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In Mathew Arthur’s course GSWS 321 “Making Feminisms: Technoscience, Disability, DIY,” students explore concepts and methods from feminist science and technology studies, cyberfeminisms, and disability studies through hands-on critical making practices that include origami, crochet, beading, cooking, board game design, and more. Across disciplines and activist movements, feminist concepts inform and are formed around bodies, things, books, devices, artworks, buildings, and places. Together, we experiment with how feminist theories are made and what they can make.

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Making Feminisms: Implosion and Creative Learning

June 06, 2024

By Jordan Percy, Hannah Beram, Ella Tani, Yaqi Wei, Monica Fu, and an anonymous student

GSWS 321 “Making Feminisms” is a creative, theory-based course that covers multiple disciplines—if not all disciplines! We learned subjects that involved gender, disability, craft-making, protest, pedagogy, sciences, and technology, all through a feminist lens. We read critical theory chapters and creative news articles, a blend of scholarly and innovative course-related media. We learned through group activities, discussions, and open-ended assignments that involved making and DIY. Many students were new to the subject and this form of teaching. However, by the end of the semester we felt more confident in understanding feminist science and technology studies (FSTS).

The class gave us a non-traditional pedagogical experience. We covered so many different collaborative activities: a potluck, a showcase of our final projects, board game design, roundtable discussions, and crocheting. These exercises allowed us to flesh out our ideas and build relationships with our home disciplines. Overall, we entered an inclusive community of people (from different places, cultures, races, and genders) where we could discuss a wide variety of topics and create interesting projects together. 

A quotation that stuck with us is: “Reality is enacted in practices” (Law 2011). FSTS not only focuses on human experiences but also emphasizes the actions of nonhuman actors. We used the method of “implosion” (Dumit 2014) to explore specific practices, their nonhuman aspects, and their relationship to sex, gender, and race. So, what is Implosion? In simple terms, it is the thorough dissection of simple objects or things. Take a can of Coca-Cola, for example. Where does the sugar come from? What is the history of the brand? Who manufactures the cans, or the drink itself? What aspects of colonialism or globalization are involved? The list goes on forever. Donna Haraway (1997) writes, “Any interesting being in technoscience, like a textbook, molecule, equation, mouse, pipette, bomb, fungus, technician, agitator, or scientist can—and often should—be teased open to show the sticky economic, technical, political, organic, historical, mythic, and textual threads that make up its tissues” (68). Implosion helps us become more attuned to the materials that surround us and shows how they are never neutral.

“Coca-Cola Chicken Wings” by Yaqi Wei

Using the method of implosion, GSWS student Yaqi Wei created critical instructions for making Coca-Cola chicken wings. Yaqi writes,

I learned from my mother, who would always say “add some water when it's salty, add soy sauce when it's light.” After reading “Provincialising STS: Postcoloniality, Symmetry and Method” by John Law and Wen-Yuan Lin (2015), I realized that this grasp of balance is sensitivity and adjustment to “shi” (势). Shi or “propensity” is “situated and relational" (221). Grasping the balance of flavors requires an understanding of the tendency of ingredients, which also includes the grasp of the flavors that each ingredient and its combination may bring. By tasting the flavor tendencies of the dish, the chef reacts accordingly. In this context, people do not take precedence over nonhuman actors such as seasonings and ingredients but see them as "partners in our perception" (219).

“Implosion Cheatsheet” by instructor Mathew Arthur (based on Dumit 2014)

On the very first day of class, we learned implosion through a ball of yarn. Where do wool or acrylic fibres come from? How are they involved in histories of domestication or the military-industrial complex? With race and gender? Implosion requires always going back to learn more about an object or practice. This leads to another feminist STS concept: tinkering. In “Imperfection is Bliss,” English and Criminology student Jordan Percy tinkers with crochet to explore imperfection as a feminist value, experimenting with ignoring stitch counts and the desire to make a “perfect” shape.

“Imperfection is Bliss” by Jordan Percy

The “Assembling Feminist Knowledges” assignment asked us to do an implosion of university practices. Where do our readings come from? How are syllabi organized? What technologies are used? Yaqi Wei made a scrapbook called “Feminist STS Archive.” It gathered all the readings and key concepts from GSWS 321 “Making Feminisms” and used different materials (like colour-coded washi tape) to make connections between course themes.

“Feminist STS Archive” by Yaqi Wei

For the same assignment, Philosophy and GSWS student Monica Fu made a feminist calendar using collage. The project weaves together course themes and methods like implosion to explore the format of a calendar and notions of time across cultures.

“Feminist Calendar” by Monica Fu

Another student, who chooses to remain anonymous, engaged Rebecca Coleman’s Glitterworlds: The Future Politics of a Ubiquitous Thing to map out course themes as they scatter across many worlds, overlapping and “getting everywhere” like glitter.

“Making Feminisms!” by anonymous student

Student Biographies

  • Jordan Percy is a fifth-year English and Criminology student. Jordan is passionate about literature, the environment, and Indigenous Studies and enjoys drawing, painting, writing fiction, and gaming.

  • Hannah Beram, a Political Science major graduating in 2024, is entering SFU's MA program in Political Science with a focus on feminist political theory and abolition/decarceration.

  • Ella Tani, a second-year Visual Arts student, loves to create comics and try out cool vegan restaurants in Vancouver. Ella is constantly aimlessly wandering around Gastown or Yaletown seawall petting dogs.

  • Yaqi Wei, Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, 5th-year student. I enjoy cooking and making scrap-books.

  • Monica Fu is a fourth-year Philosophy and GSWS student. Monica is a bass player, has a band with friends, and loves DIY and taking pictures.

  • Anonymous is a Post Baccalaureate Diploma student who has been taking university courses for fourteen years. They joke that they aim to be a professional student and lifelong learning. When not in class, they enjoy reading memoirs and psychology-based nonfiction books, hiking with friends, biking the seawall, and dancing.

References

Dumit, Joseph. “Writing the Implosion: Teaching the World One Thing at a Time.” Cultural Anthropology 29, no. 2 (2014): 344-362.

Haraway, Donna. Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse: Feminism and Technoscience. Routledge, 1997.

Law, John. “Collateral Realities.” In The Politics of Knowledge, pp. 156–178. Edited by Fernando Dominguez Rubio & Patrick Baert. Routledge, 2011.

Law, John, and Wen-yuan Lin. “Provincializing STS: Postcoloniality, Symmetry, and Method.” East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal 11, no. 2 (2017): 211–27.