Donna Haraway

Warren Miller, The New Yorker Collection, 1993, used In Donna Haraway's When Species Meet, 2008

Writer Donna Haraway describes herself as an ecofeminist. Interested in the divides between animal and human, nature and culture, and the organic and technical, she writes in reflection of society today and the kinds of relationships held between animals and humans.

What really interests me is her writing on techno-culture and biotechnology as she looks at the ways in which animals have been involved in scientific research and human technological advances which is a large influence on my practice. Haraway's in depth commentary on fascinating case studies such as Oncomouse and the cloning of Snuppy the puppy alongside her strong ethical views on the use of animals and the idea of sacrifice is all really useful to me for developing knowledge around my project and to have a further understanding of why I make the kind of work I do.

‘OncoMouse is my sibling, and more properly, male or female, s/he is my sister… S/he is our scapegoat; s/he bears our suffering; s/he signifies and enacts our mortality in a powerful, historically specific ‘cure for cancer.’ Whether I agree to her existence and use or not, s/he suffers, physically, repeatedly and profoundly, that I and my sisters might live. In the experimental way of life, s/he is the experiment… If not in my own body, surely in those of my friends, I will someday owe to OncoMouse or her subsequently designed rodent kin a large debt.' P.76 When Species Meet (2008)