Pathology: A Diffractive Encounter of Machine/Body

Authors

  • Jessica Smartt Gullion Texas Woman's University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18432/ari29404

Keywords:

diffraction, poetic inquiry, art journaling, rhizomes, surgery, endometriosis

Abstract

I’ve been thinking about poems and about college as rhizomes (Deleuze and Guattari 1987), and as diffractive techniques (Barad 2007; Gullion 2018) for thinking about the social world. This project emerged as a way for me to understand my embodied experience of abdominal surgery. I began with the creation of an art journal, and then wrote a poem to accompany the images. I created the images and the text while thinking about my experience of undergoing surgery and diffracting that through Haraway’s (2016) ideas about cybernetics and machine bodies.

Author Biography

Jessica Smartt Gullion, Texas Woman's University

Jessica Smartt Gullion, PhD, is Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean for Research for the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas Woman’s University. She is the author of more than thirty peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters, appearing in outlets such as Qualitative Inquiry, the International Review of Qualitative Research, and the Journal of Applied Social Science. Her latest books include Diffractive Ethnography and Writing Ethnography.

References

Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Barad, Karen. 2014. “Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting Together-Apart.” Parallax 20(3):168-187.

Delueze, Giles and Felix Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by B. Massumi. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Gullion, Jessica Smartt. 2018. Diffractive Ethnography: Social Sciences and the Ontological Turn. London: Routledge.

Gullion, Jessica Smartt and Ariel Cooksey. 2103. “Social Representations of Motherhood through the Practice of Art Journaling.” Pp 119-132 in Mothering and Literacies, edited by A. B. Richey and L. Shuford Evans. Bradford, ON: Demeter Press.

Haraway, Donna J. 2016. Manifestly Haraway. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Me and Kahukura whatu by Hinekura Smith

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Published

2019-02-27

How to Cite

Gullion, J. S. (2019). Pathology: A Diffractive Encounter of Machine/Body. Art/Research/International:/A/Transdisciplinary/Journal, 4(1), 312–321. https://doi.org/10.18432/ari29404

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2019): Making as method: Reimagining traditional and indigenous notions of “craft” in research practice

Section

Art/Research In Action

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