Situated Knowledges - Feminism and Partial Perspective - Haraway

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

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SITUATEDKNOWLEDGES:THESCIENCEQUESTION N FEMINISM

AND THEPRIVILEGEOF PARTIAL

PERSPECTIVE

DONNAHARAWAY

Academicand activist feminist inquiry has repeatedlytried to

come to termswith the questionof what we mightmean by the

curiousand inescapable erm"objectivity." e have used a lot of

toxic ink and treesprocessed nto paperdecryingwhat theyhave

meantandhow it hurtsus.The imagined"they"onstitutea kind

of invisibleconspiracyof masculinistscientistsand philosophers

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

pointofview, and so aninevitablydisqualifying ndpollutingbias

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

readerscomposedmostly of sciencehaters.At least, I confess to

theseparanoid antasiesandacademicresentmentsurkingunder-

neath some convolutedreflections n printundermy namein the

feministliterature n the historyand philosophyof science.We,

the feminists n the debatesaboutscienceandtechnology,aretheReagan era's "special-interestroups" n the rarified realm of

epistemology,wheretraditionallywhatcan countas knowledge s

policed by philosophers odifyingcognitivecanonlaw. Of course,a special-interestroup s, by Reaganoiddefinition,any collectivehistorical ubject hat daresto resistthe stripped-down tomismof

Star Wars, hypermarket,postmodern,media-simulatedcitizen-

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

everything n the greatcommunicator'smpireof the GlobalNet-

work.No wonderMaxgetsto have a naive sense of humoranda

kind of happilyregressive,preoedipalsexuality,a sexualitythat

Feminist tudies14, no. 3 (Fall1988).? 1988by FeministStudies,Inc.

575



576 Donna Haraway

we ambivalentlywith dangerousncorrectness hadimagined o

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 speculation hatthere is a collectivediscourseon these matters. Recentsocial studiesof science and

technology, orexample,have madeavailablea very strongsocialconstructionist rgument orall formsof knowledgeclaims,most

certainlyandespeciallyscientificones.' Accordingo thesetempt-ingviews, no insider'sperspective s privileged,because all draw-

ings of inside-outsideboundaries n knowledgeare theorizedas

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

parablesaboutobjectivityand scientificmethod to students n thefirstyearsof theirinitiation,but no practitioner f the highscien-tific artswould be caughtdead actingon the textbookversions.Socialconstructionistsmake clearthatofficial deologiesaboutob-

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

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

objectivity-enshrined n elementaryextbooksandtechnosciencebooster iterature-arenonscientists,ncludinga few very trustingphilosophers.Of course,my designationof this lastgroup s prob-ably just a reflectionof a residualdisciplinarychauvinismac-

quired romidentifyingwithhistoriansof scienceand fromspend-ingtoo much timewith a microscope n earlyadulthood n 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

signifiers n 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 effectively y practicing hesciences.From hispointof view, science the realgamein townis rhetoric,a seriesof efforts o persuaderelevantsocialactors hat

one'smanufactured nowledge s a routeto a desired ormof very

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

powerfulart of rhetoric.Practice s persuasion,and the focus is

very much on practice.All knowledgeis a condensednode in an

agonisticpower field. The strong programin the sociology of

knowledge oins with the lovely andnastytoolsof semiologyanddeconstruction o insiston the rhetoricalnatureof truth, ncludingscientifictruth.History s a storyWesternculture buffs tell each

other;science is a contestable ext anda powerfield;the content sthe 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 desperate urchaway 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 particular ersionof

postmodernism, oupledwith theacidtoolsof criticaldiscourse nthe humansciences,the more nervousI get.Theimageryof force

fields, of moves in a fully textualizedand coded world,which isthe working metaphor n many argumentsaboutsociallynegoti-atedrealityforthe postmodern ubject, s, just forstarters,an im-

ageryof high-techmilitaryfields, of automatedacademic battle-fields,whereblipsof lightcalledplayersdisintegratewhata meta-

phor!)each other in orderto stay in the knowledgeand powergame.Technoscienceand science fictioncollapseinto the sun oftheirradiant ir)reality-war.3t shouldn'take decadesof feminist



578 DonnaHaraway

theoryto sensetheenemyhere.NancyHartsock otallthiscrystalclearin her conceptof abstractmasculinity.4

I, and others,startedout wantinga strongtool fordeconstruct-

ing the truthclaimsof hostilescienceby showingthe radicalhis-toricalspecificity,and so contestability, f everyayerof the onionof scientificandtechnological onstructions, nd 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-tionistargument hat left no cracksforreducing he issuesto biasversus objectivity,use versus misuse, science versus pseudo-science. We unmaskedthe doctrinesof objectivitybecausetheythreatenedour buddingsense of collective historicalsubjectivityandagencyand our "embodied"ccountsof 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'reust textsanyway,solet the boys have them back.

