Coyote figurations, Techne and Feminism

Abstract

It is within the framework of situated knowledges in the field of biology and technology studies, in its relation to feminism that the coyote figuration is conceptualized by Donna Haraway. In what respect are they conceived by Donna Haraway to be figures of emancipation? What kind of affinity does it establishes with the figure of cyborg, as figure of posthumanism? Certainly, Donna Haraway hypothesizes the privilege of a ‘partial perspective’ having to play a role in expanding the epistemic horizon of feminist thought. This paper probes into the potential role of coyote figures as metaphors illuminating feminist readings of the relation between philosophy and technology. However, coyote figures have a generic character of transgression, and hence, borders on epistemological reduction of its ontico-ontological phenomenality which Catherine Malabou problematizes. Malabou’s eschewal of flexibility counters this binary by developing the role played by the “fantastic” in the espousal of plasticity of being. Being conceived in this originary mutability eliminates the interior-exterior division of beings. What are the comparable features of coyote figurations and the fantastic? And how does it add to the feminist understanding of philosophy of technology?

Keywords

• Metaphor; coyote; plasticity; feminist figurations; feminist technologies; cosmotechnics; Donna Haraway