RIP Harambe: Intra-Action and Non-Human Killability

In response to Nature’s Queer Performativity by Karen Barad

In Nature’s Queer Performativity, Karen Barad discusses the human/animal nature/culture dichotomies wherein a “tactic of dehumanization” (122) is commonly used against non-humans, resulting in a devaluation of the “other” which can lead to, for example, the unquestioned killability of non-humans (123). She also discusses her concept of intra-action, which can be defined as such:

Intra-action — the mutual constitution of entangled agencies; individuals materialize through intra-actions, and the ability to act emerges from within the relationship, not outside of it (i.e. intra-action gives us a new way to think about our relationships with each other, matter, materials, nature, and discourses).

I want to think-through and apply Barad’s theory of intra-action to the killing of Harambe the gorilla at Cincinatti Zoo — an instance of non-human killability that spiraled into a multiplicity discourses and intra-actions between human and non-human actors. So, the intra-active events following Harambe’s death transpired as follows:

• The literal killing of a non-human body in favour of human exceptionalism
• Discourses on the “inhumanity” of killing animals
• Discourses on mother-shaming/blaming
• Discourses on racialized-mother-shaming/blaming
• Discourses on racialized-child-shaming/blaming
• Discourses on the “inhumanity” of zoos in general (the neoliberal agenda of zoos operating under the guise of “education and conservation”)
• Discourses on safety and security
• RIP Harambe internet memes/phenomena

Through each of these agents, the phenomena of Harambe is — in Stacey Kerr’s terms — “made and un-made through intra-actions between nature, culture, and technology… studying these intra-actions reveals how differences get made and un-made… we are all involved in the intra-action of the phenomenon, and therefore responsible for the matter produced during these intra-actions.”

So, by thinking of the Harambe phenomena as an intra-action, Barad is positing that this approach has the potential to transgress dichotomies in general — whether it’s between nature/culture, subject/object, female/male, etc., as standards of ethics and justice are NOT things that are predetermined, but always changing depending the differences they are situated within.

Thus, considering whether Harambe’s death was unethical or not is an idea that is constantly in flux according to the various intra-active discourses on the matter that occur simultaneously within which Barad calls spacetimemattering. The “RIP Harambe” internet memes are an interesting example that further complicates this idea of intra-action as a humourous response to the phenomena.

I wonder what roles inter-net memes actually play within intra-action? Do these memes trivialize our intra-actions in response to the Harambe phenomena and therefore the discourses at stake? How is intra-action mediated and multiplied in the post-internet age?

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Bibliography

Barad, Karen. “Nature’s Queer Performativity” in Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. 19(2):121–158, Spring/Summer 2011.

Kerr, Stacey. “Three Minute Theory: What is Intra-Action?” YouTube video. November 19, 2014.