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

sembling imesby holdingoutfora feministversionof objectivity.Here,motivatedby manyof the samepoliticaldesires, s the otherseductive end of the objectivityproblem.Humanistic Marxism

was polluted at the source by its structuring heory about thedominationof naturein the self-construction f man and by its

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

promisingresource as a kind of epistemologicaleministmental

hygienethatsoughtour own doctrinesof objectivevision. Marxist

startingpointsoffereda way to get to our own versionsof stand-

pointtheories, nsistentembodiment,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 thananything rom the pen of MarxorEngels,much less Althusseroranyof the latepretenderso son-



DonnaHaraway 579

ship treating he subjectof ideologyand science.5

Anotherapproach,"feministempiricism," lso convergeswithfeminist uses of Marxianresourcesto get a theory of sciencewhichcontinues o insiston legitimatemeaningsof objectivityandwhich remainsleery of a radicalconstructivism onjugatedwith

semiologyandnarratology.6eministshaveto insistona betterac-countof the world; t is notenoughto show radicalhistorical on-

tingencyand modes of construction or everything.Here, we, as

feminists,find ourselvesperverselyconjoinedwith the discourse

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

of all theirconstructingand arguing.EvelynFox Kellerhas been

particularlynsistenton thisfundamentalmatter,andSandraHar-

dingcalls the goalof theseapproaches "successor cience."Femi-nists have stakesin a successor scienceproject hat offers a more

adequate,richer,betteraccount of a world, in orderto live in itwell andin critical,reflexiverelation o 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"roblem, s how to havesimul-

taneouslyan account of radical historical contingency for all

knowledge claims and knowing subjects,a criticalpracticefor

recognizing ur own "semioticechnologies"ormakingmeanings,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,modestmeaning n suffering,and limitedhappiness.Har-

ding calls this necessarymultipledesire a need for a successorscience projectand a postmodern nsistence on irreducibledif-ference and radicalmultiplicityof local knowledges.All compo-nents of the desire areparadoxical nddangerous,and their com-bination s bothcontradictoryndnecessary.Feministsdon'tneeda doctrineof objectivity hatpromisestranscendence,a storythat

loses track of its mediations ust where someone mightbe heldresponsible orsomething,andunlimited nstrumental ower.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,onvertibility,mobilityof meanings,anduniversality-which I callreductionism nlywhen one language guesswhose?)must be enforcedas the standard or all the translations nd 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 identified n some versionsof objectivity, hose in the service of hierarchicaland positivistorderingsof what can count as knowledge.That is one of the

reasons the debates aboutobjectivitymatter,metaphorically ndotherwise.Immortality ndomnipotencearenotourgoals.Butwecoulduse someenforceable, eliableaccountsof thingsnotreduci-ble to powermoves andagonistic,high-status amesof 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 slipperyambiguities f the

words"objectivity"nd"science"s we slidearound he discursiveterrain. n ourefforts o climbthe greasedpole leading o a usabledoctrineof objectivity, andmostotherfeminists n theobjectivitydebates have alternatively,or even simultaneously,held on toboth ends of the dichotomy,a dichotomywhich Hardingdes-cribesin termsof successorscienceprojectsversuspostmodernistaccountsof differenceandwhich I have sketched n this essayasradicalconstructivism ersus feminist criticalempiricism. t 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 reclaim he sen-

sory systemthathas been usedto signifya leapout of the marked

body and into a conqueringgazefromnowhere. This is the gazethatmythically nscribesall 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"o 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 visualization n multina-

tionalist,postmodernist ulturehavecompounded hesemeaningsof disembodiment.The visualizingtechnologiesare without ap-parentlimit.The eye of any ordinaryprimate ike us can be end-

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

ners, color-enhancement echniques, satellite surveillancesys-tems, home andofficevideo displayterminals,cameras or everypurposefromfilmingthe mucousmembraneiningthe gut cavityof a marineworm livingin the vent gaseson a faultbetweencon-tinentalplatesto mappinga planetaryhemisphere lsewhere n thesolarsystem.Vision nthistechnologicaleastbecomesunregulatedgluttony;allseemsnotjust mythicallyaboutthegodtrickof seeingeverything romnowhere,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-terrestrialrojects or excremental econdbirthing.



