The question being addressed in the following writing could be formulated like this: How

does one meaningfully discuss the ethical engagements of the diverse set of beings
loosely connoted by the term human within the context of the posthuman turn? To
better establish the framework within which this question ought to be understood, Id first like to
offer a few preliminary definitions for some of the more technical terminology.
First, let us give a preliminary definition of what is entailed by the posthuman turn. At its
most basic, this term is meant to identify an increasing critical distrust in the Euro- and
anthropocentric assumptions that inform the narrow and normative conception of the human
celebrated by liberal humanism since its conception in Enlightenment-era Europe. This unease
is perhaps best captured by Rosi Braidotti, who, in her book The Posthuman, writes
Humanisms restrictive notion of of what counts as the human is one of the keys to understand
how we got to a post-human turn at allComplicitous with genocides and crimes on the one
hand, supportive of enormous hopes and aspirations to freedom on the other, Humanism
somehow defeats linear criticism (16). Whats important to note, here, is that the project of the
posthuman turn is not a wholesale disavowal of humanism: As Braidotti suggests, humanism
has been the guiding ideology behind many beneficial social practices. Instead, posthumanism
advocates more critical engagement with humanism in an effort to sort out what should be
saved, and what is best left behind. As Carey Wolfe describes, we are not just talking about a
thematics of decentering of the human in relation to either evolutionary, ecological, or
technological coordinatesrather,we are also talking about how thinking confronts these
thematics, what thought has to become in the face of those challenges (xvi). For Wolfe, as for
Braidotti, the project of posthuman thought is direct engagement with the knowledge practices
through which our narrow conception of the human (and the anthropocentric assumptions that
such practices entail) emerge.
Important as well is to note that this turn away from an overdetermined notion of the
human is not solely a project undertaken by critical theory, and the effects of this turn have
manifested in different ways in different domains: for example, in the field of cybernetics and
information theory, a turn toward the posthuman manifests in a shift in emphasis away from
specific bodies and toward the informational content that those bodies iteratively propagate. As
N. Katherine Hayles describes, the discipline of cybernetics posits a model of the posthuman
that privileges informational pattern over material instantiation, so that embodiment in a
biological substrate is seen as an accident of history rather than an inevitability of life (2). In this
sense, specific bodies become the incidental manifestations of a larger system of information:
thus, the human becomes a means toward some larger informational (i.e., nonhuman) end.
Similarly, the neoliberal ethos of the 20th and 21st century could be said to subscribe to a kind
of posthumanism: As Nicholas Rose suggests, the nation state is becoming increasingly adept
at exploiting human life as a means toward a further end (i.e., the accumulation of capital or the
maximization of some other value), thus necessitating what he evocatively terms the politics of
life itself. As Rose argues, [o]nce each life has a value which may be calculated, and some
lives have less value than others, such a politics has an obligation to exercise this judgement in
the name of the race or the nation. All the eugenic projects of selective reproduction, sterilization
and incarceration follow (3). In this way, Rose highlights a shifting conception of the human
away from that conceived by liberal humanism, wherein the human is an inherently valuable
entity simply by virtue of being human (although who exactly this includes is often arbitrary and
highly contentious, as will be discussed below), and toward an understanding of the human as
a certain kind of being whose value within a given system can be optimized in pursuit of some
larger project. The point to be grasped here is that while the posthuman turn can manifest itself
differently in different contexts, the general outline remains roughly the same: the human shifts
from being the normative figure around which the world is structured, and becomes a means

