Diffractive Analysis
Item
Title
Diffractive Analysis
Description
Photograph of objects related to the 'Full Stack Feminism in Digital Humanities' team creative writing session, held at the University of Sussex, Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, June 2023, facilated by Sarah Lee. Team members were asked to bring along an object that represented their journey in the Full Stack Feminism project.
This digital image documents the objects brought by Izzy Fox. Izzy describes the object's relationship to the project as follows: 'My poorly hand drawn image of the process by which light diffracts represents my exploration of Karen Barad's engagement with diffraction as a metaphor for feminist analysis and its relevance to our project, particularly the community engagement interviews I conducted with digital practitioners. Messiness, playfulness, speculation and the blurring of boundaries constitute states of being and methods that pervade the intervew data, are key to full stack feminist thinking and practices, as well as being characteristic of diffraction.
The diffractive process entails light passing through the two slits on the metal sheet, forming waves that interact and overlap resulting in the pattern projected onto the screen to the right of the diagram. The consequence of the playfulness and messiness of overlapping waves produces a repetitive pattern of light and darkness; darkness and light. However, the darkness is not a result of a lack of light but rather due to light being placed on top of light. This disruptive thinking helps to undermine conventional binaries and when adopted as a form of feminist analysis, these binaries include memory and evidence; interviewer and interviewee; theory and praxis; expertise and lived experience; as well as subject and object.
In this sense, while the archival object is clearly my clumsy diagram of the diffraction of light, and the subject of the drawing represents the research process, including all research participants, the apparatus used, the analysis conducted and the findings produced, the fact that I, as researcher and interviewer am embedded in this process as well as being materially embodied, in some ways I am neither subject nor object and in other ways I am both.
Consequently, my full stack feminist journey has taught me to slow down, to question, to probe, to play, while concomitantly embracing messiness, hybridity and the critically speculative.'
The diffractive process entails light passing through the two slits on the metal sheet, forming waves that interact and overlap resulting in the pattern projected onto the screen to the right of the diagram. The consequence of the playfulness and messiness of overlapping waves produces a repetitive pattern of light and darkness; darkness and light. However, the darkness is not a result of a lack of light but rather due to light being placed on top of light. This disruptive thinking helps to undermine conventional binaries and when adopted as a form of feminist analysis, these binaries include memory and evidence; interviewer and interviewee; theory and praxis; expertise and lived experience; as well as subject and object.
In this sense, while the archival object is clearly my clumsy diagram of the diffraction of light, and the subject of the drawing represents the research process, including all research participants, the apparatus used, the analysis conducted and the findings produced, the fact that I, as researcher and interviewer am embedded in this process as well as being materially embodied, in some ways I am neither subject nor object and in other ways I am both.
Consequently, my full stack feminist journey has taught me to slow down, to question, to probe, to play, while concomitantly embracing messiness, hybridity and the critically speculative.'
Creator
Izzy Fox
Date
06/09/2023
Identifier
FFS005_O
Publisher
Full Stack Feminism in Digital Humanities
Rights
CC-BY-NC-SA