Postdigital-biodigital: An emerging configuration

Abstract

This dialogue (trilogue) is an attempt to critically discuss the technoscientific convergence that is taking place with biodigital technologies in the postdigital condition. In this discussion, Sarah Hayes, Petar Jandri c and Michael A. Peters examine the nature of the convergences, their applications for bioeconomic sustainability and associated ecopedagogies. The dialogue paper raises issues of definition and places the technological convergence ('nano-bio-info-cogno')of new systems biology and digital technologies at the nano levelin an evolutionary context to speculate, on the basis of the latest research, future possibilities. The paper also reviews these developments within familiar landscapes of posthumanism and postmodernism, raises the question of political bioeconomy and the role of postdigital education within it.

Networked Learning in 2021: A Community Definition

“…It would seem though that we could yet be entering a new and exciting period where the broader 'technoscientific convergence that is taking place with biodigital technologies in the postdigital condition' could come to transform how we live. This could bring us closer to 'bioeconomic sustainability (Peters et al 2021) and support how we discuss associated 'ecopedagogies' (Jandrić and Ford 2020). This is an evolutionary context where the NL community could surely undertake critical work in promoting connections through ecological learning designs that reflect this new context at its 'point of intersection in educational praxis' (Peters et al 2021).…”

“…This could bring us closer to 'bioeconomic sustainability (Peters et al 2021) and support how we discuss associated 'ecopedagogies' (Jandrić and Ford 2020). This is an evolutionary context where the NL community could surely undertake critical work in promoting connections through ecological learning designs that reflect this new context at its 'point of intersection in educational praxis' (Peters et al 2021). Such contributions would extend the links that NL has established with critical pedagogy and ecologies of learning (Bozkurt, this paper) and 'bring the importance of learning to connect to the fore [i]n order to develop more cohesive and sustainable societies' (Carvalho, this paper).…”

“…Rather than a dominant discourse about how technology will automatically enhance experience (as if experience were something universal that we all share), might we discuss new forms of 'political bioeconomic discourse'? (Peters et al 2021). This is going to require a collective response where 'partners involved in NL can be understood as experimenting communities' who react even 'while unfolding life and dealing with local and global challenges and fascinations' (Thestrup and Gisley, this paper).…”

Revisiting the Concept of the Edited Collection: Bioinformational Philosophy and Postdigital Knowledge Ecologies

“…This same value of openness can be applied to the notion of the edited collection as a basis for promoting coherence or consistency in research focus and aims. It promotes a creative flexibility especially in the area of the postdigital-biodigital convergence (Peters, Jandrić and Hayes 2021c), where past philosophy and digital studies are still scattered in silo-ed disciplines and have been slow to address this new convergence that is determining of the global knowledge ecosystem as a whole.…”

“…It historicizes biodigital convergence and reminds us that it 'is not a completely new paradigm; it is merely the latest (and by now the widest) techno-social convergence, based on earlier convergences (such as digital-analog), which are built into its very core'. The paper projects a lot of faith into initiatives such as The Global New Green Deal, yet it warns that 'in our age of bioinformational capitalism (Peters 2012), all these changes and initiatives will be worthless without a solid material base' and calls for development of 'new understandings of bioeconomy fit for our biodigital moment in history' (Peters et al 2021c).…”