Janan Chan 陳臻 returns this week with his third BILD guest blog post; see his other two posts here. Janan is a graduate of Concordia University in Montreal and Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec. He lives and works in Shanghai.
This blog post includes a linked audio file. Just click on the link below if you would like to hear the post read aloud. Scroll down to read the text.
In her 1985 essay, A Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway posits that all humans are already cyborgs, “theorized and fabricated hybrids of machines and organism”, and that we should embrace a cyborg “ontology” and “politics” (p. 7). Western patriarchal human-centric sciences, politics and capitalism driven by a progress-oriented discourse draw divisions between humans, things, and other living beings to hierarchize, dominate and control. Cyborg ontology and politics, on the other hand, aim to disrupt this anthropocentric dominance by further complicating and transgressing the boundaries between “mind and body, animal and machine, idealism and materialism” (p. 14).
Within cyborg ontology and politics, the boundaries of self are expanded beyond skin. Humans no longer control machines but rather are a part of the machinery which likewise comprises who they are (p. 11). These cyborgs do not signal a dystopian end to humanity or an uprising of things over humans as much fearful science-fiction suggests. Rather, Haraway invites us to question the limits of our being and how interwoven we are with machines, living beings and things, to deepen and generate new perspectives, relations and connections. This theory expanded my reflections on my Shanghai 2022 lockdown experience.
From about March to June, Shanghai was in a severe unprecedented lockdown. Residents were quarantined to their apartments, buildings, 村(cūn, a gated neighbourhood community with multiple buildings), or, for students on campus, their dormitories. Mandatory tests were frequent and positive patients were sent to “recovery centers”. Due to the government’s constant policy changes to attempt to manage the ever-changing pandemic crisis, it was never clear who got sent to the “recovery centers” and when they could leave, generating further chaos and confusion. Food was scarce at the start. Many nearly starved, and some resorted to ending their lives. The months were arduous, but I was fortunate to be in a building and村wherein technology extended my selfhood beyond the boundaries of my skin to foster new and necessary relationships.
With inadequate Mandarin, I had moved to Shanghai in 2021 (see my previous blog). WeChat, a messaging app everyone here uses, and other digital dictionaries and translators, however, allow me to communicate and relate to others I otherwise couldn’t. My next-door neighbour and I cannot speak fluently, but we can converse by using WeChat. Her Chinese messages are translated into English and if results are too literal or written with difficult idioms, I translate into Cantonese and listen. Likewise, translating my own messages from English to Cantonese first, I can listen and understand if they make sense.
Besides practical things, we have chatted about our families and their own lockdowns. Near the lockdown’s beginning when I was without food, my next-door neighbour cooked me three meals, despite her own rationing. Later, she would even share “botched” 油条experiments with me and other building residents. In return, I translated English labels, carried heavy supplies, and helped navigate tech when taking nucleic acid tests. Once, called to testing during an online class, she explained to the queue my situation and brought me to the front. Later, changing job locations and leaving, I thanked her. She replied that because I was alone, without local language, it was her responsibility to care.
Most buildings in Shanghai created WeChat group chats where household members could join and stay informed about food supplies and testing. With elderly or the hard of hearing living in my building, Mandarin messages broadcast by megaphone were also relayed into the building’s group chat. Being in this virtual group chat let me know neighbours I likely would not have spoken with otherwise. Once, with my dish soap supply dwindling, I considered asking the group chat if anyone had any to spare. Another neighbour needed some and asked first, and I added on after. A next-door neighbour divided a spare bottle between us. With weeks now without physical human contact, her knocking on my door and passing a dish soap bottle seemed profound. I was not alone; others citywide and even on the other side of my bedroom wall were experiencing similar things. I was a part of the building, a part of the community.
With the help of WeChat and technology extending my selfhood and abilities, I found belonging in a situation, time and place otherwise adverse to connection.
Reference
Haraway, D. J., & Wolfe, C. (2016). A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century. In Manifestly Haraway (pp. 3-90) University of Minnesota Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1b7x5f6.4
