foveaandveryfew

retinalcells forcolorvisionbutwith a hugeneuralprocessingandsensoryareaforsmells. Itis a lessonavailablefromphotographsofhow the world looks to the compoundeyes of an insect or evenfromthe cameraeye of a spy satelliteor the digitallytransmitted

signals of space probe-perceiveddifferences"near"Jupiterthathave been transformedinto coffee table colorphotographs.The

"eyes"made availablein moderntechnologicalsciencesshatteranyidea of passive vision; these prostheticdevices show us that all

eyes, including our own organic ones, are active perceptualsystems,buildingon translationsand specificwaysof seeing,thatis, ways of life. There is no unmediatedphotographor passivecamera obscurain scientific accounts of bodies and machines;there are only highly specific visual possibilities,each with a

wonderfullydetailed,active,partialway of organizingworlds. Allthese picturesof the world should not be allegoriesof infinite

mobility and interchangeabilitybut of elaboratespecificityanddifferenceand the lovingcarepeople mighttake to learnhow to

see faithfullyfromanother'spointof view, even when the other isour own machine. That'snot alienatingdistance;that'sa possibleallegoryfor feminist versionsof objectivity.Understandinghowthese visual systemswork, technically,socially,and psychically,oughtto be a way of embodyingfeministobjectivity.

Many currents in feminism attempt to theorize grounds for

trustingespeciallythe vantage points of the subjugated;there is

good reason to believe vision is better from below the brilliantspace platformsof the powerful."Buildingon thatsuspicion,this

essay is an argumentfor situatedand embodiedknowledgesandan argumentagainstvariousformsof unlocatable,and so irrespon-sible, knowledgeclaims.Irresponsiblemeansunableto be called

into account. There is a premiumon establishingthe capacitytosee fromthe peripheriesand the depths.But here there also lies a



584 Donna Haraway

seriousdangerof romanticizingand/orappropriatingthe visionof

the lesspowerfulwhile claimingto see fromtheirpositions.Toseefrom below is neithereasily learnednor unproblematic,even if

"we""naturally"inhabit the great undergroundterrainof sub-

jugatedknowledges.Thepositioningsof the subjugatedarenotex-

empt from criticalreexamination,decoding,deconstruction,and

interpretation;that is, from both semiologicaland hermeneuticmodes of criticalinquiry.The standpointsof the subjugatedarenot "innocent"positions. On the contrary, they are preferredbecause in

principletheyare least

likelyto allow denial of the

criticaland interpretivecore of all knowledge.They are knowl-

edgeableof modes of denial through repression,forgetting,and

disappearingacts-ways of beingnowhere while claimingto see

comprehensively.The subjugatedhave a decentchanceto be on

to the godtrickandall its dazzling-and,therefore,blinding-illu-minations."Subjugated"standpointsare preferredbecause theyseem to promisemore adequate,sustained,objective,transform-

ingaccountsof theworld.Buthowto see frombelow is a problem

requiringat least as much skill withbodiesandlanguage,with themediationsof vision, as the "highest'technoscientificvisualiza-tions.

Suchpreferredpositioningis as hostiletovariousformsof relati-vism as to the mostexplicitlytotalizingversionsof claimsto scien-tific authority.Butthe alternativeto relativismis not totalizationand singlevision,which is always finallythe unmarkedcategorywhose power depends on systematic narrowingand obscuring.The alternativeto relativismis

partial,locatable,critical knowl-

edges sustainingthe possibilityof webs of connections called

solidarityin politics and shared conversationsin epistemology.Relativismis a way of beingnowhere while claimingto be every-where equally.The "equality"of positioningis a denialof respon-sibilityandcriticalinquiry.Relativismis theperfectmirrortwinoftotalizationin the ideologiesof objectivity;bothdenythe stakesin

location, embodiment,and partialperspective;both make it im-

possible to see well. Relativismand totalizationare both "god

tricks"promisingvision from everywhereand nowhere equallyandfully, commonmythsin rhetoricssurroundingScience.Butitis preciselyin the politicsandepistemologyof partialperspectivesthat the possibilityof sustained,rational,objectiveinquiryrests.

So,withmanyotherfeminists,I want to arguefor a doctrineand



Donna Haraway 585

practiceof objectivitythatprivilegescontestation,deconstruction,

passionateconstruction,webbedconnections,andhope fortrans-formationof systems of knowledgeand ways of seeing. But not

just any partialperspectivewilldo;we must be hostileto easyrela-tivisms and holisms built out of summingand subsumingparts."Passionatedetachment"12requiresmorethan acknowledgedandself-criticalpartiality.We arealso boundto seekperspectivefromthosepointsof view, which canneverbe knownin advance,that

promisesomethingquite extraordinary,thatis, knowledgepotentfor

constructingworlds less

organizedbyaxes of domination.

Fromsuch a viewpoint,the unmarkedcategorywould reallydis-

appear-quite a differencefrom simply repeatinga disappearingact. The imaginaryand the rational-the visionaryand objectivevision- hover closetogether.I thinkHarding'spleafor a successorscience and forpostmodernsensibilitiesmust be readas an argu-ment for the idea that the fantasticelementof hope for transfor-mativeknowledgeand the severe checkand stimulusof sustainedcriticalinquiryarejointly the groundof any believableclaimto

objectivityorrationalitynot riddledwith breathtakingdenialsandrepressions.It is even possible to read the recordof scientificrevolutionsin termsof thisfeministdoctrineof rationalityandob-

jectivity.Sciencehas been utopianand visionaryfromthe start;that is one reason"we"need it.

