scholarly journals Entangled security: Science, co-production, and intra-active insecurity

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Elbe ◽  
Gemma Buckland-Merrett
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Scientific Experiments ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Security Concerns ◽  
Security Science

AbstractThis article advances a new account of security as an intensely relational and ontologically entangled phenomenon that does not exist prior to, nor independently of, its intra-action with other phenomena and agencies. Security's ‘entanglement’ is demonstrated through an analysis of the protracted security concerns engendered by ‘dangerous’ scientific experiments performed with lethal H5N1 flu viruses. Utilising methodological approaches recently developed in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), the article explicates the intensely ‘co-productive’ dynamics at play between security and science in those experiments, and which ultimately reveal security to be a deeply relational phenomenon continuously emerging out of its engagement with other agencies. Recovering this deeper ontological entanglement, the article argues, necessitates a different approach to the study of security that does not commence by fixing the meaning and boundaries of security in advance. Rather, such an approach needs to analyse the diverse sites, dynamics, and processes through which security and insecurity come to intra-actively materialise in international relations. It also demands a fundamental reconsideration of many of the discipline's most prominent security theories. They are not merely conceptual tools for studying security, but crucial participants in its intra-active materialisation.

Worlding, Ontological Politics and the Possibility of a Decolonial IR

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Blaney ◽  
Arlene B. Tickner
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Colonial Modernity ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Representational Practices ◽  
Ontological Turn

This article argues that attention to representational practices and epistemology, however important for expanding the boundaries of International Relations as a field of study, has been insufficient for dealing with difference in world politics, where ontological conflicts are also at play. We suggest that IR, as a latecomer to the ‘ontological turn’, has yet to engage systematically with ‘singular world’ logics introduced by colonial modernity and their effacement of alternative worlds. In addition to exploring how even critical scholars concerned with the ‘othering’ and ‘worlding’ of difference sidestep issues of ontology, we critique the ontological violence performed by norms constructivism and the only limited openings offered by the Global IR project. Drawing on literatures from science and technology studies, anthropology, political ecology, standpoint feminism and decolonial thought, we examine the potentials of a politics of ontology for unmaking the colonial universe, cultivating the pluriverse, and crafting a decolonial science. The article ends with an idea of what this might mean for International Relations.

scholarly journals Science and International Relations: Brazil and the Geopolitics of Knowledge

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-315
Author(s):  
Damian Popolo
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Knowledge Generation ◽  
Critical Geopolitics ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Strategic Resources ◽  
Holistic Understanding ◽  
New Perspective

The article seeks to present a new approach to analyse Science and International Relations.  Three areas of social theory ought to be examined before a useful synthesis can be made.  The article proceeds to study how the disciplines of International Relations, Science and Technology Studies and Critical Geopolitics could be deployed to provide a unique approach to the understanding of the Science and International Relations nexus.  Each discipline has unique advantages but also serious limitations when it comes to the provision of a holistic understanding of the issue.  For instance, International Relations tends to relate questions on science to the notion of sovereignty, thus limiting research to the effect that science has on the ability of States to act.  Science and Technology Studies tend to neglect the role of International Relations in the development of scientific endeavours, whilst Critical Geopolitics has not yet embraced the symbolic power that knowledge generation and deployment techniques have on the successful exploitation of strategic resources.  Following this analysis a synthesis entitled "The Geopolitics of Knowledge" will be introduced.  This study makes substantial use of Actor-Network Theory as a methodology to analyse the Science and International Relations link from a new perspective. Finally, the article will introduce Brazil as a case study for this multidisciplinary approach.Keywords: Science; Brazil; International Relations; Geopolitics of Knowledge.

scholarly journals The chain of security

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke de Goede
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Suspicious Transaction ◽  
Analytical Work ◽  
A Chain

AbstractIncreasingly, private companies – including Twitter, airlines, and banks – find themselves in the frontline of fighting terrorism and other security threats, because they are obliged to mine and expel suspicious transactions. This analytical work of companies forms part of a chain, whereby transactions data are analysed, collected, reported, shared, and eventually deployed as a basis for intervention by police and prosecution. This article develops the notion of theChain of Securityin order to conceptualise the ways in which security judgements are made across public/private domains and on the basis of commercial transactions. Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour, this article understands the security chain as the set of practices whereby commercial transactions are collected, stored, transferred, and analysed, in order to arrive at security facts. Understanding the trajectory of the suspicious transaction as a series of translations across professional domains draws attention to the processes of sequencing, movement, and referral in the production of security judgements. The article uses the chain of financial suspicious transactions reporting as example to show how this research ‘thinking tool’ can work. In doing so, it aims to contribute to debates at the intersection between International Relations (IR) and Science-and-Technology Studies (STS).

Unbuilt and Unfinished

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Carse ◽  
David Kneas
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Methodological Approaches

Infrastructures have proven to be useful focal points for understanding social phenomena. The projects of concern in this literature are often considered complete or, if not, their materialization is assumed to be imminent. However, many—if not most—of the engineered artifacts and systems classified as infrastructure exist in states aptly characterized as unbuilt or unfinished. Bringing together scholarship on unbuilt and unfinished infrastructures from anthropology, architecture, geography, history, and science and technology studies, this article examines the ways in which temporalities articulate as planners, builders, politicians, potential users, and opponents negotiate with a project and each another. We develop a typology of heuristics for analyzing the temporalities of the unbuilt and unfinished: shadow histories, present absences, suspended presents, nostalgic futures, and zombies. Each heuristic makes different temporal configurations visible, suggesting novel research questions and methodological approaches.

scholarly journals Trois regards sur la notion de « culture chinoise »

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-116
Author(s):  
Basile Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Asian Studies ◽  
Interactional Expertise ◽  
General Argument ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Chinese Studies

Abstract Chinese studies are going through a period of reforms. This article appraises what could constitute the theoretical and methodological foundations of contemporary sinology today. The author suggests an approach of “Chinese culture” by drawing from recent frameworks of Science and Technology Studies (STS). The paper starts with current debates in Asian studies, followed by a historical overview of the concept of culture in anthropology. Then, two short case studies are presented with regard to two different STS approaches: studies of expertise and experience and the notion of interactional expertise, and the framework of waves and forms. A general argument is thereby sketched which suggests how “Chinese culture” can be understood from the perspective of materiality.

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