The construction of cyborg bodies: fact, fantasy and the cyborg continuum

This thesis explores the construction of cyborg bodies and the connections between cyborgs in science fiction and in the real world. Using the concept of the cyborg continuum to represent a range of technologies which integrate the artificial and the organic, this thesis contributes to a grounded liberatory feminist cyborg discourse that empowers us in relation to our increasingly technologized bodies, and that also promotes responsible social change. This research focuses on the connections between people who have artificial joints, their quality of life and daily experiences (i.e. total hip or knee replacements), and the artificially-intelligent cyborgs of science fiction. Common issues arising in both fact and fiction include power, control, and identity. Science fiction can be valuable in extrapolating these issues for the benefit of those who integrate increasingly more artificial parts into their bodies and the bodies of others. While the research participants in this thesis had no such crisis of identity or question of their humanity as the fictitious cyborgs faced, there are different reasons for creating cyborgs. Artificial joints are used to alleviate pain and improve mobility, whereas artificially-intelligent cyborgs are constructed to serve their creators. The connection is in the degree to which people can control what happens to their bodies and the argument that identification as "human" may derive from the recognition and respect for the range of possibilities and lived experience of others, which in turn, promotes social change.