A commitmentto mobilepositioningand to passionatedetach-ment is dependenton the impossibilityof entertaininginnocent

"identity"politicsand epistemologiesas strategiesfor seeingfromthe

standpointsof the

subjugatedin orderto see well. One cannot

"be"either a cell or molecule-or a woman, colonizedperson,laborer,and so on-if one intends to see and see fromthese posi-tions critically."Being"is much moreproblematicandcontingent.Also, one cannotrelocatein any possiblevantagepoint without

beingaccountableforthatmovement.Visionis alwaysa questionof the power to see-and perhapsof the violence implicitin our

visualizingpractices.With whose blood were my eyes crafted?Thesepointsalsoapplyto testimonyfromthepositionof "oneself."

We are not immediatelypresentto ourselves.Self-knowledgere-quiresa semiotic-materialtechnologyto linkmeaningsandbodies.

Self-identityis a bad visualsystem.Fusionis abadstrategyofposi-tioning.The boys in the human sciences have called this doubtaboutself-presencethe "deathof the subject"defined as a single



586 Donna Haraway

orderingpoint of will and consciousness. Thatjudgmentseems

bizarreto me. I preferto call this doubt the openingof noniso-morphic subjects,agents,and territoriesof storiesunimaginablefromthe vantagepoint of the cyclopean,self-satiatedeye of themaster subject. The Western eye has fundamentallybeen a

wanderingeye, a travelinglens. Theseperegrinationshave oftenbeen violent and insistent on having mirrorsfor a conqueringself-but not always.Westernfeministsalso inheritsome skill in

learningto participatein revisualizingworlds turnedupsidedown

in earth-transformingchallengesto the views of the masters.Allisnot to be done fromscratch.The splitand contradictoryself is the one who can interrogate

positioningsand be accountable,the one who can constructand

join rationalconversationsand fantasticimaginingsthat changehistory.13Splitting,not being,is the privilegedimagefor feminist

epistemologiesof scientificknowledge. "Splitting"in this contextshould be about heterogeneous multiplicitiesthat are simulta-

neously salientand incapableof being squashedinto isomorphic

slotsorcumulativelists. Thisgeometrypertainswithinandamongsubjects.Subjectivityis multidimensional;so, therefore,is vision.Theknowingself is partialin all its guises,neverfinished, whole,

simplythereandoriginal;it is alwaysconstructedand stitchedto-

gether imperfectly,and thereforeable to join with another,to see

togetherwithoutclaimingto be another.Here is thepromiseof ob-

jectivity:a scientificknower seeks the subjectposition, not of

identity,but of objectivity,thatis, partialconnection.Thereis no

way to "be"simultaneouslyin

all,or

whollyin

any,of the

privi-leged (i.e., subjugated)positionsstructuredby gender,race, na-

tion, and class. And that is a short list of criticalpositions.Thesearch for such a "full"and total position is the search for thefetishizedperfect subjectof oppositionalhistory,sometimesap-pearing in feminist theory as the essentializedThird World

Woman.14Subjugationis not groundsfor an ontology;it mightbea visual clue. Visionrequiresinstrumentsof vision;an opticsis a

politicsof positioning.Instrumentsof vision mediatestandpoints;

there is no immediate vision from the standpointsof the sub-jugated.Identity,includingself-identity,doesnotproducescience;criticalpositioningdoes,thatis, objectivity.Onlythoseoccupyingthe positions of the dominators are self-identical, unmarked,disembodied,unmediated,transcendent,born again.It is unfor-



Donna Haraway 587

tunatelypossibleforthe subjugatedto lust for and even scramble

into that subject position-and then disappear from view.Knowledgefromthe pointof view of the unmarkedis trulyfan-

tastic,distorted,and irrational.The only positionfromwhich ob-

jectivitycouldnot possiblybe practicedandhonoredis the stand-

pointof the master,the Man,the One God,whose Eye produces,appropriates,and ordersall difference.No one ever accusedtheGod of monotheismof objectivity,only of indifference.The godtrick is self-identical,and we havemistakenthatforcreativityand

knowledge,omniscience even.Positioningis, therefore,the key practicein groundingknowl-

edge organizedaroundthe imageryof vision, and much Westernscientificandphilosophicdiscourseis organizedin thisway. Posi-

tioningimplies responsibilityfor ourenablingpractices.It followsthatpoliticsandethicsgroundstrugglesfor andcontestsover what

maycount as rationalknowledge.Thatis, admittedornot,politicsand ethicsgroundstrugglesover knowledgeprojectsin the exact,natural, social, and human sciences. Otherwise, rationalityis

simply impossible, an optical illusion projectedfrom nowherecomprehensively.Historiesof science may be powerfullytold ashistoriesof the technologies.These technologiesareways of life,social orders,practicesof visualization.Technologiesare skilled

practices.How to see?Whereto see from?Whatlimitsto vision?What to see for?Whom to see with? Whogetsto have more thanone pointof view?Who gets blinded?Who wearsblinders?Who

interpretsthevisual field?Whatothersensorypowersdo we wishto cultivate

besidesvision?

Moralandpoliticaldiscourseshouldbetheparadigmforrationaldiscourseabouttheimageryandtechnol-

ogiesof vision.SandraHarding'sclaim,orobservation,thatmove-mentsof socialrevolutionhave mostcontributedto improvementsin science mightbe readas a claim aboutthe knowledgeconse-

quences of new technologiesof positioning.But I wish Hardinghad spent more time rememberingthat social and scientificrevolutions have not always been liberatory,even if they have

always been visionary. Perhapsthis point could be capturedin

anotherphrase:the sciencequestioninthemilitary.Strugglesoverwhat will count as rationalaccounts of the world are strugglesover how to see. The terms of vision: the science question incolonialism,the science question in exterminism,s'5the sciencequestionin feminism.



