Intra-dependency

Intra-dependency calls into question "the very nature of two-ness, and ultimately one-ness as well. “Between” will never be the same. One is too few, two is too many.” (Barad, 2010, p. 251)

When the world is understood as consisting of entities (whether material, or immaterial, plant or mineral) that are not pre-determinately fixed as clearly bounded, individual “things”, but that rather emerge as phenomena in a constant state of becoming and co-shaping each other while doing so, those entities can no longer be considered as “inter” dependent parts to a whole, but rather as “intra” dependent relationships that are themselves generative of “wholeness”.

Such wholeness no longer separates subjects (meaning-makers) from objects (observable phenomena), but considers them as co-constitutive. Karen Barad asserts that: ‘Matter and meaning are not separate elements. They are inextricably fused together, and no event, no matter how energetic, can tear them asunder’…

Wayfaring and the Knowledge-Land-Scape

In fact, we (you, I and many others) have already started to move forward alongside each other in our emergent processes of becoming knowledgeable. The idea here is that, instead of me presenting a descriptive narrative on ethical engagement and ethical space, we get to partially perform its mechanisms together – side by side.

The company for us to be- and think with in this knowledge-land-scape varies, but emerges for a large part from the encounters I had as I threaded my way through my fieldwork in the hamlets of Uqsuqtuuq (Gjoa Haven) and Salliq (Coral Harbour) of Kitikmeot- and Kivalliq regions in the territory of Nunavut respectively. I was, for example invited to join along with caribou hunts, joined in with ice-fishing, rode an All-Terrain Vehicle to camp out at a fishing weir, collected ice, and took rides in the back of a qamutik (sled) to spend time at cabins, or check on breathing-holes and dens of seals. Within the communities, I learnt about the meaning of opening prayers at special meetings, and igloo building, as well as the “marginal”, every-day, material logistics that are part of land-based monitoring research projects in the Arctic, like car repairs, cargo transport, seasonal travel, and getting stuck for days during my regional travels multiple times due to blizzards and cancelled flights.

Collectively, I refer to all those practical experiences as ‘aesthetic encounters’. Cut 2: "Aesthetic Action" is all about exploring what kind of spaces open up through such aesthetic encounter, and what possibilities for cross-cultural exchange, beyond data, become possible within them?

To engage such questions, I argue for an ethos of ‘co-forming patterns of responsiveness, attention, desire and communication’ , by way of wayfaring.

You have reached a split in the track.

Allow yourself to be redirected, and detours to a different cut in space and time: Cut 2 Aesthetic Action.

Alternatively, "Stay with the Trouble"

Moving forward threads you back into the unfolding cut of the Bearwatch project.

Detour to Cut 2 "Aesthetic Action"

Return to the BearWatch project

You are stopped in your tracks, you sense some trouble here. Such "intra-dependency" as put forward here, citing Karen Barad and Tim ingold, gestures towards an ontological turn within western philosophy, that seemingly holds a lot of similarities with Indigenous, monist ontologies. How does this hold up against the principle of respecting difference that you encountered earlier?

Stay with the trouble: Ethics of Response-ability