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 Theorizing power in political ecology: the 'where' of power in resource governance projects

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene Ahlborg ◽  
Andrea J Nightingale
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Rural Electrification ◽  
Societal Change ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Social And Economic Development

Power and politics have been central topics from the early days of Political Ecology. There are different and sometimes conflicting conceptualizations of power in this field that portray power alternatively as a resource, personal attribute or relation. The aim of this article is to contribute to theorizations of power by probing contesting views regarding its role in societal change and by presenting a specific conceptualization of power, one which draws on political ecology and sociotechnical approaches in science and technology studies. We review how power has been conceptualized in the political ecology field and identify three trends that shaped current discussions. We then develop our conceptual discussion and ask explicitly where power emerges in processes of resource governance projects. We identify four locations that we illustrate empirically through an example of rural electrification in Tanzania that aimed at catalyzing social and economic development by providing renewable energy-based electricity services. Our analysis supports the argument that power is relational and productive, and it draws on science and technology studies to bring to the fore the critical role of non-human elements in co-constitution of society – technology – nature. This leads us to see the exercise of power as having contradictory and ambiguous effects. We conclude that by exploring the tension between human agency and constitutive power, we keep the politics alive throughout the analysis and are able to show why intentional choices and actions really matter for how resource governance projects play out in everyday life.

scholarly journals Ecosystem approaches to health and knowledge-to-action: towards a political ecology of applied health-environment knowledge

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben W. Brisbois ◽  
Andrés Burgos Delgado ◽  
Douglas Barraza ◽  
Óscar Betancourt ◽  
Donald Cole ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Knowledge Framework ◽  
Knowledge To Action ◽  
Ecosystem Approaches

Abstract Political ecology pushes back against the apolitical and ahistorical ecologies frequently found in mainstream scientific accounts of nature and the environment, and has increasingly focused on how scientific knowledge is 'socially constructed.' In this article, we argue for political ecological engagement with the highly influential knowledge-to-action (KTA) movement in science about health and the environment. We introduce KTA using results of a survey conducted under the auspices of a Canada-Latin America-Caribbean 'ecosystem approaches to health' (ecohealth) collaboration, and then narrow our focus to a single illustrative ecohealth project, dealing with the health impacts of small-scale gold mining in southwestern Ecuador. We employ an ecology of knowledge framework for integrating insights from science and technology studies,illustrating the interacting actors, material artifacts, institutions and discourses involved in not only the generation but also the application of health-environment science. The origins of ecohealth research in the Americas reflect interacting epistemological and political factors, as sophisticated, complex systemic analyses of health-environment interactions occurred amidst increasing neoliberalization of knowledge production. Simultaneously, corporate actors such as large mining companies influenced both the distribution of healthdamaging environmental conditions in the Americas, and the ways in which they were studied. This analysis motivates our advocacy of specifically political ecologies of health-environment knowledge, in which inequitable power dynamics and non-human actors are foregrounded in studies of the social production and application of science. The political ecology of knowledge framework that we envision would allow for simultaneous consideration of how societal contexts influence scientific knowledge production, and how the resulting knowledge can be better applied to protect the health of communities facing environmental injustice. Key words: ecohealth; mining; praxis; science and technology studies; knowledge-to-action; Canada; Ecuador

scholarly journals Making a financial market: the economization and topology of Farmland REITs

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 599
Author(s):  
Angela Serrano
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Power ◽  
Real Estate Investment ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
And Topology ◽  
Decision Making Processes

<p>This article considers how financial mechanisms shape political and economic power around farmland. It draws on political ecology around the financialization of agriculture, and perspectives from Science and Technology Studies about performativity and topology to study how financial mechanisms in agriculture reconfigure networks of access to farmland for farmers, investors, workers and consumers. The article focuses on the case of Farmland Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) in the United States and shows REITS as sociotechnical assemblages of economic theories mobilized by investors and their representatives. Building on topologic ideas, the article highlights how financial mechanisms, such as REITs, shift networks of access to land. These mechanisms can profoundly shape landscapes and livelihoods by creating a market for farmland that transforms the connections of different actors with land, distancing workers and consumers from decision making processes while producing fluid and smooth access for investors. By studying REITs from the perspectives of economization and topology this article identifies key actors and mechanisms through which financialization is reconfiguring access to farmland and identifies limitations and opportunities for increased access to decisions about land for farmers, workers and consumers.</p><p><strong>Keywords: </strong>financialization of agriculture, political ecology, performativity, topology, science and technology studies, REITs, farmland</p>

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).

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.

The jar and the footbridge. Humanities, nature and culture in the view of science and technology studies and biosemiotics

Tekstualia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (62) ◽  
pp. 15-30
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Machtyl
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Human Subject ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Nature And Culture ◽  
The One

The paper aims at juxtaposing two main disciplines: science and technology studies, on the one hand, and biosemiotics, on the other, from the methodological perspective (i.e. concerning epistemology and methodology) and the ontological one (concerning the object of research). Thus, the analysis concerns the opposition of naturalism and antinaturalism in reference to the huma-nities and sciences and nature / culture in reference to the field of study. Science and technology studies (Bruno Latour) and biosemiotics are of key importance in challenging two kinds of binarism: the humanities vs. sciences and nature vs. culture. The discussion further touches upon the question of how the human subject can know nature as well as the issue of discourse, language, reference and the scientifi c text. A critical perspective on science, proposed by both science and technology studies and biosemiotics, possibly anticipates a revolution.

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