c y b o r g   m a n i f e s t o   2 . 0   ::   s e l f
::   s i t u a t i n g

The concept of situatedness appears in Donna Haraway's influential article 'Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective'. Situated knowledge accounts for the postmodern insight that knowledge can never be universal, but is always partial and locatable. At the same time however, she argues against postmodern relativism and thus envisions that knowledge claims are most 'objective' when they come from the partial perspective of the subjugated in the strategy of positioning oneself which will allow for the crucial factors of responsibility and accountability. In this, we can clearly recognise feminist theories of standpointism that moves strongly against traditional humanist ideas of positivity.

Although many critics have argued that Haraway, with her revaluation of situatedness next to the deconstructive discourse of cyborg metaphor, she fails to take the cyborg to its full potential; I would claim however that it is exactly the tying together of these two that make for highly politicised possibilities of our postmodern and mediated society.

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