582 Donna Haraway

A tributeto this ideologyof direct,devouring,generative,and

unrestrictedvision, whose technologicalmediationsare simulta-neously celebratedand presentedas utterlytransparent, an befoundin the volumecelebratinghe 100thanniversary f the Na-tional GeographicSociety.The volume closes its survey of the

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

nothing."8hischapterrecounts he exploitsof the spaceraceand

displaysthe color-enhanced"snapshots"f the outer planets re-assembled romdigitalized ignals ransmitted crossvastspacetolet the viewer"experience"he momentof discovery n immediatevision of the "object."9hese fabulousobjectscometo us simulta-

neously as indubitablerecordingsof what is simplythere and asheroic feats of technoscientificproduction.The next chapter,isthe twin of outerspace:"Inner pace,"ntroducedby the epigraph,"The tuffof starshas come alive."10 ere,the reader s broughtn-to the realmof the infinitesimal,objectifiedby meansof radiation

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

microscopes,whose signalsareprocessed ntothe wonderful ull-colorsnapshotsof defendingT cells and invadingviruses.

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

cessarilyorganicembodimentandincluding echnologicalmedia-

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

usable, but not an innocent, doctrineof objectivity.I want afeministwritingof the body that metaphorically mphasizesvi-sion again,becausewe need to reclaim hatsenseto findourwaythroughall the visualizing ricks and powersof modem sciencesand technologiesthat have transformed he objectivitydebates.We need to learnin ourbodies,endowedwith primatecolor and

stereoscopicvision,how to attachthe objective o ourtheoretical

andpoliticalscanners n order o name where we areandarenot,in dimensionsof mentalandphysicalspacewe hardlyknow howto name. So, not so perversely,objectivity urnsout to be about

particularand specificembodimentand definitelynot about thefalse visionpromising ranscendenceof all limits andresponsibili-



Donna Haraway 583

ty. The moralis simple: only partialperspectivepromises objec-tive vision. All Western culturalnarrativesaboutobjectivityareallegoriesof the ideologiesgoverning he relationsof what we callmind andbody,distanceandresponsibility.Feministobjectivitysabout limited location and situatedknowledge,not about trans-cendence and splitting of subject and object. It allows us tobecome answerable or what we learnhow to see.

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

retinalcells forcolorvisionbutwith a hugeneuralprocessingandsensoryareaforsmells. Itis a lessonavailable romphotographs fhow the world looks to the compoundeyes of an insect or evenfromthe cameraeye of a spy satelliteor the digitally ransmitted

signals of space probe-perceiveddifferences"near"upiterthathave been transformednto coffee table colorphotographs.The

"eyes"made availablen modern echnological ciencesshatteranyidea of passive vision; these prostheticdevices show us that all

eyes, including our own organic ones, are active perceptualsystems,buildingon translations nd 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 interchangeability ut of elaboratespecificityanddifferenceand the lovingcarepeople mighttake to learnhow to

see faithfully romanother's ointof view, even when the other sour own machine. That'snot alienatingdistance; hat'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;here is

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

essay is an argument or situatedand embodiedknowledgesandan argumentagainstvarious ormsof unlocatable,and so irrespon-sible, knowledgeclaims.Irresponsiblemeansunableto be called

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



584 Donna Haraway

seriousdangerof romanticizingnd/orappropriatinghe visionof

the lesspowerfulwhile claiming o see fromtheirpositions.Toseefrom below is neithereasily learnednor unproblematic, ven if

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

jugatedknowledges.Thepositioningsof the subjugated renotex-

empt from criticalreexamination,decoding,deconstruction,and

interpretation;hat is, from both semiologicaland hermeneuticmodes of critical nquiry.The standpointsof the subjugatedarenot "innocent" ositions. 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

disappearing cts-ways of beingnowhere while claimingto see

comprehensively.The subjugatedhave a decentchanceto be on

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

ingaccountsof theworld.Buthowto see frombelow is a problem

requiring t least as much skill with bodiesandlanguage,with themediationsof vision, as the "highest' echnoscientificvisualiza-tions.

