Intra-dependency

"One is too few, two is too many.”

“Between” will never be the same.

(Barad, 2010, p. 251)

When the world is understood as not consisting of fixed, clearly bounded, individual “things”, but rather as emerging phenomena in constant states of becoming- the world can no longer be understood to consists of “inter” dependent parts to a whole.

Instead the world, starts performing as through “intra” dependent relationships that are themselves generative of “wholeness”.

Such wholeness no longer separates subjects (meaning-makers) from objects (observable phenomena), but considers these 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.

All those day-to-day practices hold possibilities to become spaces of cross-cultural exchange and knowledge co-production that move beyond data. The difference between those who do, and those who don't materialize in such, what I call, ‘aesthetic encounters’, lies in how well we recognize and manage to respond to each other and our intra-dependencies. 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. This cut: Wayfaring the BearWatch Project, is all about recognizing such possibilities and the process of responding to them through a practice of wayfaring.

You notice the seeming similarities between Indigenous, monist ontologies, and "intra-dependency" as put forward here, citing Karen Barad and Tim Ingold. Make a choice:

"Stay with the Trouble" to explore how these ideas holds up against the principle of "respecting difference" that you encountered earlier.

Alternatively, allow yourself to be redirected to a different cut in space and time, and detour to Cut 2: Aesthetic Action.

Detour to Cut 2: "Aesthetic Action"

Stay with the trouble: Ethics of Response-Ability