588 DonnaHaraway

The issue in politicallyengagedattackson variousempiricisms,reductionisms,or otherversionsof scientificauthorityshould notbe relativism-but location. A dichotomouschartexpressingthis

point mightlook like this:

universalrationalitycommonlanguagenew organonunifiedfield theoryworldsystemmastertheory

ethnophilosophiesheteroglossiadeconstruction

oppositionalpositioninglocalknowledgeswebbed accounts

But a dichotomouschartmisrepresentsin a criticalway the posi-tions of embodiedobjectivitythat I am tryingto sketch. Thepri-mary distortion is the illusion of symmetry in the chart'sdi-

chotomy, making any position appear,first, simply alternative

and, second, mutuallyexclusive.A map of tensionsand reason-ancesbetweenthe fixed endsof a chargeddichotomybetterrepre-sents the potent politicsand epistemologiesof embodied,there-

foreaccountable,objectivity.Forexample,localknowledgeshavealso to be in tension with the productivestructuringsthat force

unequal translationsand exchanges - materialand semiotic - with-in the webs of knowledgeandpower.Webscan have thepropertyof being systematic, even of being centrally structuredglobalsystems with deep filaments and tenacious tendrils into time,

space, and consciousness,which are the dimensions of world

history. Feministaccountabilityrequiresa knowledgetuned to

reasonance,not to dichotomy.Genderis a field of structuredandstructuringdifference,in which the tones of extremelocalization,of the intimatelypersonalandindividualizedbody,vibratein thesame field with global high-tensionemissions. Feminist embodi-

ment, then, is not aboutfixedlocationin a reifiedbody,femaleor

otherwise,but about nodes in fields, inflectionsin orientations,and responsibilityfor difference in material-semioticfields of

meaning.Embodimentis significantprosthesis;objectivitycannotbe about fixed vision when what counts as an objectis precisely

what worldhistoryturnsout to be about.How shouldonebe positionedin orderto see, in this situationof

tensions, reasonances, transformations,resistances, and com-

plicities?Here,primatevision is not immediatelya very powerfulmetaphorortechnologyfor feministpolitical-epistemologicalclari-



Donna Haraway 589

fication,becauseit seemstopresent

to consciousnessalreadypro-cessed and objectifiedfields;things seem alreadyfixed and dis-

tanced. But the visualmetaphorallows one to gobeyondfixedap-pearances,which areonlythe endproducts.Themetaphorinvitesus to investigatethe variedapparatusesof visual production,in-

cludingthe prosthetictechnologiesinterfacedwith our biologicaleyes and brains.And here we find highlyparticularmachineriesfor processing regionsof the electromagneticspectruminto our

picturesof the world.It is in the intricaciesof these visualization

technologiesin which we are embeddedthat we will find meta-phors and means for understandingand interveningin the pat-ternsof objectificationin the world-that is, thepatternsof realityfor which we must be accountable.In these metaphors,we findmeans for appreciatingsimultaneouslyboth the concrete,"real"

aspectand the aspectof semiosisandproductionin whatwe callscientificknowledge.

I amarguingforpoliticsandepistemologiesof location,position-ing, andsituating,wherepartialityand notuniversalityis the con-

dition of being heardto make rationalknowledgeclaims.Theseareclaimson people'slives. I amarguingfor theview from abody,always a complex, contradictory,structuring,and structured

body, versus the view from above, from nowhere, from simpli-city. Only the god trick is forbidden. Here is a criterion for

decidingthe science questionin militarism,that dreamscience/technology of perfect language, perfect communication,finalorder.

Feminismloves anotherscience:the sciences andpoliticsof in-terpretation,translation,stuttering,and the partly understood.Feminismis about the sciences of the multiplesubjectwith (atleast)doublevision.Feminismis abouta criticalvisionconsequentupon a criticalpositioningin unhomogeneousgenderedsocial

space.16Translationis always interpretive,critical,and partial.Here is a ground for conversation, rationality, and objec-tivity- which is power-sensitive,not pluralist,"conversation."It isnot even the mythiccartoonsof physicsandmathematics- incor-

rectly caricaturedin antiscienceideologyas exact, hypersimpleknowledges-that have come to representthehostileotherto fem-inistparadigmaticmodels of scientificknowledge,but the dreamsof the perfectlyknown in high-technology,permanentlymilitar-izedscientificproductionsandpositionings,the godtrickof a Star



590 Donna Haraway

Warsparadigmof rationalknowledge.So location is aboutvul-

nerability;locationresiststhepoliticsof closure,finality,orto bor-row fromAlthusser,feministobjectivityresists"simplificationinthe lastinstance."That is because feministembodimentresistsfix-ation and is insatiablycuriousaboutthe webs of differentialposi-tioning.Thereis no singlefeministstandpointbecauseour mapsrequiretoo manydimensionsforthatmetaphorto groundourvi-sions. But the feminist standpoint theorists' goal of an

epistemologyand politicsof engaged,accountablepositioningre-

mainseminentlypotent.The goalis better accountsof the world,that is, "science."Above all, rationalknowledgedoes not pretendto disengage-

ment:to be fromeverywhereandso nowhere,to be freefrom in-

terpretation,frombeing represented,to by fully self-containedor

fully formalizable.Rationalknowledgeis a processof ongoingcri-ticalinterpretationamong"fields"of interpretersanddecoders.Ra-tionalknowledgeis power-sensitiveconversation.7Decodingand