Suchpreferredpositionings as hostiletovarious ormsof relati-vism as to the mostexplicitly otalizing ersionsof claimsto scien-tific authority.Butthe alternative o relativism s not totalizationand singlevision,which is always finallythe unmarkedcategorywhose power depends on systematic narrowingand obscuring.The alternative o relativism s

partial, ocatable,critical knowl-

edges sustainingthe possibilityof webs of connections called

solidarity n politics and shared conversations n epistemology.Relativism s a way of beingnowhere while claiming o be every-where equally.The "equality"f positioning s a denialof respon-sibilityandcriticalnquiry.Relativism s theperfectmirrorwinoftotalizationn the ideologiesof objectivity; othdenythe stakes n

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

possible to see well. Relativismand totalizationare both "god

tricks"promisingvision from everywhereand nowhere equallyandfully, commonmythsin rhetorics urrounding cience.Butitis precisely n the politicsandepistemologyof partialperspectivesthat the possibilityof sustained,rational,objective nquiryrests.

So,withmanyotherfeminists,I want to argue or a doctrineand



Donna Haraway 585

practiceof objectivity hatprivilegescontestation,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."Passionate etachment"12equiresmorethan acknowledgedandself-critical artiality.We arealso boundto seekperspective romthosepointsof view, which canneverbe knownin advance,that

promisesomethingquite extraordinary,hatis, 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. thinkHarding's leafor a successorscience and forpostmodern ensibilitiesmust be readas an argu-ment for the idea that the fantasticelementof hope for transfor-mativeknowledgeand the severe checkand stimulusof sustainedcriticalinquiryarejointly the groundof any believableclaimto

objectivityorrationality ot riddledwith breathtaking enialsandrepressions.It is even possible to read the recordof scientificrevolutionsn termsof thisfeministdoctrineof rationality ndob-

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

A commitment o mobilepositioningand to passionatedetach-ment is dependenton the impossibilityof entertainingnnocent

"identity"oliticsand epistemologiesas strategies or seeingfromthe

standpointsof the

subjugatedn orderto see well. One cannot

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

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

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

We are not immediatelypresentto ourselves.Self-knowledge e-quiresa semiotic-materialechnology o linkmeaningsandbodies.

Self-identitys a bad visualsystem.Fusion s abadstrategyofposi-tioning.The boys in the human sciences have called this doubtaboutself-presence he "deathof the subject" efined as a single



586 Donna Haraway

orderingpoint of will and consciousness. Thatjudgmentseems

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

wanderingeye, a traveling ens. Theseperegrinations ave oftenbeen violent and insistent on having mirrorsfor a conqueringself-but not always.Westernfeministsalso inherit ome skill in

learning o participaten revisualizingworlds turnedupsidedown

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

positioningsand be accountable, he one who can constructand

join rationalconversationsand fantasticimaginings hat changehistory.13Splitting,not being,is the privileged magefor feminist

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

neously salientand incapableof being squashed nto isomorphic

slotsorcumulativeists. Thisgeometrypertainswithinandamongsubjects.Subjectivitys multidimensional;o, therefore, s vision.Theknowingself is partial n all its guises,neverfinished, whole,

simplythereandoriginal;t is alwaysconstructedand stitched o-

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

togetherwithoutclaiming o be another.Here s thepromiseof ob-

jectivity:a scientificknower seeks the subjectposition, not of

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

way to "be"imultaneouslyn

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" nd total position is the search for thefetishizedperfect subjectof oppositionalhistory,sometimesap-pearing in feminist theory as the essentializedThird World

Woman.14 ubjugations not grounds or an ontology; t mightbea visual clue. Visionrequires nstrumentsof vision;an opticsis a

politicsof positioning. nstrumentsof vision mediatestandpoints;

there is no immediate vision from the standpointsof the sub-jugated.Identity, ncluding elf-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 subjugatedo lust for and even scramble

into that subject position-and then disappear from view.Knowledge romthe pointof view of the unmarked s trulyfan-

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

jectivitycouldnot possiblybe practicedandhonored s the stand-

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

knowledge,omniscience even.Positioning s, therefore,the key practice n groundingknowl-

edge organizedaroundthe imageryof vision, and much Westernscientificandphilosophicdiscourse s organizedn thisway. Posi-

tioning mplies responsibilityor ourenablingpractices. t followsthatpoliticsandethicsgroundstrugglesor andcontestsover what

maycount as rationalknowledge.That s, admittedornot,politicsand ethicsgroundstrugglesover knowledgeprojects n the exact,natural, social, and human sciences. Otherwise, rationality s

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? Who getsto have more thanone pointof view?Who gets blinded?Who wearsblinders?Who

interpretshevisual field?Whatothersensorypowersdo we wishto cultivate

besidesvision?

