The Figure of Cyborg as ‘Political Hauntology‘

The paper examines the actuality of Donna Haraway’s concept of the cyborg under the conditions of ‘capitalist realism’. Following the technological optimism of the 1980’s, Haraway’s theory of the cyborg contains strong emancipatory implications which capacities have been challenged recently by the paralysis of the political imagination. The impossibility of considering the alternative to capitalism puts under the question the heuristic potential of Haraway’s conceptualization. However, considering the political theory of the cyborg as an implication of the ontology leaves the possibility of returning the emancipatory function to the cyborg’s figure. My suggestion is to redefine the relevant ‘ontology’ in Haraway’s work by its substitution for ‘hauntology’ in Mark Fisher’s sense. This theoretical shift allows not only to reassemble the political theory of the cyborg but also to regain its actuality.