toward some larger project. Importantly, the specific ethical valence of these projects vary
greatly: Where theorists like Carey Wolfe employ a posthuman stance to rethink the human as
a kind of animal among other empathetically-available animals, Melina Cooper demonstrates
how advancements in biotechnology have produced a decidedly posthuman notion of life as
surplus. Indeed, as Braidotti warns, the many facets of advanced capitalism seem to be much
faster in grasping the creative potential of the posthuman than some of the well-meaning and
progressive neohumanist opponents of this system (45). What is needed, then,
This, in turn, provides a context for the current writing, as the posthuman landscape of the early
21st century so far remains a largely indeterminate space wherein the posthumanist subject,
armed with the proper critical tools, is afforded a brief transitional moment for self-definition on
her own terms before being reinscribed within the neoliberal ethos of advanced capitalism.
With this goal in mind, we can now turn to consider what exactly the term human is
meant to connote in the context of critical posthumanism. Of course, we all have a basic intuitive
sense of what a human is: a specific genus of hominid that western culture has comfortably
described as Homo Sapiens since the 18th century. One might expect for this categorical
mechanism to provide sound biological grounds for a universal sense of humanity. As
anthropologist Chris Stringer succinctly describes, all living humans are members of the extant
species H. Sapiens and, by definition, all must equally be modern humans (35). In practice,
though, this biological basis for sameness is at odds with liberal humanisms Eurocentric
expectation of normative behaviour or cultural practice, wherein some H. Sapiens are
problematically understood as more human than others. As Rosi Braidotti writes, the allegedly
abstract ideal of Man as a symbol of classical Humanity is very much the male of the species: it
is a he. Moreover, he is white, European, handsome and able-bodied; of his sexuality nothing
can be guessedWhat this ideal model may have in common with the statistical average of
most members of the species and the civilization he is supposed to represent is a very good
question indeed (24). By refining the notion of the human beyond the broad biological
category of H. Sapiens, liberal humanism effectively works to recontexualize the values of a
specific cultural style in a specific historical moment as the ideal values for humans generally. In
this way, those who would obviously otherwise fit into the broader category of H. Sapiens but
are outside of the shifting normative ideal of the human (for reasons of race, sexual
orientation, gender, etc.) are effectively rendered as non-human others in relation to those now
affirmed of their humanness not only on the grounds of broad biological categorization but also
the specific values of their culture. Thus, as Tony Davies argues, All humanisms, until now,
have been imperial. They speak of the human in the accents and the interests of a class, a sex,
a race. Their embrace suffocates those whom it does not ignore (131). In this way, the
human of liberal humanism becomes a mechanism of power and exclusion within which those
counted as human are encouraged to see that humanness expressed in the exclusive qualities
of their class, sex, or race. In short, the human of humanism locates humanity not in biology
but rather in a shifting set of culturally-defined qualities that serve to signal who is (and perhaps
more significantly, who is not) afforded ethical consideration.
Thus, when we talk about the human in the context of critical posthumanism, we are
primarily gesturing toward the whole descriptive problem outlined above: we are not discussing
a fixed set of beings themselves, but rather a power structure through which beings are
iteratively produced: both the normative beings privileged with inclusion within the rigid notion
of the human advocated by liberal humanism, as well as the beings relegated to the exterior
position of otherness that such a rigid and exclusionary definition inevitably produces. This is
to say, in the context of posthumanism, the human does not, strictly speaking, refer to a kind of

being as such, but rather an exclusionary mechanism through which certain kinds of beings are
produced. In this sense, you are not a human. Instead, you are a being who either is or is not
included within a privileged set of beings referred to as human: humanness is a property not of
individual beings, but rather an emergent property of a relational network of power dynamics,
which collectively arbitrates the value of certain bodies. In this sense, were using the human
here similarly to how Judith Bulter employs the term in her essay Violence, Mourning, Politics,
in which she writes, If I understand myself on the model of the human, and if the kinds of public
grieving that are available to me make clear the norms by which the human is constituted for
me, then it would seem that I am as much constituted by those I do grieve for as by those
whose deaths I disavow, whose nameless and faceless deaths form the melancholic
background for my social world, if not my First Worldism (46). For Butler, ones humanness is
not an innate property of an individual body, but rather, a performative role that iteratively
constitutes which practices are available and which bodies are grievable in a relationallyconstructed social world. Thus, if we are to take seriously critical posthumanisms proposed
objective of decentering the human, Butlers proposition of Humanness-as-constitutiveperformace provides a valuable starting point as it productively allows us to bracket what,
exactly, we are supposedly decentering: not a set of beings but rather the practices through
which beings emerge.
INTRODUCING THE APPARATUS: EXPLAINING WHY BARAD IS BEST BECAUSE
SHE OFFERS A GOOD METAPHOR FOR BEING GENERALLY (EXPLICITLY NOT
CALIBRATED TO THE HUMAN), WHICH IS A MAJOR PITFALL FOR A LOT OF
POSTHUMANIST WORKS THAT TRY AND GIVE PRACTICAL ADVICE TO HUMANS

With these definitions in mind, we can return to the question posed at the outset: How
does one meaningfully discuss the ethical engagements of the diverse set of beings
loosely connoted by the term human within the context of the posthuman turn? To this
first question, we can now affix a secondary one which our initial question seems to imply,
namely: how does one even address the set of beings previously described as human1 once
humanness is revealed to be not a particular kind of being, but rather a performative categorical
imposition? Once we start directing our discussion toward the actual practices of a set of beings
in an effort to effect some kind of practical change within the domain generally referred to as
humanity, arent we implicitly compromising our commitment to decenter the human? Put
simply, is deriving practical advice for human engagement via posthuman theory a kind of
paradox? This concern is summarized concisely by philosopher Ian Bogost, who writes,
posthuman approaches still preserve humanity as a primary actor. Either our future survival
motivates environmental concern, or natural creatures like kudzu and grizzly bears are meant to
be elevated up to the same status as humanityPosthumanism, we might conclude, is not
posthuman enough (7-8). This is a serious accusation, which, although perhaps something of
an overgeneralization, definitely reflects a common pitfall when posthuman theorists attempt to
cash out their theory into prescriptive advice. Consider, for example, Braidottis appeal to
For the sake of efficiency, future references to the set of beings constituted by the normative
impositions of humanism will simply be referred to as human beings, which, as should
hopefully be clear by now, should be understood not as a kind of being that is also a human
but rather a being upon whom the metrics of humanness (as stipulated by liberal humanism)
have been, or at least could be, applied. I can recognize that this might seem like a kind of
convoluted terminological imposition to try and enforce here at the outset, but if we take
seriously the goal of decentering the human promoted by many posthuman theorists,
1

humanism in describing her vision of the posthuman university that is globalized,

technologically mediated, ethnically and linguistically diverse society that is still in tune with the
basic principles of social justice, the respect for diversity, the principles of hospitality and
conviviality. I am aware but do not mind the residual Humanism of such aspirations, which I take
at best as a productive contradiction (183). Productive or not, such a contradiction deflates the
anti-humanism that Braidotti otherwise openly advocates, and serves to illustrate how
complicated it can be for one to convincingly address a set of beings constituted (at least in
part) by the same ideological structure from which one is actively distancing oneself.
What is needed, then, is a better set of tools with which to describe the set of beings
previously constellated around the term human in a posthuman context, in a way that can
meaningfully prescribe active practices for ethical engagement without falling into contradiction.
And this need is well understood: many theorists working within critical posthumanism have
attempted to formulate models for describing the position that human beings (again, beings
constituted via inclusion or exclusion in the normative roles offered by liberal humanism) take in
the context of posthumanism, which, broadly speaking, often take the shape of a kind of
distributed and decentralized network of beings (both human and not), ultimately producing a
model situated somewhere between a Deluzian assemblage and Bruno Latours Actor
Network Theory. This theoretical reliance on Deluze and Latour makes sense, as both Deluze
and Latour aim fairly explicitly to put human beings

Jane Bennetts vibrant matter: wherein [t]he locus of agency is always a human-nonhuman
work group (xvii)
her ethics: [p]erhaps the ethical responsibility of an individual human now resides in ones
response to the assemblages in which one finds oneself participating (37).

Davies, Tony. Humanism. London: Routledge, 1997.