Symbiotic Co-Becoming: Non-Human Agency and the Fluid Interconnection in Daniel H. Wilson’s Robopocalypse
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1511.09Keywords:
immanent humanism, non-human perspective, human-machine relations, co-existence, RobopocalypseAbstract
This study critically re-evaluates human-robot relations in Daniel H. Wilson’s Robopocalypse (2011), critiquing anthropocentric frameworks that systematically marginalize non-human entities in posthuman scenarios. Drawing mainly on Neil Badmington, Rosi Braidotti and Francesca Ferrando’s ideas and concepts, it exposes how human characters remain trapped in hierarchical binaries despite posthuman contextual shifts, failing to establish a cross-species posthuman approach. Central to the analysis is a fluid interconnectivity model, which reimagines human-machine relations as open-ended, mutually transformative exchanges rather than hierarchical binaries. Unlike prior scholarship emphasizing human-led coexistence strategies, this framework foregrounds non-human agency—demonstrating how robots in Robopocalypse autonomously initiate symbiotic networks that affect human cognition, ethics, and world-building practices. By reframing symbiosis as a co-constitutive process marked by ongoing and flowing characteristics, this study challenges static definitions of posthuman relationality. It contributes to critical posthumanist discourse by mapping how human and non-human agencies interpenetrate across the dimensions of mutual interdependency and ethical co-responsibility. These insights invite reconsideration of human-machine coexistence paradigms.
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