Moralandpoliticaldiscourseshouldbetheparadigmorrationaldiscourseabouttheimageryandtechnol-

ogiesof vision.SandraHarding'slaim,orobservation,hatmove-mentsof socialrevolutionhave mostcontributedo 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 captured n

anotherphrase: he sciencequestion nthemilitary.Struggles verwhat 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'5he sciencequestionin feminism.



588 DonnaHaraway

The issue in politicallyengagedattackson variousempiricisms,reductionisms,or otherversionsof scientificauthority hould notbe relativism-but location. A dichotomouschartexpressing his

point mightlook like this:

universalrationalitycommonlanguagenew organonunifiedfield theoryworldsystemmastertheory

ethnophilosophiesheteroglossiadeconstruction

oppositionalpositioninglocalknowledgeswebbed accounts

But a dichotomouschartmisrepresentsn a criticalway the posi-tions of embodiedobjectivity hat 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, ocalknowledgeshavealso to be in tension with the productivestructuringshat 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.Gender s a field of structuredandstructuringdifference, n which the tones of extreme ocalization,of the intimatelypersonalandindividualizedbody,vibrate n thesame field with global high-tensionemissions. Feminist embodi-

ment, then, is not aboutfixedlocation n a reifiedbody,femaleor

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

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

what worldhistoryturnsout to be about.How shouldonebe positioned n order o see, in this situationof

tensions, reasonances, transformations,resistances, and com-

plicities?Here,primatevision is not immediatelya very powerfulmetaphorortechnology or feministpolitical-epistemologicallari-



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.Themetaphornvitesus to investigate he variedapparatusesof visual production, n-

cludingthe prosthetic echnologies nterfacedwith our biologicaleyes and brains.And here we find highlyparticularmachineriesfor processing regionsof the electromagnetic pectruminto our

picturesof the world.It is in the intricaciesof these visualization

technologies n which we are embeddedthat we will find meta-phors and means for understandingand intervening n the pat-ternsof objectificationn the world-that is, thepatternsof realityfor which we must be accountable.In these metaphors,we findmeans for appreciating imultaneouslyboth the concrete,"real"

aspectand the aspectof semiosisandproduction n whatwe callscientificknowledge.

I amarguing orpoliticsandepistemologies f location,position-ing, andsituating,wherepartiality nd notuniversalitys the con-

dition of being heardto make rationalknowledgeclaims.Theseareclaimson people's ives. I amarguingor 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, hat dreamscience/technology of perfect language, perfect communication,finalorder.

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

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

rectly caricaturedn antiscienceideologyas exact, hypersimpleknowledges that have come to represent he hostileotherto fem-inistparadigmaticmodels of scientificknowledge,but the dreamsof the perfectlyknown in high-technology,permanentlymilitar-izedscientificproductionsandpositionings, he godtrick of a Star



590 Donna Haraway

Warsparadigmof rationalknowledge.So location is aboutvul-

nerability;ocationresiststhepoliticsof closure,finality,orto bor-row fromAlthusser, eministobjectivityresists"simplificationnthe lastinstance."That s because feministembodimentresistsfix-ation and is insatiablycuriousaboutthe webs of differentialposi-tioning.Thereis no singlefeministstandpointbecauseour mapsrequire oo manydimensions orthatmetaphor o 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,rombeing represented, o by fully self-contained r

fully formalizable.Rationalknowledge s a processof ongoingcri-ticalinterpretationmong"fields"f interpreters nddecoders.Ra-tionalknowledge s power-sensitive onversation.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 responsibilityn arealm above the fray, but, rather,of accountabilityand respon-sibility or translations ndsolidaritiesinking he cacophonousvi-sions andvisionaryvoices that characterizehe knowledgesof the

subjugated.A splittingof senses, a confusionof voice and sight,rather han clearand distinct deas,becomesthe metaphor orthe

ground of the rational.We seek not the knowledgesruled byphallogocentrismnostalgiaor thepresenceof the onetrueWord)anddisembodiedvision.We seek those ruledby partial ightandlimitedvoice-not partiality or its own sake but, rather,for thesakeof the connectionsandunexpectedopeningssituatedknowl-

edgesmakepossible.Situatedknowledgesare aboutcommunities,notabout solated ndividuals.Theonly way to finda largervisionis to be somewherein particular.The science questionin femi-nism is aboutobjectivityas positionedrationality. ts 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," have refused toresolvethe ambiguitiesbuilt into referringo science withoutdif-

ferentiatingts extraordinaryangeof contexts.Through he insis-tentambiguity, haveforegrounded field of commonalitiesbind-

