Paper short abstract:

For some, 'everyday cyborgs,' living with an implantable cardiac device requires acclimatisation to the process of cyborgisation. Partly this is due to the ambiguous nature of embodiment whereby a self is not just a body; but a body has an identity, integrity and image which is in flux.

Paper long abstract:

The cyborg scholar Chris Hables Gray (2012) refers to cyborgisation as a process that shares the variability yet inevitability of death. It is a life that is effected by incorporating different levels of corporeal integration with different types and kinds of materials. Increasing reliance is being made on 'implantable smart technologies' (Haddow et al 2015; Harmon et al. forthcoming) an example is implantable cardiac devices.

These technologies closely fit Haraway's (1991) 'CᶟI' functionality and Clynes and Kline 'homeostatic feedback system' (1960); the ability of the devices to command-control-communication offer an autonomy never previously realised in automation within the body. I want to draw upon interview data that relates the everyday cyborg accounts of 1) the surgical processes necessary to become an everyday cyborg and 2) the consequences of implantation of such an auto-biotechnology can be unexpected, requiring acclimatisation. This research also speaks to an embodiment that is much more ambiguous than self as body/self has body. Rather, the experience of the body is one that has an identity, integrity and image ('Triad of I') none of which is in a fixed state.