Ordinary Things ‘We are human only by contact, and conviviality, with what is not human.’21 Really this discussion is relevant to all nature; everything that is not our corporeal self, or as Alaimo describes it: ‘more-than-human nature’. 22 I have chosen ordinary things because they are the most ubiquitous and seemingly least mysterious. We are used to encountering them on a daily basis with a view to their affordances. They are the physical, material things that make up our everyday worlds and that we are most likely to take for granted. By investigating sensual-encounters with ordinary things we are entering more deeply into the entangled relationships of our daily existence. In our rational times, if we choose to forgo spiritual realms, can there be more to human-tothing relationships than simply function or fetish?23 I propose that we can find out through practicing sensual-encounters with ordinary things. This is a practical exercise in companionship with New Materialist theories that we will reference throughout, including Vibrant Matter;24 Entanglement Theory;25 embodiment theories;26 Carnal Hermeneutics;27 OOO;28 Trans-corporeality;29 and sf worlding30. It could be said that any of these theories give us the rational back up to allow us to enter into the heightened experiences of encounters with the unknown and unknowable, through the allure of matter itself rather than relating to spiritual or mystical realms. New Materialism acknowledges the vitality of all matter and the fundamental importance of its ability to act. It could be said that New Materialist theories in themselves inject the extraordinary back into the ordinary. What was passive, inert and often overlooked, is now to be considered lively and emergent beyond our previous imaginations. Furthermore, as well as acknowledging matter’s ability to act, Karen Barad asks us to consider agency ‘not an attribute whatsoever – it is doing/being in its intra-activity.’ 31 So, matter is being and doing 21
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous, 2nd edn (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 2107 p.22. 22 Stacy Alaimo, Trans-corporeal feminisms and the ethical space of nature in Material Feminisms in Material Feminisms edited by Stacy Alaimo and Susan Hekman (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), p. 238. 23 I use the term ‘fetish’ here to represent a disenchanted view of humans being hoodwinked by objects, whether as ‘commodity fetish’ (Marx) or sexual fetish (Freud). This will be discussed further on p. xx. 24 Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter, a political ecology of things (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2010). 25 Ian Hodder, Entangled, An Archeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2012). 26 Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body (Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007). 27 Kearney, Richard, ‘What is Carnal Hermeneutics?’ In New Literary History (May 2015 Vol. 46 Issue: Number 1) pp99-124. 28Graham Harman, Object-Oriented Ontology (UK: A Pelican Book, Penguin, 2018). 29 Stacy Alaimo, Trans-corporeal feminisms and the ethical space of nature in Material Feminisms in Material Feminisms edited by Stacy Alaimo and Susan Hekman (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008) pp237264. 30 Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble - Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2016). 31 Karen Barad in Trans-Corporeal Feminisms by Stacy Alaimo, p248.
Emma Marks
Sensual-encounters with Ordinary Things: A Speculation
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