transcodingplus translationand criticism;all are necessary.So

science becomes the paradigmaticmodel, not of closure,but ofthat which is contestableand contested. Science becomes the

myth, not of what escapeshumanagencyand responsibilityin arealm above the fray, but, rather,of accountabilityand respon-sibilityfor translationsandsolidaritieslinkingthe cacophonousvi-sions andvisionaryvoices that characterizethe knowledgesof the

subjugated.A splittingof senses, a confusionof voice and sight,ratherthan clearand distinctideas,becomesthe metaphorforthe

ground of the rational.We seek not the knowledgesruled byphallogocentrism(nostalgiafor thepresenceof the onetrueWord)anddisembodiedvision.We seek those ruledby partialsightandlimitedvoice-not partialityfor its own sake but, rather,for thesakeof the connectionsandunexpectedopeningssituatedknowl-

edgesmakepossible.Situatedknowledgesare aboutcommunities,notaboutisolatedindividuals.Theonly way to finda largervisionis to be somewherein particular.The science questionin femi-nism is aboutobjectivityas positionedrationality.Its imagesare

not the productsof escapeand transcendenceof limits(theviewfromabove)butthejoiningofpartialviews andhaltingvoicesintoa collectivesubjectpositionthatpromisesa visionof the meansof

ongoingfiniteembodiment,of livingwithin limitsand contradic-tions-of views from somewhere.



DonnaHaraway 591

OBJECTSAS ACTORS:THE APPARATUSOF BODILY

PRODUCTION

Throughoutthis reflection on "objectivity,"I have refused toresolvethe ambiguitiesbuilt into referringto science withoutdif-

ferentiatingits extraordinaryrangeof contexts.Throughthe insis-tentambiguity,I haveforegroundeda field of commonalitiesbind-

ingexact,physical,natural,social,political,biological,andhumansciences; and I have tied this whole heterogeneousfield of

academically(and industrially,e.g., in publishing,the weapons

trade,and pharmaceuticals)institutionalizedknowledgeproduc-tion to a meaning of science that insists on its potency in

ideologicalstruggles.But,partlyin order to give play to both the

specificitiesand the highlypermeableboundariesof meaningsindiscourse on science, I would like to suggesta resolutionto one

ambiguity.Throughoutthe field of meaningsconstitutingscience,one of the commonalitiesconcerns the status of any object of

knowledgeand of relatedclaims about the faithfulnessof our ac-counts to a "real

world,"no matterhow mediatedfor us and no

matterhow complexandcontradictorytheseworldsmaybe. Fem-inists, and others who have been most active as critics of thesciencesand theirclaimsorassociatedideologies,haveshiedawayfromdoctrinesof scientificobjectivityin partbecauseof the suspi-cion that an "object"of knowledgeis a passiveandinertthing.Ac-counts of such objectscan seem to be eitherappropriationsof afixed and determinedworld reducedto resourcefor instrumen-talistprojectsof destructiveWesternsocieties,orthey canbe seen

as masksfor interests,usuallydominatinginterests.Forexample,"sex"as an objectof biologicalknowledgeappears

regularlyin the guise of biologicaldeterminism,threateningthe

fragilespace for social constructionismand criticaltheory,withtheirattendantpossibilitiesforactiveandtransformativeinterven-tion,which were called intobeingby feministconceptsof genderas socially, historically,and semiotically positioned difference.Andyet, to lose authoritativebiologicalaccountsof sex,which set

up productivetensionswith gender,seems to be to lose toomuch;it seems to be to lose not just analyticpower within a particularWesterntraditionbut also the body itselfas anythingbut a blank

pageforsocialinscriptions,includingthoseofbiologicaldiscourse.The sameproblemof lossattendsthe radical"reduction"of the ob-jects of physics or of any other science to the ephemeraof dis-



592 DonnaHaraway

cursiveproductionand socialconstruction.'8

Butthe difficultyand loss arenot necessary.Theyderivepartlyfromthe analytictradition,deeplyindebtedto Aristotleand to thetransformativehistoryof "WhiteCapitalistPatriarchy"(howmaywe name this scandalousThing?)that turnseverythinginto a re-sourceforappropriation,in which an objectof knowledgeis final-

ly itselfonly matterforthe seminalpower,the act,of the knower.

Here, the objectboth guaranteesand refreshesthe power of the

knower,but any status as agentin the productionsof knowledge

mustbe deniedthe object.It-the world-

must, in short,be objec-tified as a thing,not as an agent;it must be matterfor the self-formationof the only social being in the productionsof knowl-

edge,the humanknower. ZoeSofoulis19identifiedthe structureofthismodeof knowingin technoscienceas "resourcing"- as the sec-ond birthingof Manthroughthe homogenizingof all the world's

body into resourcefor his perverseprojects.Nature is only theraw materialof culture,appropriated,preserved,enslaved, ex-

alted, or otherwise made flexible for disposal by culturein the

logic of capitalistcolonialism.Similarly,sex is only matterto theact of gender;the productionistlogic seems inescapablein tradi-tionsof Westernbinaryoppositions.Thisanalyticalandhistoricalnarrativelogicaccountsformy nervousnessabout the sex/genderdistinctionin the recent history of feminist theory. Sex is "re-sourced"for itsrepresentationasgender,which"we"can control.Ithas seemed all but impossibleto avoid the trapof an appropria-tionistlogicof dominationbuiltintothe nature/cultureoppositionand its

generativelineage, includingthe

sex/genderdistinction.