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

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

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

ideologicalstruggles.But,partly n order to give play to both the

specificitiesand the highlypermeableboundariesof meanings ndiscourse on science, I would like to suggesta resolution o one

ambiguity.Throughouthe field of meaningsconstituting cience,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 complexandcontradictoryheseworldsmaybe. Fem-inists, and others who have been most active as critics of thesciencesand theirclaimsorassociateddeologies,haveshiedawayfromdoctrinesof scientificobjectivityn partbecauseof the suspi-cion that an "object"f knowledge s a passiveandinertthing.Ac-counts of such objectscan seem to be eitherappropriationsf afixed and determinedworld reducedto resourcefor instrumen-talistprojectsof destructiveWesternsocieties,orthey canbe seen

as masksfor interests,usuallydominating nterests.Forexample,"sex"s an objectof biologicalknowledgeappears

regularly n the guise of biologicaldeterminism, hreatening he

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

up productive ensionswith 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

pageforsocial nscriptions,ncluding hose of biologicaldiscourse.The sameproblemof lossattendsthe radical"reduction"f 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 analytic radition,deeplyindebted o Aristotleand to thetransformative istoryof "WhiteCapitalistPatriarchy"howmaywe name this scandalousThing?)hat turnseverything nto a re-sourceforappropriation,n which an objectof knowledge s final-

ly itselfonly matter orthe seminalpower,the act,of the knower.

Here, the objectboth guaranteesand refreshesthe power of the

knower,but any status as agent n 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. ZoeSofoulis19dentified he structureofthismodeof knowing n technoscienceas "resourcing"as the sec-ond birthingof Manthrough he 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, ex is only matterto theact of gender; he productionist ogic seems inescapable n tradi-tionsof Westernbinaryoppositions.Thisanalyticalandhistoricalnarrativeogicaccountsformy nervousnessabout the sex/genderdistinctionin the recent history of feminist theory. Sex is "re-sourced"or itsrepresentationsgender,which"we" an control. thas seemed all but impossibleto avoid the trapof an appropria-tionistlogicof dominationbuiltintothe nature/culture ppositionand its

generative ineage, 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

analytical raditions,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"nowledge.Thepointis paradigmaticallyclear in criticalapproachesto the social and human sciences,where the agency of people studieditself transforms he entire

projectof producingsocialtheory.Indeed,comingto terms withthe agencyof the "objects"tudiedis 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 politicscovertlyorovertlyprovidethebasesforobjectivityn the sciencesas a heterogeneouswhole, and not just in the social sciences, is

granting he statusof agent/actoro the "objects"f the world. Ac-tors come in many and wonderful forms. Accounts of a "real"world do not, then, depend on a logic of "discovery"ut on a

power-chargedocial relationof "conversation."he world neither

speaks itself nor disappears n favor of a master decoder.Thecodesof the worldarenot still,waitingonlyto be read.The worldis not raw materialfor humanization; he 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 encountered n knowledge projects s an activeentity.Insofaras a scientificaccounthas been ableto engage hisdimen-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 recommending s not a version of

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

My simple, perhapssimple-minded,maneuver s 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 appropriatedn 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'sndependent enseof humor.Suchasense of humoris not comfortableorhumanistsand others com-mitted to the world as resource. There are, however, richly

evocative igures o promote eministvisualizations f theworld aswitty agent.We need not lapse into appealsto a primalmother

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



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 reinventedcoyotediscourseobligated o its sources n

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

permanently problematizes binary distinctions like sex and

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

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

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

biologicaldeterminism an never be the sameagain.Whenfemale

"sex"'as been so thoroughlyretheorizedand revisualized hat it

emergesas practically ndistinguishablerom "mind,"omethingbasic has happenedto the categoriesof biology.The biologicalfemalepeoplingcurrentbiologicalbehavioralaccountshasalmostno passive properties eft. She is structuringand active in every

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

genderneed to be categorically eworkedwithin these framesof

knowledge.I would like to suggestthat this trendin explanatorystrategiesn biology s an allegory orinterventionsaithful o pro-jects of feministobjectivity.The point is not that these new pic-turesof the biological emale are simplytrueor not open to con-

testationand conversation quitethe opposite.But these picturesforegroundknowledgeas situatedconversation teverylevelof 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 finalcategoryuseful to a feministtheoryof

situatedknowledges:the apparatusof bodily production.In her

analysisof the productionof the poem as an object of literaryvalue,KatieKingofferstoolsthatclarifymatters n the objectivitydebates among feminists. King suggeststhe term "apparatusf

literaryproduction"o refer o the emergenceof literature tthe in-

tersection of art, business, and technology. The apparatusof

literary productionis a matrixfrom which "literature"s born.

