Making Feminisms: Implosion and Creative Learning

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.