It seems clear thatfeministaccountsof objectivityandembodi-ment-that is, of a world-of the kind sketched in this essay re-

quire a deceptively simple maneuverwithin inherited Western

analyticaltraditions,a maneuverbegunin dialecticsbut stoppingshort of the needed revisions. Situatedknowledgesrequirethatthe objectof knowledgebe picturedasan actorandagent,notas ascreen or a groundor a resource,never finally as slave to themaster that closes off the dialecticin his unique agency and his

authorshipof "objective"knowledge.Thepointis paradigmaticallyclear in criticalapproachesto the social and human sciences,where the agency of people studieditself transformsthe entire

projectof producingsocialtheory.Indeed,comingto terms withthe agencyof the "objects"studiedis the only way to avoidgross



Donna Haraway 593

errorand falseknowledgeofmanykindsin these sciences.Butthe

same point must apply to the other knowledge projectscalledsciences. A corollaryof the insistence that ethics and politicscovertlyorovertlyprovidethebasesforobjectivityin the sciencesas a heterogeneouswhole, and not just in the social sciences, is

grantingthe statusof agent/actorto the "objects"of the world. Ac-tors come in many and wonderful forms. Accounts of a "real"world do not, then, depend on a logic of "discovery"but on a

power-chargedsocial relationof "conversation."The world neither

speaks itself nor disappearsin favor of a master decoder.Thecodesof the worldarenot still,waitingonlyto be read.The worldis not raw materialfor humanization;the thoroughattackson

humanism, another branch of "deathof the subject"discourse,have made this point quite clear. In some critical sense that is

crudelyhintedatby theclumsy categoryof the socialor ofagency,the world encounteredin knowledge projectsis an activeentity.Insofaras a scientificaccounthas been ableto engagethisdimen-sion of the world as objectof knowledge,faithfulknowledgecan

be imaginedand can make claimson us. But no particulardoc-trine of representationor decoding or discovery guaranteesanything.The approachI am recommendingis not a version of

"realism,"which has proveda ratherpoor way of engagingwiththe world'sactiveagency.

My simple, perhapssimple-minded,maneuveris obviouslynotnew in Westernphilosophy,but it hasa specialfeministedgeto itin relationto the science questionin feminism and to the linked

question of gender as situated difference and the question offemale embodiment.Ecofeministshave perhapsbeen most insis-tent on some versionof theworld asactivesubject,notasresourceto be mapped and appropriatedin bourgeois,Marxist,or mas-culinist projects. Acknowledgingthe agency of the world in

knowledge makes room for some unsettling possibilities, in-

cludinga sense of the world'sindependentsenseof humor.Suchasense of humoris not comfortableforhumanistsand others com-mitted to the world as resource. There are, however, richly

evocativefiguresto promotefeministvisualizationsof theworld aswitty agent.We need not lapse into appealsto a primalmother

resistinghertranslationintoresource.The CoyoteorTrickster,asembodied in Southwest native American accounts, suggests the si-tuationwe arein when we give up masterybutkeep searchingfor



594 Donna Haraway

fidelity,knowingall thewhile that we will be hoodwinked.I think

these are usefulmythsforscientistswho mightbe our allies. Femi-nist objectivitymakesroom for surprisesand ironiesat the heartof all knowledgeproduction;we are not in chargeof the world.Wejust live here and try to strikeup noninnocentconversations

by means of our prostheticdevices, includingour visualization

technologies.No wonder science fiction has been such a rich

writingpracticein recent feminist theory. I like to see feminist

theoryas a reinventedcoyotediscourseobligatedto its sourcesin

many heterogeneousaccountsof the world.Another rich feministpracticein science in the last couple ofdecades illustratesparticularlywell the "activation"of the pre-viouslypassivecategoriesof objectsof knowledge.This activation

permanently problematizes binary distinctions like sex and

gender,without eliminatingtheir strategicutility. I referto thereconstructions in primatology (especially, but not only, in

women'spracticeas primatologists,evolutionarybiologists,andbehavioralecologists)of what may count as sex, especially as

female sex, in scientific accounts.20The body, the object ofbiologicaldiscourse,becomes a most engagingbeing. Claimsof

biologicaldeterminismcan never be the sameagain.Whenfemale

"sex"'has been so thoroughlyretheorizedand revisualizedthat it

emergesas practicallyindistinguishablefrom "mind,"somethingbasic has happenedto the categoriesof biology.The biologicalfemalepeoplingcurrentbiologicalbehavioralaccountshasalmostno passive propertiesleft. She is structuringand active in every

respect;the "body"is an agent, not a resource. Difference istheorizedbiologicallyas situational,not intrinsic,at every levelfrom gene to foragingpattern,therebyfundamentallychangingthe biologicalpoliticsof the body.The relationsbetweensex and

genderneed to be categoricallyreworkedwithin these framesof

knowledge.I would like to suggestthat this trendin explanatorystrategiesin biologyis an allegoryforinterventionsfaithfulto pro-jects of feministobjectivity.The point is not that these new pic-turesof the biologicalfemale are simplytrueor not open to con-

testationand conversation- quitethe opposite.But these picturesforegroundknowledgeas situatedconversationateverylevelof itsarticulation.The boundarybetween animaland humanis one of

the stakes in this allegory,as is the boundarybetween machineand organism.



Donna Haraway 595

SoI will close with a finalcategoryusefulto a feministtheoryof

situatedknowledges:the apparatusof bodily production.In her

analysisof the productionof the poem as an object of literaryvalue,KatieKingofferstoolsthatclarifymattersin the objectivitydebates among feminists. King suggeststhe term "apparatusof

literaryproduction"to referto the emergenceof literatureatthe in-

tersection of art, business, and technology. The apparatusof

literary productionis a matrixfrom which "literature"is born.

