AGENCY AND ORGANIZATION - TOWARD A CYBORG-CONSCIOUSNESS

The presumption that agency is primarily the function or personificati on of a naturalized human actant can be traced through a Western intel lectual tradition which draws upon a dualistic conception of the self as a unified, productive, sovereign subject, and an independent, exter nal, physical other. In this paper, I problematize the prevalence of s uch Cartesian differentiation. I review an alternative, postfoundation al actant ontology, then trace the resemblances in the work on situate d knowledges. These orientations challenge the hierarchical division b etween the internal self and the external other and instead emphasize the relational, material, and performative nature of human being. Draw ing on the notion of proximal thinking, I suggest that formal organiza tions can productively be described as relational spaces, containing m ultiple and complex frontiers, frames and interfaces, with(in) which o stensibly differentiated and individualistic attitudes toward agency g ive way to the variety and possibility of the self-in-between; a cybor g-consciousness able to withstand the tension of partial identities an d contradictory voices.