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Sex, Science and Symbiosis

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Sex, Science and Symbiosis Sex, Science and Symbiosis Feminism and Queer Theory in a More-than-human World Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD in Critical and Cultural Theory, 2014 David Andrew Griffiths Thesis Summary This thesis interrogates various accounts of the relationship between the biological and social. Often the biological is conceptualised as built upon, or originating from, the foundation of the social (or vice versa). I suggest an alternative approach, using various resources and approaches from the sciences and from social theories, to reconceptualise the biological and social as always already entangled. I develop an account of the entanglement of the biological and social that also entangles the ontological and epistemological, matter and meaning. I begin by exploring feminism and sociobiology in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly feminist standpoint and postmodernist epistemologies. Building on this, and developing my approach (particularly in terms of conceptualising material and more-than-human agency), I explore queer and deconstructive approaches to sexuality alongside the Human Genome Project and genetic determinism in the 1990s, and more recent theories of kinship from gender and sexuality studies alongside insights from animal studies and critical posthumanisms. Finally, I interrupt this trajectory, suggesting that the so far uninterrogated opposition of living/non-living that structures biological science is threatened by the liminal status of viruses. More importantly, people living with viruses can become liminal in relation to this and other binary oppositions, with consequences for their health and ability to live well. I propose an approach to living well that is both ecological and queer; connections, symbioses and entanglements are crucial throughout. I argue that attention to the entanglement of the biological and social offers a way of interrogating narratives of biological determinism and for countering the effects of patriarchy and heteronormativity in the theory and practice of science. Furthermore, this approach can offer ways of rethinking the production of scientific knowledge and the effects this has on the possibility of living well as biopolitical citizens in the more-than-human world. Acknowledgements It is impossible to name everyone who contributed to this piece of work, and to whom I owe my thanks. I must thank my original supervisor, Dr Iain Morland, whose dedication to my thesis and meticulousness in reading and commenting was invaluable in the early stages of my project. When Iain left the department I was lucky enough to find the fantastic Dr Joan Haran, who taught me to be excited about my project again, and the joy of not thinking in straight lines. (She also recommended some excellent science fiction.) Joan helped me see that I am a utopian, and that this project is too. Special thanks also to other academic members of staff such as Dr Carl Phelpstead who taught me at undergraduate level and still has an open door and words of encouragement for me, and Dr Radhika Mohanram, who read the entire thesis and gave me very useful feedback. I have had the good fortune of being part of two active research centres: the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory within Cardiff University’s English, Communication and Philosophy department; and the Centre for the Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics, part of the ESRC’s Genomics Network. This has given me a lot of different perspectives on my work and this has been useful at every stage of the PhD. I cannot possibly name all my colleagues who have helped this project, often without knowing. My friend, colleague, and fellow science (fact and fiction) fan Kat Deerfield needs a special mention, as she has been a great friend and a great support whenever I have needed it. She never gets bored of me enthusing about bacteria, so she deserves praise just for that. Huge thanks to my parents for all the continuing support – emotional, financial and pretty much anything else I asked for. Last but certainly not least I want to thank my partner Gareth for all the love, support, and patience, as well as all the cups of tea and glasses of wine. This would all have been impossible without you. These are just a few of the entanglements that I am grateful for and without which I could not have completed this project. Thank you. Contents Introduction p. 2 Strange Bodies, Strange Pleasures Chapter One p. 25 Connections: Sociobiology, Feminist Apes, and Cyborgs Chapter Two p. 74 Entanglements: Diffraction, The Human Genome Project and Queer(ing) Genes Chapter Three p. 127 Symbiosociality: Bacteria, Humans and More-than-Human Kinship Chapter Four p. 184 Interruptions: Viral Biopolitics, Queer Ecologies and Monstrous Futures Conclusion p. 232 Living and Dying in a More-than-Human World Bibliography p. 248 1 ‘There are two aspects to emphasize when discussing biology. The first is: We live intimately “as” and “in” a biological world. This may seem obvious but I emphasize it to reiterate the ordinariness or quotidian nature of what we are talking about when we talk about biology. And the second aspect, which represents a major gestalt switch from the previous point, is: Biology is a discourse and not the world itself.’ Donna Haraway, How Like a Leaf: An Interview with Thyrza Goodeve (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 25 2 Introduction Strange Bodies, Strange Pleasures ‘Biology need not be a purveyor of essentialism, of rigid universals. Biology need not limit our potential.’ Joan Roughgarden, Evolution’s Rainbow1 On the 18th January 2010, The Times published an article by Patrick Muirhead entitled ‘The Day I Decided to Stop Being Gay’. In the article, the former BBC newsreader describes how, twenty years after coming out, he witnesses a father and son in a barber’s shop and this leads to his decision to ‘stop being gay’. Specifically, in this moment, he decides that he not only wants a child, but also a wife and to reject what he describes as the ‘lifestyle’ of homosexuality.2 The article is problematic for many reasons, including Muirhead’s reduction of all homosexuality to his twenty years of personal experience of ‘cavorting’ with men, as he describes it: from ‘pubescent fumbling’ to ‘numerous hours of internet dating; a dizzying number of casual couplings and a few trips to genitourinary medicine clinics’.3 Muirhead associates homosexuality with promiscuity and disease, while associating heterosexuality with procreation, family and love (although interestingly not 1 Joan Roughgarden, Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People (California: University of California Press, 2004), p. 180. 2 Patrick Muirhead, ‘The Day I Decided to Stop Being Gay’, The Times Online, 18 January 2010 <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article6990013.ece> [accessed 10 July 2010] (para. 12 of 38). The article was simultaneously published in the T2 supplement of The Times print edition under the title: ‘I want a wife to love and a child to protect: Twenty years after he came out, Patrick Muirhead, 41, explains why he is suddenly feeling the appeal of the opposite sex’, 18 January 2010, p. 2–3. I am primarily referring to the online version, as the online comments are particularly interesting and illuminating in relation to my thesis. 3 Muirhead, ‘The Day I Decided to Stop Being Gay’ (para. 19 of 38). 3 monogamy – he states ‘Would I keep faithful? Well, I would try. The same siren voices to stray call to all men, all the time. I would be no different’).4 While the article itself is interesting and problematic, a comment that was made on the online version of the article is particularly arresting and is illustrative of a number of the issues that I raise in this thesis. After congratulating Muirhead on his decision, the commentator states, ‘I think [...] you will enjoy yourself a whole lot more putting it where it was designed to go.’5 There are two key assumptions at work in this statement. First, that it – the penis – was designed to go in the vagina for the purposes of procreation. This assumption has echoes of the Judeo-Christian creation myth where the creation of complementary male and female bodies was followed immediately by the imperative: ‘Be fruitful and multiply’.6 This is not necessarily solely a religious imperative, however, and the idea of self-evidently complementary male and female bodies and seemingly inevitable heterosexuality is not confined to religious rhetoric. Compulsory heterosexuality and the supposed complementarity of male and female bodies, for example, are also central to many evolutionary origin stories.7 As Roger N. Lancaster states: Heterosexuality, like nature, is ‘there from the first day’. Or rather, heterosexuality is the first day – the very principle of origin, creation, and generation. By extension, heterosex – that is, reproductive sex: penis-in-vagina-to-the-point-of-ejaculation-sex – is ‘real’ sex, manifestly revealed in the design of the genitalia. (That’s what sex is for, isn’t it?)8 4 Muirhead, ‘The Day I Decided to Stop Being Gay’ (para. 32 of 38). See also the following response to Muirhead’s article: David L. Rattigan, ‘“Ex-gays” side with prejudice’, The Guardian, 20 January 2010 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/20/ex-gay-prejudice-attack> [accessed 20 November 2012]. 5 Muirhead, ‘The Day I Decided to Stop Being Gay’. Online comments accessed 10 July 2010, but no longer available online. 6 Genesis 1. 28. 7 I take the term ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ from Adrienne Rich, ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’, Signs, 5:4 (1980) 631-660, in which she employs the term to think about heterosexuality as an all- pervading western political institution in which homosexuality and other non-normative acts and identities will always be marginal or deviant.
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