Focusingon the potentobjectof value calledthe "poem,"Kingap-

pliesheranalyticframeworkto the relationof womenandwritingtechnologies.21I would like to adapther work to understandingthe generation-the actual production and reproduction-ofbodiesandotherobjectsof value in scientificknowledgeprojects.At firstglance,there is a limitationto using King'sschemeinherentin the "facticity"of biologicaldiscoursethatis absentfromliterarydiscourseand its knowledgeclaims. Are biologicalbodies "pro-duced"or"generated"in the samestrongsenseaspoems?Fromthe

early stirringsof Romanticismin the late eighteenth century,many poets and biologists have believed that poetry and or-ganismsaresiblings.Frankensteinmay be readas a meditationon

this proposition.I continueto believe in this potentpropositionbut in a postmodernandnot a Romanticmanner.I wish to trans-

latethe ideologicaldimensionsof "facticity"and"theorganic"intoa

cumbersomeentity called a "material-semioticactor."This un-

wieldy termis intendedto portraythe objectof knowledgeas an

active,meaning-generatingpartof apparatusof bodilyproduction,

withouteverimplyingthe immediatepresenceof such objectsor,what is the samething,theirfinal oruniquedeterminationofwhatcan count as objectiveknowledgeat a particularhistoricaljunc-ture. Like"poems,"which are sites of literaryproductionwhere

languagetoo is an actor independentof intentions and authors,bodies as objectsof knowledgeare material-semioticgenerativenodes. Their boundariesmaterializein social interaction.Boun-dariesaredrawnby mappingpractices;"objects"do notpreexistassuch. Objectsare boundary projects.But boundariesshift from

within;boundariesarevery tricky.Whatboundariesprovisionallycontainremainsgenerative,productiveof meaningsand bodies.

Siting (sighting)boundariesis a risky practice.Objectivity is not about disengagement but about mutual and

usually unequal structuring, about taking risks in a world where



596 Donna Haraway

"we"arepermanently

mortal,that is, not in "final"control.Wehave, finally,no clear and distinctideas. The variouscontendingbiologicalbodiesemergeat the intersectionof biologicalresearchandwriting,medicalandotherbusinesspractices,andtechnology,suchas thevisualizationtechnologiesenlistedas metaphorsin this

essay. But also invited into that node of intersection is the

analogueto the lively languagesthatactivelyintertwinein thepro-ductionof literaryvalue:the coyoteandtheproteanembodimentsof the worldaswittyagentandactor.Perhapsthe worldresistsbe-

ing reducedto mere resourcebecause it is-not mother/matter/mutter-but coyote,a figureof the alwaysproblematic,alwayspo-tent tiebetweenmeaningandbodies. Feministembodiment,femi-nisthopesforpartiality,objectivity,andsituatedknowledges,turnon conversationsandcodes at thispotentnodein fieldsof possiblebodies and meanings.Hereis where science,sciencefantasyandscience fiction convergein the objectivityquestionin feminism.

Perhapsour hopes for accountability,for politics, for ecofemi-

nism,turn on revisioningthe world as codingtricksterwith whom

we must learnto converse.

NOTES

This essay originatedas a commentaryon SandraHarding'sTheScienceQuestionin

Feminism,at the WesternDivisionmeetingsof the AmericanPhilosophicalAssociation,San Francisco,March 1987. Supportduringthe writingof this paperwas generouslyprovided by the Alpha Fund of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton,New

Jersey. Thanksespecially to Joan Scott,Judy Butler,LilaAbu-Lughod,and DorinneKondo.

1. For example,see KarinKnorr-Cetinaand MichaelMulkay,eds., ScienceObserved:

Perspectiveson the Social Studyof Science (London: Sage, 1983); Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas

P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch, eds., The Social Construction of Technological Systems

(Cambridge:MITPress,1987);andesp. BrunoLatour'sLesmicrobes,guerreetpaix,suivide irrdductions(Paris: M6tailid, 1984) and The Pastuerization of France, Followed by Ir-

reductions:A Politico-ScientificEssay (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988). Bor-

rowingfrom Michel Tournier'sVendredi(Paris:Gallimard,1967),Lesmicrobes(p. 171),Latour'sbrilliantand maddeningaphoristicpolemic againstall formsof reductionism,makes the essential

pointfor feminists:

"M6fiez-vousde la

puret6;c'est le vitriol de

l'ame"(Bewareof purity;it is the vitriol of the soul). Latouris not otherwisea notablefeminist theorist,but he mightbe made into one by readingsas perverseas those hemakes of the laboratory,thatgreatmachineformakingsignificantmistakesfasterthan

anyoneelse can, and so gainingworld-changingpower.ThelaboratoryforLatouris therailroadindustryof epistemology,where facts can only be made to run on the trackslaid down from the laboratoryout. Those who control the railroadscontrolthe sur-



Donna Haraway 597

roundingterritory.How could we have forgotten?But now it'snot so much the bank-

ruptrailroadswe need as the satellitenetwork.Factsrun on light beamsthese days.2. Foranelegantandveryhelpfulelucidationof a noncartoonversionof thisargument,see Hayden White, The Content of the Form:Narrative Discourse and Historical Represen-tation(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). I still want more;and un-fulfilled desire can be a powerfulseed for changingthe stories.3. In "Throughthe Lumen:Frankensteinand the Opticsof Re-Origination"(Ph.D.diss.