Focusingon the potentobjectof value calledthe "poem,"Kingap-

pliesheranalytic ramework o the relationof womenandwritingtechnologies.21 would like to adapther work to understandingthe generation-the actual production and reproduction-ofbodiesandotherobjectsof value in scientificknowledgeprojects.At firstglance,there is a limitation o using King's chemeinherentin the "facticity"f biologicaldiscourse hatis absentfromliterarydiscourseand its knowledgeclaims. Are biologicalbodies "pro-duced" r"generated"n the samestrongsenseaspoems?From he

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

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

latethe ideologicaldimensionsof "facticity"nd"theorganic"ntoa

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

wieldy termis intendedto portray he objectof knowledgeas an

active,meaning-generatingartof apparatus f bodilyproduction,

withoutever mplyingthe immediatepresenceof such objectsor,what is the samething,theirfinal oruniquedetermination fwhatcan count as objectiveknowledgeat a particularhistorical unc-ture. Like"poems,"which are sites of literaryproductionwhere

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

within;boundariesarevery tricky.Whatboundariesprovisionallycontainremainsgenerative,productiveof meaningsand bodies.

Siting (sighting)boundaries s 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"ontrol.Wehave, finally,no clear and distinctideas. The variouscontendingbiologicalbodiesemergeat the intersectionof biologicalresearchandwriting,medicalandotherbusinesspractices,andtechnology,suchas thevisualizationechnologiesenlistedas metaphorsn this

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

analogue o the lively languageshatactively ntertwine n thepro-ductionof literaryvalue:the coyoteandtheproteanembodimentsof the worldaswittyagentandactor.Perhaps he worldresistsbe-

ing reducedto mere resourcebecause it is-not mother/matter/mutter-but coyote,a figureof the alwaysproblematic, lwayspo-tent tiebetweenmeaningandbodies. Feministembodiment, emi-nisthopesforpartiality, bjectivity,andsituatedknowledges, urnon conversations ndcodes at thispotentnodein fieldsof possiblebodies and meanings.Hereis where science,sciencefantasyandscience fiction convergein the objectivityquestionin feminism.

Perhapsour hopes for accountability, or politics, for ecofemi-

nism,turn on revisioninghe world as coding ricksterwith whom

we must learnto converse.

NOTES

This essay originatedas a commentaryon SandraHarding'sTheScienceQuestion n

Feminism, t 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-Cetinand 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,uerre tpaix,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'sVendrediParis:Gallimard,1967),Lesmicrobesp. 171),Latour'sbrilliantand maddeningaphoristicpolemic againstall formsof reductionism,makes the essential

pointfor feminists:

"M6fiez-vouse la

puret6;c'est le vitriol de

l'ame"Bewareof purity; t is the vitriol of the soul). Latour s not otherwisea notablefeminist theorist,but he mightbe made into one by readingsas perverseas those hemakes of the laboratory,hatgreatmachineformakingsignificantmistakesfasterthan

anyoneelse can, and so gainingworld-changing ower.ThelaboratoryorLatour s therailroad ndustryof 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

rounding erritory.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: ohns Hopkins University Press, 1987). I still want more;and un-fulfilled desire can be a powerfulseed for changingthe stories.3. In "Throughhe Lumen:Frankenstein nd the Opticsof Re-Origination"Ph.D.diss.

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

Sofoulis'sargumentsand metaphorsn

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,TheScienceQuestion n Feminism

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

Standpoint:Developingthe Ground or 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,"nDiscoveringReality,245-81;and"PostmodernismndGenderRelations nFeministTheory,"Signs 12 (Summer 1987):621-43;Evelyn Fox Kellerand ChristineGrontkowski,"TheMind'sEye," n 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-April 985):65-107;and Rosalind PollackPetchesky,"Fetal mages:The Power of Visual Culturein the Politicsof Reproduction,"eministStudies13 (Summer1987):263-92.

