Mattering-Forth
Thinking-With Karrabing
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15030005 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elizabeth Povinelli, Elizabeth A Povinelli (corresponding author), Daniela Gandorfer, Zulaikha Ayub |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 294-323 |
| Publication date | 2021-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Theory & Event (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1092-311X • E-ISSN: 2572-6633 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/tae.2021.0011 |
| OpenAlex | W3131899188 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
Mattering-Forth:Thinking-With Karrabing Elizabeth Povinelli (bio), Daniela Gandorfer (bio), and Zulaikha Ayub (bio) Inventing and grasping concepts are material-discursive practices. Approaching these practices matterphorically means taking account for the fact that representation and the physical world are not two separate preexisting realms but are, rather, entangled. Bifurcational cuts creating dichotomous structures do exist, but are insufficient in serving as an explanatory tool for modes and matters of meaning production in and of the world. Doing theory matterphorically, then, precisely challenges the notion of an inherent Cartesian mind/matter separation and exposes that each line drawn cuts differently into the matter(s) of a matterphorical field. It calls for an ethics that not merely refutes Cartesian dualism, but seeks ways to understand how an electron is crashing into language1 and also how: atoms and ions, winds and rivers, [are] attracting and repulsing each other in ways that reveal desire to be a feeble concept. —Povinelli in "Fire, Fogs, Winds"2 ________ Metaphors seek to transcend spacetime. Feeble concepts are space-time-sensitive. This difference matters for the movements and, more importantly, ethics of thought. This is why instead of hasting to understand something first encountered as metaphor—and thereby representational—there is reason to halt. How could an expression ever be "pure metaphor"? Burn it out of your system, they'd say. And lest we think this pure metaphor, they bought us chemistry kits and showed us how heat was expressed in chemical reactions and how heat could turn one kind of thing into another. You see fire, they said, but fire is just an expression of one form of oxidation. What's important is not what you can see, but what you can't. It's all a careful measure. It's all about knowing which chemicals are in which containers and how chemicals combine. It's probably important to wear protective clothing. Chemicals burn in ways you might not notice until it is too late. —Povinelli in "Fire, Fogs, Winds"3 ________ As we turn away from metaphor, metaphor turns away from us, too. Concepts and matter(s) shift. What does it actually take to [End Page 294] burn that which separates the physical world from ideas and concepts "out of our system"—and for whom? This question is neither metaphorical nor simply rhetorical. To understand this question matterphorically means to refuse separating the legal concepts and architectures, social constructions, economic models and national imaginaries from matter(s) at stake; from, say, oxygen entering into various alliances, or from combustion and respiration closely entangled with and across trenches dug into the ground in an aspiration to separate the destructiveness of fire from human and non-human bodies in danger of burning, suffocating, evaporating. There is, in fact, a cut, a line, a trench, that when dug opens the possibility for certain Californian inmate firefighters to clear their criminal record. Here, a conviction can, or rather must, be burned out of the system—with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and bodies at risk of illness and death in exchange for life-time outside of prison walls and histories. Indeed, amidst the raging wildfires in California in August and September 2020 Governor Galvin Newson signed the California Assembly Bill No. 2147, a law that finally allows, with certain exceptions, inmate firefighters to gain employment in jobs that require occupational licensing, including firefighting with its requisite EMT (Emergency Medical Technicians) certification. After all, those inmates—hand crew members who are placed in the closest proximity to heat and combustion, working right next to the elite firefighter workforce employed by the US government (known as the hotshot crew) and trained "to work on the hottest part of wildfires"4—have placed themselves "in danger assisting firefighters to defend the life and property of Californians."5 Compensated with an average of $3.63 per day,6 and an additional dollar for each day they are deployed to an active fire, Californian inmate firefighters are given "the toughest assignments, in the worst conditions,"7 mainly serving as hand crews cutting the "fire line," penetrating deep into those burning forests that bulldozers can no longer access. Digging a trench meant to prevent
Dualism · Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Meaning (existential · Metaphor · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics · Sociology · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · History and advancements in chemistry · Information Systems Theories and Implementation · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |