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The discussion on Yasmin (http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/) about the Ethnic Cyborg has started. I am there as a respondent and this was my first emailed contribution to the list on July 1, 2009. 

I find the definition of ‘ethnic cyborg’ problematic. Reasons for my position are related to the basic nature of the cyborg, as envisaged by Donna Haraway. The new nature of the cyborg should have been that of revolutionizing the status quo, overcoming differences, surpassing and moving beyond human differences and even beyond human nature. The proposition of the cyborg as ethnically distinct has for me a very dangerous connotation, which is that of promoting a future power struggle based on augmented and non-augmented beings, racist interpretations of ethnicity (augmented-humans vs non-augmented-humans) and a constant quest for a bio-mechanical superiority.

What I personally feel is that there is a generalized institutional attempt to conquer ‘new’ territories - the cyborg as well as that of the world wide web - and subjugate them by replicating old frameworks. This happens by imposing structures and divisions along the lines of already existing hierarchies in the realm of the real. The ethnic and consequentially national definition of the cyborg may just represent its ideological fall.

In this context the cyborg, the Centaur of the futurists, has already failed in providing an alternative to the social hierarchies that according to Haraway should be altered and revolutionized. The cyborg is presenting us with an old framework just transferred and transposed in a different realm, that of the cybernetic organism.