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Doing the work of staying with the trouble

Informal discussion group

Info about event

Time

Friday 9 December 2022,  at 10:30 - 11:30

Location

1483-244 (AU Nobelparken)


‘Staying with the trouble requires learning to be truly present, not as a
vanishing pivot between awful or edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific
futures, but as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations
of places, times, matters, meanings.’

                                                                                            (Haraway, 2016)


This informal discussion group will unpick and reflect on the notion of ‘staying with the trouble,’ elaborated in Haraway’s (2016) book of the same name. For those who are not familiar with Haraway’s work, this can be an introduction to the idea; for others, this will be an opportunity to dig deeper. In particular, this will be an opportunity to collaboratively think through what doing the work of staying with the trouble actually entails.

We will begin the discussion at 10:30am, but the room will be booked from 9:30am with tea and coffee, for those who would like a structured time to read through some of the texts.

Questions to consider

  • How have you engaged with the idea of staying with the trouble in your own research?
  • What does the commitment of staying with the trouble mean to you beyond your academic work?
  • What kind of ethical engagement with the world does staying with the trouble make possible? Conversely, how might certain modes of engaging this idea paradoxically lead to a turning away from ethical provocations?
  • Does Haraway convincingly perform the work of staying with the trouble she posits, particularly with regard to population and reproductive justice?
  • To what extent are claims by Haraway and others to stay with the trouble ‘reflected in habits of being, including styles of writing as well as chosen subject matter’ (hooks, 1990)?

The list of below resources is offered with a view to you selecting the ones that will be most relevant and generative to you personally. We do not need to keep our discussion tightly anchored to the readings, but if you have time to read one or more, it could deepen our discussion.

Suggested readings for an introduction to ‘Staying with the trouble’

Haraway, D., 2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press, London. (Particularly, Introduction and Chapter 3).

Haraway, D., 2018. Staying with the trouble for multispecies environmental justice. Dialogues in Human Geography 8, 102–105.

Haraway, D., 2010. When species meet: Staying with the trouble. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28, 53–55.

Supplementary readings

Dumit, J., 2018. Notes Toward Critical Ethnographic Scores: Anthropology and Improvisation Training in a Breached World, in: Between Matter and Method. Routledge.

Strathern, Sasser, 2019. Forum on Making Kin Not Population: Reconceiving Generations. Feminist studies 45, 159-. https://doi.org/10.15767/feministstudies.45.1.0159

Dooren, T. van, 2018. Temporal promiscuities in the Chthulucene: A reflection on Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble. Dialogues in Human Geography 8, 91–93. https://doi.org/10.1177/204382061773920

Dumit, Joseph. 2014. “Writing the Implosion: Teaching the World One Thing at a Time.” Cultural Anthropology 29, no. 2: 344–362. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca29.2.09