On the methods and ethics of posthuman approaches

In our studies of human futures, how can we draw on the methods and ethic of posthuman/posthumanism’?

In considering how posthumanism can inform our approaches and research designs, we first return to the conceptual: Is the posthuman a condition, that is, is it depicting our contemporary life and its set-up and, hence, serving as a significant branding of the present? Is the posthuman a critique that enables us to scrutinize, delimit, analyse, and synthesise our present life as human beings? Is the posthuman an ontology, a way of being/becoming? Is the posthuman affective and trans/ex-corporeal, i.e. is the posthuman transgressing the Kantian individualized subject and its rational inner core? Or is the posthuman perhaps a device for studying and researching the history of the present and its (sociotechnical) transformations? In, short, what is ‘the posthuman’, how is it ‘post-’, and what is it doing with, against and for us?

Then, we consider how posthumanism might be used as a tool, a crack in the wall, a peeping-hole, an intuition pump? an approach? How might we reconsider the traditions of fields and fieldwork, information gathering, and what counts as texts or materiality or interactions to pay attention to as we engage in sensemaking? How might posthumanism open new doors for thinking differently about the fundamental reasons for academic knowledge production?

We are thus inviting you to discuss with us how the posthuman disposes us as researchers and living beings to act, study, think, reflect, analyse, construct and account.

Format of the workshop:

- Welcome and introduction by Finn Olesen & Peter Danholt

- Presentations by Alfred Nordmann and Annette Markham

- Discussion in groups of central questions

- Brief presentations of groupwork and comments by Alfred and Annette

- Open discussion.

The seminar will take place on 3rd of April from 9.30-14.00 at 1586-114 (Kasernen) To sign up for the seminar please write Tenna Harbo at tfh@cc.au.dk preferably before 30.3.17