Universityof Californiaat SantaCruz,1988),ZoeSofoulishas produceda dazzling(shewill forgiveme the metaphor)theoreticaltreatmentof technoscience,the psychoanaly-sis of science fiction culture, and the metaphoricsof extraterrestrialism,includingawonderfulfocus on the ideologiesandphilosophiesof light,illumination,anddiscoveryin Westernmythicsof science andtechnology. My essay was revisedin dialoguewith

Sofoulis'sargumentsand metaphorsin

her dissertation.4. Nancy Hartsock, Money, Sex, and Power: An Essay on Domination and Community

(Boston:NortheasternUniversityPress, 1984).5. Crucial to this discussion are SandraHarding,TheScienceQuestionin Feminism

(Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress, 1987);EvelynFox Keller,Reflectionson GenderandScience(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984);Nancy Hartsock,"TheFeminist

Standpoint:Developingthe Groundfor a SpecificallyFeministHistoricalMaterialism,"in Discovering Reality:Feminist Perspectiveson Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Philosophyof Science,eds. SandraHardingand Merrill B. Hintikka(Dordrecht,The Netherlands:Reidel, 1983): 283-310; Jane Flax's "PoliticalPhilosophy and the PatriarchalUn-conscious,"inDiscoveringReality,245-81;and"PostmodernismandGenderRelationsinFeministTheory,"Signs 12 (Summer 1987):621-43;Evelyn Fox Kellerand ChristineGrontkowski,"TheMind'sEye,"in DiscoveringReality,207-24;HilaryRose,"Women'sWork, Women's Knowledge," in What Is Feminism? A Re-Examination, eds. Juliet Mit-chell and Ann Oakley (New York: Pantheon, 1986), 161-83; Donna Haraway, "AManifesto for Cyborgs:Science, Technology, and SocialistFeminismin the 1980s,"SocialistReview,no. 80 (March-April1985):65-107;and Rosalind PollackPetchesky,"FetalImages:The Power of Visual Culturein the Politicsof Reproduction,"FeministStudies13 (Summer1987):263-92.

Aspectsof the debates aboutmodernismandpostmodernismaffectfeministanalysesof the problemof "objectivity."Mappingthe fault line between modernismand post-modernism in ethnography and anthropology-in which the high stakes are theauthorizationor prohibitionto craftcomparativeknowledgeacross"cultures"-Marilyn

Strathernmade the crucialobservationthat it is not the written ethnographythat isparallelto the work of artas object-of-knowledge,but the culture.The Romanticandmodernistnatural-technicalobjectsof knowledge,in science andin otherculturalprac-tice, stand on one side of this divide. The postmodernistformationstandson the otherside, with its "anti-aesthetic"of permanentlysplit, problematized,alwaysrecedinganddeferred "objects"of knowledge and practice, including signs, organisms, systems,selves, and cultures. "Objectivity"in a postmodernframework cannot be about un-

problematicobjects;it mustbe aboutspecific prosthesisandalways partialtranslations.At root, objectivityis about craftingcomparativeknowledge:How may a communityname things to be stable and to be like each other? In postmodernism,this querytranslates into a question of the politics of redrawingof boundariesin orderto have

non-innocentconversations and connections. What is at stake in the debates aboutmodernism and postmodernismis the pattern of relationshipsbetween and withinbodies and language.This is a crucial matterforfeminists. See MarilynStrathern,"Outof Context:The Persuasive Fictions of Anthropology,"CurrentAnthropology28 (June1987):251-81, and "PartialConnections,"Munro Lecture,University of Edinburgh,November 1987,unpublishedmanuscript.6. Harding,24-26, 161-62.



598 Donna Haraway

7. John Varley'sscience fiction short story, "ThePersistenceof Vision,"in ThePer-

sistenceof Vision(New York:Dell, 1978),263-316,is partof the inspirationfor this sec-tion. In the story, Varleyconstructsa utopian communitydesignedand built by the

deaf-blind.He then exploresthese people'stechnologiesand other mediationsof com-

municationand their relationsto sighted children and visitors. In the story, "Blue

Champagne,"in BlueChampagne(NewYork:Berkeley,1986),17-79,Varleytransmutesthe theme to interrogatethe politicsof intimacyandtechnologyfora paraplegicyoungwoman whose prosthetic device, the golden gypsy, allows her full mobility. But

because the infinitely costly device is owned by an intergalacticcommunicationsand

entertainmentempire,for which she works as a mediastarmaking"feelies,"she may

keephertechnological,intimate,enabling,other self only in exchangeforhercomplici-

ty in the commodificationof all experience.Whatare her limitsto the reinventionof ex-

perienceforsale?Isthe personalpoliticalunderthe signof simulation?Oneway to readVarley's repeated investigationsof finally always limited embodiments,differentlyabled beings, prosthetictechnologies,and cyborgianencounterswith their finitude,

despitetheir extraordinarytranscendenceof "organic"orders,is to find an allegoryfor

the personalandpoliticalin the historicalmythictimeof the latetwentiethcentury,the

eraof techno-biopolitics.Prosthesisbecomesa fundamentalcategoryforunderstandingour most intimateselves. Prosthesisis semiosis, the makingof meaningsand bodies,not for transcendence,but for power-chargedcommunication.

8. C.D.B Bryan, The National GeographicSociety: 100 Years of Adventureand Discovery

(New York:HarryN. Abrams,1987),352.9. I owe my understandingof the experienceof these photographsto Jim Clifford,

University of Californiaat SantaCruz,who identifiedtheir "landho!"effect on the

reader.10. Bryan,454.

