From Ethical Principles to Response-able practice
The reading explains chapter 3 of ‘When Species Meet’ in a fictional story about a caretaker and a guinea pig. It is explained that in the story the guinea pig is used for animal testing and is shaved and placed in a confined area. They are painted in toxic chemicals to see if flies are repulsed by the chemical. In the story the caretaker puts his arm in a cage and it instantly swells and is covered by flies. It is explained that this is done by the caretaker so that he can experience the pain of the guinea pig. Donna Haraway explains that this is a differing guide to what is meant by ethical practice, a terms she explains as shared suffering. She explains that rather than looking at the issue as a place to find higher guiding principles and rights to justify pain, the ethical response is to unpack the subjectivities “opening to shared pain and mortality and learning what living and thinking teaches”
Haraway explains a cartography for relational ethics. This shifts the focus away from the singular ethical subject, a autonomous person who is capable of making rational choices. She explains that with this prior example it is hard to abstract the discussions of ethical principles().
Shared suffering is a shared engagement not an individual achievement. Jane Bennett puts it as a “distributed across multiple, over lapping bodies, disseminated in degrees - rather than the capacity of a unitary subject of consciousness”. In ‘When Species Meet’ Haraway also calls for more than a situational appreciation for ethical decision making. It is explained that this is a space of performative ethics where a sense of touch, gesture or movement replaces procedure eg. Signing of a document.
This shared suffering demands more than representation, it demands copresencing. It means not closing off to what is distasteful. Instead, cultivating sensitivity towards one another. Haraway describes “response-ability” as the force of letting your imagination articulate, feel and be open to suffering in an experimental process. This is opposed to legislatively accessing the right and wrong. Harraway explains that shared suffering is part of a embodied practice.
“`to be at risk is not the same thing as identifying with the subjects of study'' (Haraway 1997, pages190^191), it is not about empathy, or even compassion. Or to put it another way it is not about trying to put yourself in your research subject's shoes or transplanting your research subject into yours (as an animal rights activist might seek to do). Instead, it is about facing up to the challenge that your way of being is dependent on the suffering of others (and yourself), and live with that by seeking less painful practices and ways of being.” (Haraway in Greenhough and Roe)
Greenhough, Beth, and Emma Roe. “From Ethical Principles to Response-Able Practice.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 28, no. 1, Feb. 2010, pp. 43–45. Crossref, doi:10.1068/d2706wse.
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