Aspectsof the debates aboutmodernismandpostmodernismaffectfeministanalysesof the problemof "objectivity."Mapping he fault line between modernismand post-modernism in ethnography and anthropology-in which the high stakes are theauthorizationor prohibition o craftcomparativenowledgeacross"cultures"-Marilyn

Strathernmade the crucialobservationthat it is not the written ethnography hat isparallelto the work of artas object-of-knowledge, ut the culture.The Romanticandmodernistnatural-technicalbjectsof knowledge, n science andin otherculturalprac-tice, stand on one side of this divide. The postmodernist ormationstandson the otherside, with its "anti-aesthetic"f permanentlysplit, problematized, lwaysrecedinganddeferred "objects" f knowledge and practice, including signs, organisms, systems,selves, and cultures. "Objectivity"n a postmodernframework cannot be about un-

problematicobjects;t mustbe aboutspecific prosthesisandalways partial ranslations.At root, objectivity s about craftingcomparativenowledge:How may a communityname things to be stable and to be like each other? In postmodernism,this querytranslates nto a question of the politics of redrawingof boundaries n orderto have

non-innocentconversations and connections. What is at stake in the debates aboutmodernism and postmodernism s the pattern of relationshipsbetween and withinbodies and language.This is a crucial matter orfeminists. See MarilynStrathern,"Outof Context:The Persuasive Fictions of Anthropology,"CurrentAnthropology8 (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," n ThePer-

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

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

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

Champagne,"n BlueChampagneNewYork:Berkeley,1986),17-79,Varley ransmutesthe theme to interrogatehe politicsof intimacyandtechnologyfora paraplegicyoungwoman whose prosthetic device, the golden gypsy, allows her full mobility. But

because the infinitely costly device is owned by an intergalactic ommunicationsand

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

keephertechnological, ntimate,enabling,other self only in exchange orhercomplici-

ty in the commodification f 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 extraordinaryranscendenceof "organic"rders, s to find an allegoryfor

the personalandpolitical n the historicalmythictimeof the latetwentiethcentury,the

eraof techno-biopolitics.Prosthesisbecomesa fundamental ategory orunderstandingour most intimateselves. Prosthesis s semiosis, the makingof meaningsand bodies,not for transcendence,but for power-charged ommunication.

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 photographs o Jim Clifford,

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

reader.10. Bryan,454.

11. See Hartsock,"TheFeministStandpoint:Developingthe Ground or a SpecificallyFeministHistoricalMaterialism";ndChelaSandoral,YoursnStruggle:WomenRespondto Racism Oakland:Center or ThirdWorldOrganizing,n.d.);Harding; nd GloriaAn-

zaldua,Borderlands/LaronteraSanFrancisco: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:Differencesmongwomenmaybebetterunderstoods differences ithinwomen

....Butonce

understoodn their constitutivepower once it is understood,hat s, thatthesedifferencesnotonly

constituteeachwoman's onsciousnessandsubjectiveimits butalltogetherdefinethefemale ubjectof feminismn itsvery specificity, s inherentand at leastfor now irreconcilableontradiction-these

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

Woman,or a representation f Feminismas a coherentand available mage.

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,"Boundary and 3 (1984):333-58.

15. See Sofoulis, unpublished manuscript.16. In TheScienceQuestionnFeminismp. 18), Harding uggeststhatgenderhas three

dimensions,each historicallyspecific:gendersymbolism,the social-sexualdivisionof

labor,and

processesof

constructingndividual

gendered dentity.I would

enlargeher

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

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

stratification r somethingelse. Similarly, he processesof genderedsubjectformation

may not be directly illuminatedby knowledge of the sexual division of labor or the



Donna Haraway 599

gendersymbolism n the particularhistorical ituationunderexamination.On the other

hand, we should expect mediatedrelationsamong the dimensions. The mediationsmightmove through quite differentsocial axes of organization f 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 individual ubjectpositionson 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;hatis, 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,potential o 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 particular nalytical ool works,willy-nilly, ntendedor not.The chartreflectscommonideologicalaspectsof discourse on science andgenderand

may help as an analytical ool 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 industrial ogics)

3) individual dentity/subjectposition individual dentity/subjectposition(desiring/desired;utonomousrelational) knower/known; cientist/other)

4) materialculture materialculture

(e.g., gender paraphernalia nd daily (e.g., laboratories, he 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, n "TheGender/ScienceSystem:Or,Is Sexto GenderAs NatureIs to Science?"Hypatia [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 nondiscursivegrounding n "sex"nd"nature,"erhapswhat I am

callingthe "body"nd "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).

Situated Knowledges - Feminism and Partial Perspective - Haraway

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