Technology and Community: The Changing Face of Identity

Abstract

This article examines notions of self in cyber-communities, through a cross-disciplinary dialectic on digital embodiment. The article is based on conversations between a literary study on cyborg-feminist and science fiction theory and auto-ethnographic research data from the virtual world Entropia Universe. The conversation explores digital embodiment by asking the questions, "Am I cyborg?" and, "Why should I care?" The discussion draws on Haraway's notions of cyborg embodiment and Brey, Idhe, and Merleau-Ponty's works on relational embodiment to provide a theoretical exploration of selfhood in a liminal community of symbionts, cyborgs, and avatars.