기계-인간 생성론과 포스트모성

Abstract

The paper is a work of the so-called technology discourse concerning female body. Determinists and constructivists have long debated on the relation between man and machine, or between technology and nature. In general, gender issue have not been quite visible in those debates. However, gender lately began to appear to the public as one of the important variables in relation to technological invention and the revisionist view of science. In particular, maternal body has become a major profile in theory and practice as well. Biotechnology is the most powerful system making use of female bodies, specifically, maternal body or prospective maternity as the system of reproducing humans. By successfully separating the natural capacity of pregnancy and mothering from female body, development and invention in biotechnology prevail in the field of reproduction at the expense of humanistic judgments and decisions on the part of prospective mothers. Practices such as in-vitro insemination and surrogate mother more and more accelerate the technological mediation on the reproductive system of female body. I coined a word, 'Post-Maternity', in order to describe the states of maternity interfered with and mediated by biotechnology. I examine the benefits and detriments affected by technological mediation on human bodies. I also attempt to envisage the prospect of man-machine integration occurring in the every stage of reproduction process. What is philosophically pertinent to the issue of post-maternity is the fragmentation of female body for the purpose of experiment in laboratory, to the point of becoming 'zoe'. 'Zoe' refers to the state of 'bare life', without sovereignty. Thus, the development of reproduction technology needs to be thoroughly reviewed from the moral and political perspectives, too.