11. See Hartsock,"TheFeministStandpoint:Developingthe Groundfor a SpecificallyFeministHistoricalMaterialism";andChelaSandoral,YoursinStruggle:WomenRespondto Racism(Oakland:Centerfor ThirdWorldOrganizing,n.d.);Harding;and GloriaAn-

zaldua,Borderlands/LaFrontera(SanFrancisco:Spinsters/AuntLute, 1987).12. Annette Kuhn, Women's Pictures: Feminism and Cinema (London: Routledge &

KeganPaul, 1982),3-18.13. JoanScottremindedme that Teresade Lauretisput it like this:Differencesamongwomenmaybebetterunderstoodas differenceswithinwomen

....Butonce

understoodin their constitutivepower-once it is understood,thatis, thatthesedifferencesnotonly

constituteeachwoman'sconsciousnessandsubjectivelimits butalltogetherdefinethefemalesubjectof feminismin itsvery specificity,is inherentand at leastfor now irreconcilablecontradiction-these

differences,then, cannot be again collapsedinto a fixed identity, a samenessof all women as

Woman,or a representationof Feminismas a coherentand availableimage.

See Theresa de Lauretis, "Feminist Studies/Critical Studies: Issues, Terms, and Con-

texts," in her Feminist Studies/Critical Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1986), 14-15.14. ChandraMohanty,"UnderWesternEyes,"Boundary2 and 3 (1984):333-58.

15. See Sofoulis, unpublished manuscript.16. In TheScienceQuestioninFeminism(p. 18), Hardingsuggeststhatgenderhas three

dimensions,each historicallyspecific:gendersymbolism,the social-sexualdivisionof

labor,and

processesof

constructingindividual

genderedidentity.I would

enlargeher

pointto note thatthereis no reasonto expectthe three dimensionsto covaryorcodeter-mine each other,at least not directly.Thatis, extremelysteep gradientsbetween con-

trastingtermsin gendersymbolismmay verywell not correlatewithsharpsocial-sexualdivisions of labor or social power, but they may be closely related to sharp racial

stratificationor somethingelse. Similarly,the processesof genderedsubjectformation

may not be directlyilluminatedby knowledge of the sexual division of labor or the



Donna Haraway 599

gendersymbolismin the particularhistoricalsituationunderexamination.On the other

hand, we should expect mediatedrelationsamong the dimensions. The mediationsmightmove through quite differentsocial axes of organizationof both symbols, prac-tice, and identity, such as race-and vice versa. I would suggestalso that science, aswell as genderor race, mightbe usefully brokenup into such a multipartscheme of

symbolism,social practice,and subjectposition. Morethan three dimensionssuggestthemselves when the parallelsare drawn. The differentdimensionsof, for example,gender,raceandsciencemightmediaterelationsamongdimensionson a parallelchart.Thatis, racialdivisionsof labormightmediatethepatternsof connectionbetweensym-bolicconnectionsandformationof individualsubjectpositionson the scienceorgenderchart. Orformationsof genderedor racialsubjectivitymightmediatethe relationsbe-tween scientificsocial divisionof labor and scientificsymbolic patterns.

The chart below begins an analysis by parallel dissections. In the chart (and inreality?),bothgenderand science areanalyticallyasymmetrical;thatis, each termcon-tains and obscures a structuringhierarchicalizedbinary opposition, sex/genderandnature/science. Eachbinary oppositionordersthe silent termby a logic of appropria-tion, as resourceto product,natureto culture,potentialto actual. Bothpoles of the op-positionare constructedand structureeach otherdialectically.Withineach voiced or

explicit term, further asymmetrical splittings can be excavated, as from gender,masculineto feminine,andfromscience, hardsciencesto soft sciences. This is a pointaboutrememberinghow a particularanalyticaltool works,willy-nilly,intendedor not.The chartreflectscommonideologicalaspectsof discourse on science andgenderand

may help as an analyticaltool to crackopen mystifiedunits like Scienceor Woman.

GENDER SCIENCE1) symbolic system symbolic system

2) social division of labor social division of labor

(by sex, by race, etc.) (e.g., by craft or industriallogics)

3) individualidentity/subjectposition individualidentity/subjectposition(desiring/desired;autonomousrelational)(knower/known;scientist/other)

4) materialculture materialculture

(e.g., gender paraphernaliaand daily (e.g., laboratories,the narrowtrackson

gender technologies,the narrowtracks which facts run)on which sexual differenceruns)

5) dialecticof constructionand discovery dialecticof constructionand discovery

17. KatieKing,"Canonswithout Innocence"(Ph.D. diss., Universityof CaliforniaatSantaCruz,1987).18. EvelynFoxKeller,in "TheGender/ScienceSystem:Or,Is Sexto GenderAs NatureIs to Science?"(Hypatia2 [Fall1987]:37-49),has insisted on the importantpossibilitiesopened up by the constructionof the intersectionof the distinction between sex and

gender,on the one hand, and nature and science, on the other.Shealso insists on theneed to hold to some nondiscursivegroundingin "sex"and"nature,"perhapswhat I am

callingthe "body"and "world."19. See Sofoulis,chap. 3.20. Donna Haraway, Primate Visions:Gender, Race, and Nature in the Worldof ModemScience

(NewYork:

Routledge&

KeganPaul),forthcomingSpring1989.

21. KatieKing,prospectusfor "ThePassingDreamsof Choice ... Once BeforeandAfter: Audre Lorde and the Apparatusof LiteraryProduction"(MS, University of

Maryland,CollegePark,Maryland,1987).

Donna Haraway Situated KnowLedges

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