Celeste M. Condit
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479845194
- eISBN:
- 9781479846306
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479845194.003.0014
- Subject:
- Sociology, Health, Illness, and Medicine
This essay offers a supra-individual perspective on biocitizenship. By developing the concept of the supra-cyborg, it envisions biocitizenship as the organization of humans within a supra-biological ...
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This essay offers a supra-individual perspective on biocitizenship. By developing the concept of the supra-cyborg, it envisions biocitizenship as the organization of humans within a supra-biological form of being, which is to say a form shaped by humans’ symbolizing capacities, but not wholly determined by them. Attending to our inhabitation within supra-cyborgs highlights the importance of the contest between corporations and governments and the rise of Global Governing Corporatocracies. The literalizing metaphor of the supra-cyborg also highlights as a key political question: whether it is possible for humans to live well outside of supra-cyborgs, and if not, what kind of supra-cyborg organization we should seek to synthetically engineer. This vision also re-calibrates a sense of which lines of action might be most promising for those who seek to implement either justice or care across human groups or greater space for nonhuman beings.Less
This essay offers a supra-individual perspective on biocitizenship. By developing the concept of the supra-cyborg, it envisions biocitizenship as the organization of humans within a supra-biological form of being, which is to say a form shaped by humans’ symbolizing capacities, but not wholly determined by them. Attending to our inhabitation within supra-cyborgs highlights the importance of the contest between corporations and governments and the rise of Global Governing Corporatocracies. The literalizing metaphor of the supra-cyborg also highlights as a key political question: whether it is possible for humans to live well outside of supra-cyborgs, and if not, what kind of supra-cyborg organization we should seek to synthetically engineer. This vision also re-calibrates a sense of which lines of action might be most promising for those who seek to implement either justice or care across human groups or greater space for nonhuman beings.
